are breaking over him, he betakes himself to God, and climbs upon the Rock of ages.

He has no idea of standing on his manhood when distress and death confront him. He is willing to own his dependence, and humbly fly to God for aid. Faith in God is to him a mightier resource than the boasted iron nerve and proud unconquerable will of nature.

The religion of the Bible teaches us humility and dependence. Human nature needs help. Human nature must give up its vaporing. Sinners cannot save themselves. If we are ever saved, it must be by looking above, and not within. There is no regenerating power left in the carnal heart. No mere development of the man will ever result in his salvation. There must be an agency ab extra to interpose, else we perish. God, not man, must have the glory of our salvation. This is plainly the Bible method; and the sooner we learn to look away from self to something higher, the nearer are we towards attaining it.

Again, the gospel system meets our wants, as well as tells us of them. It reveals the Rock higher than we. It points us to a divine Saviour. The same voice which tells us of our necessities, tells us also of the supplies God has furnished to meet them all. Here divine knowledge is given to relieve our doubts, and enlighten our ignorance. Here is divine power tendered to help the feebleness of the will. Here is divine love exhibited to quicken our affections. Here is a divine atonement provided to expiate our guilt. Here is a divine Spirit revealed to sanctify our souls and fit them for heaven and glory. Why all this outlay for those who have ability to take care of themselves? Why such vast provisions for men, if there be yet aught belonging to them which, by mere self-development, can make them holy and meet for heaven? Why such rich display of grace, if there be any thing left to hope from in mere nature?

It follows that faith is the great element of practical religion. “Believe, and thou shalt be saved,” is the great command and promise of the gospel. Trust in Me for aid; look up to the Rock for a refuge. Prayer therefore becomes the vital exercise of a Christian life. It is the soul’s outlooking beyond itself; its aspiration after God; the medium through which it receives blessings from its Saviour. For this faith in God is not mere spiritual imbecility, nor torpid helplessness. It is the movement of an earnest soul, awake to its deep necessities, and looking heavenward for help. Prayer is its earnest utterance, its living activity. Lead me upward, is its cry; help me to climb the rock; bear me above temptations which draw me earthward; support me in the conflict which I must meet in my upward way to heaven.

The strength of a Christian’s life, paradoxical as it may seem, lies in its dependence. Look up then to the Rock of your salvation. Wait at the throne of grace for aid; wrestle earnestly in prayer, if you would rise above your present level. You are not shut up to nature’s resources. You have a higher Rock, where you may build your house. And when the winds of trouble blow, and the floods of death sweep by, your house will stand the shock, and shelter you from harm, for it is founded on a rock.

My dear, yet impenitent friend, our subject tells you what you must come to in order to be saved. You must quit your hold on self, and consent to look without you for salvation. The sooner you look this fact plainly in the face the better. All your reliance upon your own self-hood, all your boasted progress in virtue, all your godless cultivation of your so called manhood, may be welcome incense offered on the altar of human pride, but they keep you away from the true salvation.

The religion of the Bible is for sinners who need help. Its salvation is for those who are in a lost condition. You must admit this fact, or go without it. If you cannot consent to be saved by interposing grace, you must be left to nature, and the result will be at last, you will not be saved at all. If you will not brook to be told that you are “poor and miserable and blind and naked,” and that you must find in Christ Jesus a Rock higher than you, and trust in his atonement to remove your guilt, and pray for the Holy Spirit to wash and sanctify you, then you must do the best you can without a Saviour. You may carry your head up a while, and scorn to be a suppliant; you may plume yourself upon your independence and self-reliance, and ask no favors of God or man; you may disdain to utter a prayer, or a confession; but your glory will be short. Death will soon strip you of your pride, and rob you of your boasting. God will call you to the judgment-seat, and put your manhood to the test.

My dying friend, you cannot keep your present position; you must abandon it ere long. Why not do it now? Why wait till you are driven from it to eternal disgrace, when you may now turn from it, and secure thereby eternal life? You have got to bow; you have got to pray; you have got to awake to a conviction of your guilt, either now, or in eternity. Why not now—now, when help is near you, and salvation is offered you—now, when the Rock that is higher than you is accessible to you, and you are bidden to hide in its friendly clefts from the gathering storm of Jehovah’s wrath?

You may refuse to look upon it now; but not so hereafter. From your deep abyss of gloom your eye will see it far away in the upper world of glory, with the glad companies of the redeemed sitting upon its summit in eternal rest and peace, and singing with the angels. And the spontaneous prayer which would break from your lips, “Lead me to yonder Rock that is higher than I,” will be choked and silenced by the awful conviction, that between you and it there is a great gulf fixed, a chasm which no tears can bridge, no prayers can span. Now the Rock is near. The Saviour reaches out his hand. Grasp it, sinner, by faith. Hold on to it and climb to the strong-holds, or you must sink to hell.

II.

The Sun in his Might.

Thus closes the song of Deborah, the judge and heroine of Israel. Its theme has been the thrilling events of the great battle with Sisera and the Canaanites, the victory of Balak, and the overthrow of Jabin and his hosts. But at its close she rises from the particular event to a general prediction, in the form of a prayer for the destruction of all the enemies of God, and the safety and blessedness of his own people. “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.”

“Them that love him” is a brief, but most fitting description of true believers, whether Jewish or Christian. Saints are distinguished from others, not only in their relations to God, but in their affections towards him. Reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, they love him with a reverential, obedient, and constant love. Such are, in the highly poetic language of the prophetess, compared to the sun when he goeth forth in his might.

A bold and extravagant figure indeed it appears to us at first view. To liken Christians to the sun may seem presumptuous—the sun, that glorious orb which marshals at his command the planets and satellites that revolve around him—that great central fountain of light and heat, scattering his rays over the vast