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these two together; to witness the true respect and strict propriety of demeanour in the one, the loving humility and considerate tenderness of the other. Both are doubtless now with Him Whom they both so truly loved. I have their faces now before me, almost as if I saw them in that humble cottage looking over the fields at the outskirts of Oxford, a branch of the river running close to the house, and a meadow in front, with its thick crop of buttercups that made it a very sheet of gold. They are gone; but the lesson which they exemplified I have not forgotten, nor ever shall,—that we can only learn and teach “the proportion of faith" by learning and teaching all the faith, every part of it; in its place and in its turn. A caricature is a countenance so like the original as to be at once recognised. It is made by putting features out of proportion. Let us take good heed that we deal not so with the features of God's truth.

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"I BEING IN THE WAY, THE LORD LED ME."

OUR present duty is often God's present Providence. He often steers us through difficulties which He foresees, by placing before us duties which He determines. Such duties are always trials of our love; for every duty, in order to be rightly done, as He counts right, must be done because He enjoins it, because we love Him, and because His will is our law. But sometimes the duties which He calls on us to do, try our love to Him in an especial manner, because they interfere with our own arrangements, compel us to put aside, for a while at least, our own plans, and, to all appearance at the time, involve the probability of loss to us. To do our duty under such circumstances requires the exercise of a strong will and a simple confidence in God. It requires us to be men in purpose and children in trustfulness; for, at the time, we are utterly ignorant what may be the object of that which interrupts our own

plans. If we knew this, trust would be at an end. We know, and desire to know, no more than this, that God is infinite in wisdom, that He sees the end from the beginning; and that He, Who is sovereign in His purposes, and "worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will," bids us do this now, and we do it.

We see this continually exemplified in the lives of God's servants recorded in the Bible. We may observe the same often occurring in the lives of His people now.

It was a sorrowful day when David set out with his troop on his return to Ziklag, for it was painful to his natural pride to be dismissed from the army of the Philistines. His own weakness of faith had thrown him into circumstances of the greatest possible difficulty. Fearing that "he should one day perish by the hand of Saul,” he had fled to Achish the Philistine; and now Achish was on his march against Saul, and David and his men must go with him. If he was faithful to Achish his benefactor, he must be unfaithful to The Philistine nobles

Saul and to his country. only took a common-sense view of his position and his probable course, when they expected that he would turn against them in the battle, and

"reunite himself to his master by the heads" of the Philistines-by slaying them first, and then carrying their heads to Saul, according to barbarous Eastern custom, as proof of his loyalty. They insisted, therefore, on his being sent away. Their suspicion was God's Providence towards David: it set him free from a position in which, whatever he did, he would do wrong.

It was a sorrowful day to him when he came back to Ziklag, for he found it a heap of smoking ruins. His old enemies the Amalekites had attacked it in his absence, stripped it, carried away all the people, set it on fire, and left it a smoking ruin. "He was the cause of all this. If he had not fled to Achish, all would have been safe: his soldiers would have been at home in the city, and their property, their wives, and children, would have been untouched." His own men were

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'ready to stone him." But David had ONE to flee unto in Whom he truly trusted: "He strengthened himself in the Lord his God."

Those

Tears could not recover the lost ones. strong men, who wept at what they saw, and still more at what they feared, at last ceased their weeping; and it is no light thing that makes a man's tears fall. They must act. They must try

to overtake the enemy. Vengeance is in their heart, for they are not without hope that they shall come up with the enemy; and if they cannot recover their lost ones, they will at least avenge them on the robbers and violators. So the little band of six hundred, scarcely rested from their march to their ruined and desolated home, immediately set off in pursuit. They guess the way by "which the invaders returned.”

As the first-rank men move on, David's eye catches sight of a young man lying on the ground. Thoughts such as these run through his mind. This young man is either dead or dying. If he is not yet dead, he soon will be: he is too far gone to recover. Time is precious; every moment is worth an hour, and will help the robbers and the spoilers to make good their retreat. If we delay, they may cross the river and put that between us and them. Yet this is a man. -a dying man, it may be. But he is not dead. He does still breathe, though feebly and faintly; his eyes are not set in death; he is yet warm. Ought we to leave him in this state? He is a fellow-man, though, by his dress, he is a stranger and a foreigner. Is it not our duty to stay for a few minutes, to see if we can bring him to? This is our duty, and we will

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