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HIS chapter contains a perfect rollcall of godly heroes, a constellation of human stars, bright with moral glory. The Hebrew Christians in Paul's day were in danger of abandoning the Gospel under the pressure of bitter and continuous persecution. Paul would fain guard their piety, confirm their faith, and stablish them against all danger of relapse. He adduces from the stirring annals of their beloved country bright examples of our triumphant fidelity to God and the truth amid the sharpest trials; and establishes this doctrine-that faith in God is the grand specific against declension, the abiding source of strength, the certain forerunner of a full recompence of reward-"the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Among the many illustrations of mighty faith, gathered from the heroes of the past, it seems to me that this instance of the choice of

Moses is especially adapted for our teaching, and comes home most closely to our condition We are not called upon, like Abel, to offer sacrifice of kid or lamb, in token of faith in prospective Saviour. We are not called to build an ark, like Noah. We are not called leave our father's house and native land, or to offer up the life of an only son, as Abraham was: but we are called upon, like Moses, to be loyal to our God, to refuse to have our chief portion in this life, to choose Christ and His cross, that we may win the untold treasures of the next In this respect he and we are on the same platform of responsibility; and therefore, example, stamped with the Divine appro recorded for our sakes by the pen of inspirat demands our prayerful study and our cheer imitation.

From his earliest infancy Moses was the child of faith. Under its influence his parents hid him and were not hindered by the king' command. Faith quelled the father's anxietie

and stilled the mother's fears, though the sky was dark with vengeance, and the land was red with blood. Seeing in the exceeding beauty of the child a prophecy of future greatness, and prompted by a pious confidence in God, for three whole months they kept him secretly, hushed his cries, baffled the prying eyes of Pharoah's red-handed executioners; and when they found the home roof an insufficient shelter, they placed him amongst the tall reeds that fringed the river, having faith in God, that neither man of blood, nor beast of prey, nor thorn of hunger, should harm the jewel of their hopes, until God's providence should take the case in hand and make his safety sure. When, at length, the royal princess lifted the babe from its couch of rushes, adopted it for her own, and chose, though all unwitting, the child's own mother for its nurse, they had a grand reward for all their daring deed of faith. Now we have to do with this child of faith in the aftertime, when responsibilities had come with years, and when "by faith he refused to be called the son of Pharoah's daughter, choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, having an eye to the sure recompence of reward.” In order fully to appreciate this bright example, consider,—

I. WHAT MOSES RENOUNCED. tremendous price he chose to pay.

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1. He renounced the honours of a Prince. One of the strongest instincts of the humàn heart is its craving for honour, the hunger of vanity, the thirst of pride. From the so-called hero that taketh a city, to the ploughboy who can turn a straighter furrow than his fellows, -from the man of science who seeks to immortalise his name by some great discovery, down to the savage who can throw his spear with a better aim than his brother braves-all mankind are gratified by the sense of superiority, and they relish the music of popular applause. Rank, dignities, diplomas, honours, these are the prizes for which many run an incessant race. As a member of the royal house of the Pharoahs, Moses was also arrayed in princely apparel, and his public appearances had the pomp and splendour of princely state. To him the populace humbly bared the head and bowed the knee. Sounding titles heralded his name, royal favours glittered on his breast. I do not see anything to prevent his one day sitting on the throne of the Pharoahs, wielding the sceptre with a stronger hand, and making for himself a still grander name. Yet, with so proud a present, and so fair a future, with such flattering honours crowding round his path, gilding it with glory, and strewing it with flowers, Moses refused the bright inheritance, rejected the

crown of fame, and made another and more honourable choice.

2. He renounced, also, the pleasures of a court. Pleasure is the one end for which many thousands live. Men may differ widely in their views as to where it is to be had, but everybody is in search of it; it is a bright to-morrow which everybody is hoping to enjoy. Now, look at Moses: all the resources of the gayest and most sensual court in the world were at his disposal. Here he might have dwelt in the lap of luxury and ease. He might have plunged into overflowing excitement of an ever-changing enjoyment. His banquet tables were spread with all that wealth could purchase, or the most delicate taste contrive. Earth, air, and the sea were ransacked for all dainties to delight the palate. He might have been the chief and the centre of a gay band of sensualists, carousing amid dreaming music, seductive beauty, and entrancing song. All that heart could wish, all that nature could lust after, all that sensual taste could crave or a deceptive devil offer, were within reach of his hand. If his ideal of pleasure lay in the romance of travel, the pursuits of science, the charms of learning-all lay heaped around the feet of this favoured child of fortune. Yet he dashed the alluring cup aside, turned away from beholding vanity, and made a different and a happier choice.

3. He renounced, also, the riches of a kingdom. Who does not know the power of wealth ? How men desire it! How they toil and scheme, and too often sell their soul, to gain it! Tell men of an island ten thousand miles away, where the glittering gold is lying, and at once ships crowded with hungry seekers will plough the seas to find it. Men will brave the tropic heat or polar cold, face difficulty, danger, and death, to win it. The possession of riches hides all defects, clothes a man with virtues, invests him with a glamour of superiority;and, whether men hold much or little of the yellow earth that mortals worship, still, like the insatiate horse-leech, their hungry cry is "Give! Give Give !" Moses was in a position to gather wealth as they do in fairy tales. His position at court assured to him large and princely endowments. These might have been made the nucleus of a kingly fortune, and in time the entire empire might have laid its tribute at his feet. Yet, with gold and silver, gems and jewels, vast estates and princely coffers to his hand,-like the tempted Saviour, whose great type he was,-he spurned the brilliant and insidious bribe, and made another and a richer choice. Consider,—

and thorny region, to be trodden with aching heart, weary limb, and bleeding feet; but he bravely entered it. "He chose to suffer affliction with the people of God." Who were these? The race of Israel, the seed of Jacob, the sons of that grand old patriarch Abraham, with whom the covenant of promise was made by God. But this was now a race of slaves, a people crushed and ground by oppression, the objects of hatred and contempt. Their very name had become a proverb and a reproach. Condemned to the basest servitude and the meanest labour, they delved amid the mire and clay, overawed by the lash of the taskmaster, who reaped the profits of their blood and pains. Doomed to hopeless bondage themselves, their male children were put to the sword or flung into the River Nile, to guard their despots against revolt, and eventually to blot out the Jewish name for ever! They were a wretched tribe of men, in more desperate and deplorable case than the negro of yesterday amid the canebrakes of Cuba or the cotton-fields of a Carolina planter. Such was the people among whom Moses cast his lot when he doffed the purple and turned his back on the palace gates. In making this choice, Moses accepted scorn and sneers for his foolish sacrifice. Those who had been used to bend and fawn and flatter, now lifted up their heel against him! They called him a fool or a lunatic, who at one mad bound had leaped from the throne of a prince to the hut of a slave! He chose "the reproach of Christ." The religion of Egypt was a degrading but a gorgeous idolatry. His loyalty to the simple creed of the patriarchs and to the faith in a coming Shiloh brought on him the jeers of the heathen and the scoff of the vile. Many of the degenerate Jews, brutalised by their grinding bondage, had tacitly accepted the creed of their masters in the hope of bettering their evil case, and from these apostates the reproach" would come with a sorer sting. That his own race regarded him with a scowling jealousy is clear from the taunt of that Jew in whose quarrel he interfered: "Who made thee a ruler and a judge ?" and charged him, like a coward, with "killing that Egyptian yesterday," though it was done to save a brother Jew from death. Such was the choice of Moses. grasp the mighty sacrifice? Stand in the stately palace, built of finest marble, adorned with all the power of art. Amid the brilliant array of rank and beauty, see that young, dark-eyed prince, clad in purple and ablaze with gems. At his voice grey-haired lords bow in wistful silence; at his slightest beck a hundred menials step forward to obey! Now turn your eye from the dazzling scene, pass through the marble halls, down the pillared portals, away by the banks of the muddy and marshy Nile. See that batch of

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slaves, of foreign hue and feature, men and women, naked but for the rags around their loins, smeared from head to foot, aye, up to the roots of their matted hair, with the clay amid which they labour; their bronzed backs scarred with the driver's lash, their shoulders peeled with the burdens under which they stagger! There they delve and moil and grind, and ever they cringe and cower beneath the whip of the driver, and at sunset they crawl to their huts and lie like dogs, till the blast of the morning horn arouses them to the drudgery of another day! From the royalty, the revelry, the riches, Moses deliberately went down to the reproach, and the wretchedness, and the rags! And though the very slaves received him with the scowl of jealousy, though slavery had eaten out all their manliness, and left them scarcely human, he said, "This people shall be my people; with them I link my destiny, among them I will live and die." Consider,

III. THE PRINCIPLE THAT INFLUENCED HIS CHOICE.

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"By faith." Faith was the mainspring of all his conduct. He had a clear belief in the religion he had been taught by his mother-the revelation of God in patriarchal days. He saw that the truth of God was in the possession of this despised race of land-slaves. Mighty promises were bound up with these children of Abraham. He believed them all, and that the time for the fulfilment of some of them was at hand. They had the oracles of God: the Egyptians believed a lie. Faith made Moses love truth, and he would dwell only where it could be found. Faith assured him that the covenant of Abraham was sure. Canaan was to be their own. It did not look likely for that race of landless slaves; but Moses believed i believed that the Messiah, too, would spring from Jewish loins, and establish a new and better covenant still. In spite of all their past humiliation and their present wretched plight, all this did Moses stedfastly believe. Hence, he felt that the highest honour consisted not in being the son of Pharaoh's daughter; that the sweetest pleasure lies not in the unrestrained license of a court; that the truest riches are not found even in the flush and brimming coffers of an empire; but that honour, pleasure, and riches, beyond all computation, consisted in being an heir of the promises-one of God's peculiar people, with a right to and a share in the Covenant of Grace! He was not going to sell so glorious a birthright for any mess of Egyptian pottage, however well it might be flavoured, and though served in ever such a lordly dish. Further,

His faith enabled him to form a right estimate of the pleasures of sin. Not that

the employments or enjoyments of a court are necessarily sinful. We in this land are favoured with a proof of that; but possessed and used apart from truth and purity and duty, they are very peculiarly liable to produce the pleasures of sin, and generally have done in this sad, bad world of ours. Sin has its pleasures. It would be folly to dispute it; but it is but the greenness of the bay-tree before the time of winter, axe, and fire. It is the "portion, limited and fleeting, which the

ungodly have in this life. Pleasures, mark you, not happiness. The very word ripples, like a summer stream, to be suddenly dried up by summer drought. It is the blush of the rose, not the blue of the skies; the flash of the meteor, not the glow of the stars. Moses' faith enabled him to distinguish between the solid and the hollow, the golden and the gilded, the fleeting and the abiding, the deceptive and the true. Pleasures are unsatisfying. They have They have their "seasons" only, and, like angels' visits, these come to be few and far between. Stolen waters are sweet for a little while, then stagnate and pall upon the taste. Conscience will break in suddenly, and turn the laughter into sighs, and thoughts of death and judgment can turn the keenest pleasures to wormwood and gall. The pleasures themselves shorten life. The art has never been discovered of combining license with longevity. They who live for pleasure burn the candle at both ends. They wear out rapidly, just as a machine, without a regulator or a balance-wheel, would tear itself to pieces. Then, again, these pleasures may be slain at any moment. Macbeth is not safe, however gay the feast, from Banquo's murdered ghost. The faintest and weakest breeze can blow the candle out.

Leaves have their time to fall, and flowers to wither
At the north wind's breath, and stars to set;
But all, thou hast all seasons for thine own, Oh Death."

His faith showed him the final recompence of reward. The favour of God in his soul, the law of the Lord in his heart, the path of honourable duty beneath his feet, the hope of altimate heaven in his eye-were gracious and overwhelming compensations. How poor the honours of Egypt compared with the sonship and service of God! How mean the pleasures of princes compared with the heaven-born joys of the heart! How sordid the crown of the Pharaohs compared with the crown of glory! By faith he saw Him that is invisible sapphire throne, the emerald bow, the many crowns, the feet of flame, the kingly royalties, gleaming principalities, angelic powers, ranked in rapture round the throne, and amongst the rest his own high place, vacant for a little, hard by the throne of God!

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Such was the choice of Moses. With what result? He lives to-day, amongst the foremost yonder of the heavenly throng,-lives here, one of the greatest names and brightest fames on the long roll of God's heroic men. The fame of Pharaoh is dead, the name of his daughter forgotten, the city of Pharaoh a sand-hill or a swamp. The treasures of Egypt are gone to decay, the pleasures of Egypt a vanished dream; but the name, the fame, the joy of Moses, all are as immortal as the skies. "He was the legislator, not of Israel only, but of the world. He is the historian of creation, the emancipator of a people, the founder of the greatest commonwealth the world has ever seen. He was

king in Jeshurun. His name figures in all literature, shines like a star on the pages of God's own book, floats in the traditions of heathendom, is a household word in Christendom, and is linked with his Redeemer's in the highest songs of heaven. The one hope of the Jews, he became the bosom friend of God, and, in company with Elijah, appeared in resurrection glory to converse with the transfigured Christ. When his life-work was done, God took him up to Pisgah, showed him the glorious Canaan he had done so much to win, and then, according to a beautiful Jewish tradition, leading him up among the untrodden solitudes of Nebo, he kissed his soul out of its earthly home, and translated it to heaven. Then, lest the people should find his body and worship it, "the Lord buried him in the land of Moab, and no man knoweth the place of his sepulchre to this day."

"That was the grandest funeral that ever passed on earth;

Yet no man heard the tramping, or saw the train go forth.

And no man knows that sepulchre, and no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod, and laid the dead man there.

Noiselessly as the daylight comes, when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek melts into the sun :

So without sound of music, or voice of them that wept,

Silently down from the mountain's crown, the vast procession swept.

And had he not high honour? The hill-sides for his pall;

To lie in state while angels wait, with stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock pines like tossing plumes over his bier to wave;

And God's own hand, in that lonely land, to lay him in his grave!"

Reader! You have the power to choosebetween Christ and sin, between God and mammon, between wisdom and folly, between

joy. Jesus is great wealth. If you choose self, sin, the world, the fleeting present, the passing hour, then the curse of disappointment-sin's fatal wages shall be yours, and your gilded idol shall burn at the first touch of fire. Choose Jesus Christ! then a good conscience, a bloom of hope, a happy assurance, a final heaven, shall be yours, and the golden choice shall show its solid and enduring wealth, shining with untarnished glory, after the fires of death, and the flames of judgment have done their worst.

OOR MARY! The death of her Lord had given her the heartbreak. Her sun, so bright and warm, had dropped at once into grim dark night-a night with never a star, and never a hope of morning. No sleep was possible to that sore, sad soul of hers; no slumber came to still the heaving of her bereaved and burdened heart. "Early, while it was yet dark," she goeth to the grave to weep there. The still, solemn gloom of the night, the mournful moan of the night wind, and the dim and shapeless shadows around her were all in keeping with the grief within. She had but one consolation left, and that was to go to the grave where her Friend and Benefactor lay; to lean her aching brow against the stone which hid the sacred clay, and ponder on the Lost One who would come again no more. Swiftly and silently the mournful woman flits down the lanes and along the pathways of the garden, with fearsome flutterings such as those may feel who walk in the night-time among the graves. Before her looms the rough face of the rock in which the sepulchre had been but lately hewn. In the gloom she can trace the mouth of the tomb, and starts back with a cry of surprise, to see the stone which blocked it rolled away. At once she jumps to the conclusion that her last lingering comfort was gone from her, and that as the body had been removed she need not come on that sadly sweet errand any more! True, He is gone; and, as she said, "They have

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taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre," Peter and John, who at her request had come to see, retired at once to their own home. Not so Mary,-"she stood without at the sepulchre, weeping." I think I see her, standing there in the early twilight, her eyes red with weeping, and her head bowed down with grief. shrubs and flowers of the garden are just perceptible through the lessening shadows and the film of the morning mist. She has been looking into the empty gloom of the vacated prison, and sighing forth the mournful words, "He is gone," she turns her steps towards the garden porch, that she may go and mingle her tears with those of the other Mary, the stricken mother of the Lord. She is startled to see before her in the misty shadow the form of a man, a stranger, whom she takes to be the gardener about to begin thus early the labours of the day. Woman," says He, "why weepest thou?" There is a gentle sympathy in His tones which wins her confidence and half begets a hope that He may know something of the removal of the sacred corpse. Bending on Him a wistful look, she says, in earnest and pleading tones, “Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away." Poor Mary, she scarcely knows what she says, and feels herself at that moment strong enough to do anything and go anywhere if she may but again clasp and kiss the wounded feet of her beloved Lord. There is a moment's pause. Eyes of love unutterable look down upon the mourner's upturned sad and tearful face. woman's heart half stops its beating to catch the hoped-for answer. It comes at last in one short, low spoken word-" Mary!" The revelation comes like a sun-break through the mistlove, life, hope, joy, and heaven thrilled through every vein. "Rabboni!" she cried, and all the songs of David were compressed into that one

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