sow beside all wate

n like a watchman on the walls of Jerusalem. And far away, as he looks, the distant horizon of

was alive in them. Amidst all present discouragement he lived in the hope of a brighter and better day, when the eyes of those around him would be opened, and their hearts changed,

the wilderness shall become a planted field." But in the day of that outpouring, the heart of the people would turn and be uplifted, renewed, and purified, the wilderness would become a planted field. And this thought brings him to the final outburst of the text I have just read to you, which is a blessing on those true Israelites who

and in every place, sow it in the wastes of the moral wilderness, sow it in the face of every enemy, sow it in faith and hope and without fear. It is on them he depends to prepare for that happier season when the wilderness of the spiritual life around him should become as a planted field; and with prophetic insight he perceives that it is on such as these that the Divine bless

ey should bind you everywhere. And simple and obvious as this may seem, it is not altogether an easy truth to carry into practice. "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters." Your seed field is not here or there only; it lies on every sid

reference to our own cas

ess, and good tone, and purity. It would soon go very ill with this or any other society if it were not so. And those who grow up in this way are continually leaving us in their turn, and they will remember with a

rprise to us in the new forces that confront us in any society which we enter as strangers;

uct should not vary, and that the call of God, which we have recognised once,

ass over to the next. With the holy we learn in some degree to be ourselves holy; with a perfect man we too are able to walk perfectly; but on the other hand, in our imitative way, as the scene changes, we sometimes find ourselves learning frowardness with the froward, practising indifference with the indifferent, if not actually slipping with the viciou

rate, these words of Isaiah come to us with a very appropr

ee that what is good in our present life has become our own personal and permanent possession, independent of surroundings; that it has sunk in some degree into the fibre of our character; that it is settl

of great and good examples, or the sense of honour may have stirred you; the feeling of your closeness in life to those around you, and of the strong currents of mutual influence, may have opened your eyes to what you owe to your neighbour and to the claims of social duty. Some one of these causes, or it may be some other cause, may have given you strength and power to walk amongst us in the narrow way of good habit and good influence. And wherever this is so, w

beyond dispute, and fundamental. If so, they are also of universal application; and we should hold them as th

tly uninfluential members of some society in which the standards of life are low, and you may be tempted to think, under the pressure of surrounding opinion, that

ah should prove a help and a safeguard. And its exhortation is supported by the respect and admiration

sily beset us, as we sealed in each other's presence the resolutions which are to direct our steps in safe paths, it was not of circumstances or places that we were thinking-it was the vision of Christ our Saviour that was before our eyes, and we pray that this vision may remain with us. When we think of all our diverging paths as we separate just now, and of the