footsteps, though they may lead you through many a toilsome track, or guide you through many a thorny passage. In your journey to the heavenly country, you must encounter trials, and troubles, and sorrows; no child of God was ever yet without them: not one of all that countless multitude in white robes, with palms in their hands, but "came out of great tribulation;" how can you, therefore, expect or desire to escape that, of which all the other children in God's dear family have so largely partaken? "Think it not, therefore, strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." Dwell much and frequently, upon the views of that "eternal weight of glory;" it will tend more than any other consideration to teach you to form a correct and scriptural estimate

of your "light afflictions." light afflictions." It was thus, that the apostle of whom we are speaking, at a later period of his Christian course, was enabled to bear, and to bear without repining, an infinitely heavier load of suffering than will ever be laid on you. He cast all his trials, all his sorrows, all his sufferings, into one scale, and after consideration of them, declares them to be light, and but for a moment. He then lays the glory in the other scale, and pronounces it to be ponderous, weighty, and eternal: "an exceeding weight of glory." In the one is sorrow for a little while, in the other, eternal joy in the one, pain for a few moments, in the other, everlasting rest: in the one is the loss of some few temporary delights, in the other, the full fruition of God in Christ, who "is all in all."

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LECTURE III.

ACTS IX. 20.

"AND STRAIGHTWAY HE PREACHED CHRIST IN THE SYNAGOGUES, THAT HE IS THE SON OF GOD."

OUR subject this morning opens with the account of the interview between Ananias and Saul, for which both had been supernaturally prepared, prepared, by the visions to which we referred in our last discourse.

"And Ananias," says the historian, "went his way, and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul"-What a salutation was this, from one of the meek and lowly followers of our Lord to this "persecutor and blas

phemer!" "Brother Saul!" Without reluctance and without delay, he salutes that man as a brother, whom God had so astonishingly acknowledged as a son. He requires no further introduction, no further testimony, but gives at once the right hand of fellowship, and with it, his affections and his heart.

How does such an example put to shame the cold, unkindly feelings of the Christians of the present day. It is not enough for them to know that a man is a Christian, to induce them to acknowledge him as a brother; they must know every clause in his creed, every feature of his religious character; they must hear him pronounce with the most unquestionable distinctness, the shibboleth of their own party; he must believe, not simply all that he can discern in the word of God, but all that they can discern there, even to their latest discovery, to the revelation of yesterday, or he is no brother of theirs. Verily the

bounds of discipleship, are drawn so closely together in these our days, that a modern Ananias, instead of going his way, and hailing this poor convert as a disciple indeed, because the Lord had said, "He is a chosen vessel unto me,' would have replied, Nay, but, O Lord, does he believe all that I believe? has he seen the great things that I have seen out of thy word? for if not, I cannot give him the right hand of fellowship; I cannot call him brother.'

My brethren, beware of these contracted views of Christian fellowship, which are daily dividing the seamless garment of our Lord into the veriest shreds and tatters; learn to make no distinction, except that which the converted Paul himself made in after days, when he said, "Grace be with all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." Let this be the broad platform of Christian friendship; let every minor point, whether of doctrine or of

your