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produces grapes, and the grapes are turned into wine; but Jesus did in a minute what it takes a twelvemonth's process to do in ordinary circumstances. The tree is planted, the rain and dews fall, the grapes grow and are pressed, and the juice is fermented, and thus turned into wine. Jesus only shortened the process, and turned the water by his look into wine. I believe miracles are wrought now just as truly as they were wrought then; only we have got so accustomed to atheistic philosophy, that what is God's finger we call in our proud and vaunting wisdom great laws," "vast phenomena," that we must not meddle with, or dare to touch. But here may be the difference. When Jesus wrought a miracle in curing the leper, he did so visibly, before men's eyes; but may he not work miracles still, only not before our eyes? The whole difference may be that the miracle, instead of being done by Jesus on this lower floor, is still done by him in the upper sanctuary. The process by which he removes disease we cannot explain; but the fact that he answers prayer we rejoice to know; and no infidelity shall be able to take it from us. The instincts of nature are often nobler in their wreck than the inductions of

modern philosophy. Let a mother hear the wind whistle, and see the waves roll with tempestuous fury, and let her know that her firstborn, and her only son, is in the frail bark that is tossed upon the billows; let that mother see the ship struggling, and wrestling, and creaking, amid the terrible waves, do you think she would be persuaded by the philosophy of newspapers not to pray to God to preserve her child? All the instincts of her nature would rise and pray, "Oh God, save my child." And these instincts are the highest philosophy when they are sustained and confirmed by the word of God. Then, my dear friends, cast the sceptic newspaper to the dogs; pity the poor editor who writes such nonsense, and tries, under the garb of philosophy, to avert national humiliation and national prayer. Cleave to this, that God does hear prayer.

LECTURE VIII.

LONELY THANKFULNESS.

And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.-LUKE XVII. 11-19.

IN my last lecture I explained the nature, or rather the moral and spiritual significance, of the disease which is here alluded to. I did so in commenting upon the cure of the leper, whom Jesus healed, and then sent to the priest to show himself, that he might have the attestation of the priest that it was a cure, and

that the ordinance of God, as long as it stood, might be thereby honoured. The physical disease has all but disappeared from the earth; its spiritual and moral significance as the type of sin, as I explained before, remains, and is instructive still. If the leprosy has passed away like the types of Levi, the spiritual disease of sin remains coeval with the existence of humanity; and, blessed be God, not wider than the cure that can thoroughly remove it.

We read on the last occasion of one leper; on the present occasion we read of ten. These ten were a mixed company; there was, at all events, one thankful Samaritan, and there may have been more Samaritans, though thankless, and associated in spirit, as in person, with the Jews. Let us recollect that the Jew and the Samaritan were the bitterest antagonists. The one professed to be a churchman, the other assumed to be a seceder. This was not probably the proper modern explanation of their position, but certainly modern antipathies are the nearest possible approach to the antipathies that existed between the Jew and the Samaritan; for they held even exclusive dealing: "the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." This group, we

find, are together-two hostile parties constituting one company apparently without murmur, protest, or dispute, or expression of the enmity they felt, and did not hesitate to express, on other and different occasions. Now what can be the explanation of their present concord? Our Lord could not meet the Samaritan woman without her reviving the old exasperating controversy, whether in this mountain or in that men should worship; but on this occasion, strange to say, the ten lepers, Jews and Samaritans, had no quarrel about where they should worship, but seem to have prayed in one litany for the blessing which they felt they must obtain. What was the reason? Perhaps it is this-that parties who, in ordinary circumstances, are full of exasperating feelings, of ill-will, animosity, pride, exclusiveness, want of forbearance, are, beneath the heat and pressure of a common calamity, fused into one, and made to forget in judgment what they will not forego in love—the deep and rankling sense of their common quarrels and disputes. A sense of common danger buries all disputes. Let a storm overtake the gallant ship; let the passengers have been at daggers-drawn in the cabin a few hours before; when the