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too much time is given to contemplation and too little to action, as to unfit it for real duty. But this is not the danger of our age or time, or of our style of Christians. St. Bernards do not abound among us.

The real Christian often needs this longing for God as the solace and hope of his work. Thus he assures himself that when he rises into the full joy of God, he shall see clearly through all the perplexing mysteries of the divine truth and providence; be freed from the burden of his sin; shine in a perfection like his Saviour's, which has been his ideal of all happiness upon earth; live in a society eternally upright, pure, and holy; feed upon the ineffable glories of the Godhead, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Within this experience, therefore, God has placed a rich blessing, so that it may be desired as one of his choicest gifts. It should perhaps be called, as I have already suggested, a longing for sunrising rather than for sunset.

But every form of this experience which arises from disgust of life, is both unhealthy and undesirable. It is not a normal condition of the soul of man to wish to die, simply as a relief from the cares and toils of the world. Men love activity. It is only the over-tasked and over-wearied, whose hearts have been long bowed and their spirits broken, who long for the shadow. Work is the natural element of man. The buoyant energy of bounding health overflows in external manifestation. The strong man rejoices to run a race. Like Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, who, upon being refused in his application to carry tidings to David after the defeat of Absalom, nevertheless prayed for permission to run with the messenger, simply for the joy of running; so is it with a healthy human soul all the world over. It longs for the light and the sun, and overflows in action. Even as little children, the race never wishes for nightfall or sleep; never longs for sunset. It is therefore the sure sign of unhealth when the manly vigor of the soul succumbs to its sorrows, and longs for the rest of the grave. The physical system is itself broken down. The nervous wires, which thread so mysteriously the "harp of a thousand strings," and make such bounding music in a healthy frame, are out of tune, and make only discords now.

And as such a state of mind is unhealthy, so it is undesirable. It oppresses the soul with a heavy load, so that it can bear no burden. of duty. It envelops the life in a cloud of darkness, so that it can not see the light. Unless in those who are appointed unto speedy death, in which case it may lighten the passage to the tomb, it is to be regarded as an enemy to all that is good and noble. It is to be prayed against, labored against, and lived against, with the utmost tenacity of will.

III. There is still another question which the subject presses upon us. How far is it right or wrong to harbor this disgust of life, and "earnestly desire the shadow"?

I answer: God surely permits him in whom, by his Providence, he has destroyed the instinct of life, to long for the end. It surely can not be wrong for one worn out by painful and protracted sickness, to whom months of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed, to yearn for the termination of his sorrows, even wishing to hide them in the grave. Indeed, is not this one method by which death itself is disrobed of its terrors, and so welcomed as a deliverer? Surely we have often wondered at the courage with which many a timid saint has met the great enemy.

But while we can not condemn this longing for death in the souls of those worn out by disease, we do not mean to be understood as sanctioning the very common notion that it is to any great extent the proof of grace in the heart. So far as the desire of the grave is concerned, it is simply the breaking down of nature, and not the incoming of grace. If there were not, indeed, a calm trust in Christ, with holy assurance, we could hardly expect that the soul would long to die, because an unsettled future would interpose to prevent the natural processes of dissolution. Yet still we see that the real evidence of acceptance is the trust in Christ, which leaves the soul calm and unmoved, and not the instinctive yearning for the grave. A sinner with a callous conscience and a false hope, will just as earnestly often "desire the shadow."

But if it is right for him, whom God has visited with sickness, and so destroyed the instinct of life, to yearn for the close of his course, may not the aged man also be permitted to look joyfully towards the end? Treading among the shadows of life, may he not see the sunlight beyond? May not Jacob pray, "Now, let me die, since I have seen the face of Joseph," as if seeking no other worldly joy, and ready to take up his tabernacle and pitch it in the hereafter? And old Simeon-"Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace"? And if the aged man, why not the oppressed? the lone and wasted prisoners in the dungeons of despots, whose only crime has been their love of liberty, and from whom God's sunlight has been for years excluded? Why may they not pray to be liberated from their sorrows, even if their deliverer is named Death? Why may not the Christian slave of a merciless master?

But if those, whom the providence of God has absolutely shut up to this prayer, may offer it, without offense, to his infinite purity; it is equally certain they have no right to take it upon their lips, whom the Heavenly Father calls to the active life of duty. However great their sorrows or their disappointmentsthough their dearest friends are in the dust, and their earthly all is swept away-they have no right, in moody melancholy, to sit list

less down and wish to die. They have a higher, nobler work than to look into the shadows. They are to long for the sunshine, and not for the sunset. For them the clarion notes of duty ring, summoning them onward. Elijah was out of place in the solitudes of Carmel. Luther should have spoken words, more grand and inspiring, to have formed the fitting conclusion of his glorious life. He was greater in his life than in his death; the better greatness indeed of the two, but he should have been great in both. Every Christian is sinning against God, when he permits himself to loathe or to neglect the actual work to which he is clearly called. Up and work, while it is day, and rejoice in the clear light, for the night will come all too quickly, to interrupt your work, so quickly, that you need never, never, pray that God would hasten on

the sunset.

In the conclusion of the discourse I shall not attempt to gather up all its practical suggestions, some of which have necessarily come into view, in the illustration of it. I will only call your attention, first, to the supreme dignity of a joyful, earnest, working life in God. This is better than a constant longing for sunset; nay, this is better than the most gorgeous sunset which has ever illumined a Christian's dying hour. To live like Payson would be better than to die like Payson, though one would love both to live and die as he did. In his holy word, God gives a a higher importance to living than to dying-to our work in the broad daylight, than to our work amid the shadows. I think, therefore, we ought to long to live, if living is with us Christ. Sometimes good Christians feel sad at heart, because they love life so well. In so far, however, as life with them is duty, in so far they ought to love it. I think God likes it better than they possibly can. Did not Hezekiah pray anxiously for life, and was not his prayer answered because he had a great work to do for God. And with what argument did he plead with his heavenly Father, but this: "The grave can not praise thee, death can not celebrate thee, the living, the living, he shall praise thee." It is life which glorifies most the great Master of us all. It is beyond measure a grand endowment, to feel the throbbings of life within us, overflowing in health and vigor, all consecrated to the service of the eternal God. The joy of such a life is worthy of our love, and we may pray for its continuance, for heaven itself is life un shadowed, and without a sunset.

And yet, however much a working life is to be desired in itself, it is not true that a Christian is always best trained in the sunshine. Some of the most precious of the graces grow best in the darkness, and the choicest disciples very often pass their lives under a cloud. Those whose veins bound with health, as if in very madness, are too little likely to be influenced by the constant vision of the Unseen. Therefore it is that sickness and sorrow

have such universal dominion. Perfect health and unbounded elasticity of life will not be a safe endowment except in heaven.

Yet even with those weary and heavy-laden with sickness and sorrow, the positive patience and self-denial and gentle graces to which they are called, and which constitute their Christian life, activity in the form of endurance, are more to be desired than those sad moods of mind in which they can not help but long for sunset. To them, too, in their peculiar way, there is a supreme dignity in a joyful, earnest, working life in God.

Secondly. But while we all should love to live in the active performance of duty, we are never to forget the shadow, or to fail to prepare for death. There is such a thing as a Christian loving this life too well. The instinct by which he clings to it, may not be properly subdued unto God. Or the divine Providence may have scattered so many blessings upon his home, that he is in danger of "laying up his treasures upon earth." There is much necessity for the children of God to seek by positive effort to break the cords which bind them too closely here, and to replace them with those golden chains, whose fastenings are in the throne of God and the Lamb. One of the first petitions to the throne of God, which impressed my childish heart, was heard from the lips of one of our most distinguished ministers, and has been heard from his lips a thousand times since, that God would wean us from the world. This is a prayer which should be often offered, and with efforts after the object, proportioned to its importance. Indeed, there should always be a struggle for that longing after God, which, while it is consistent with a love of Christian action upon earth, is a continual preparation for the coming on of night. The Apostle Paul occupied the right position upon this question: "To depart was far better, and he greatly desired it;' yet "to live was Christ:" and if the Master still had work for him to do; he would choose on the whole, for the sake of the dying world, to remain at his post. Oh! this is a great Christian attainment reached by few, and yet worthy of our highest strivings! It is well to aim at a lofty mark. It is not, as we sometimes ex-. press it, to be willing to live, and to be willing to die, as God sees best; but it is to love to live or to love to die just as God sees best. And yet, if with most of our brethren, we fall short of this very high standard, we ought as our very lowest duty, to keep our minds so submissive to God, as to bow before his will.

Thirdly. The sunset will bring blessings to the weary saint. The shadow which he so earnestly desires, lies just before the celestial city. Yet so strangely worn and over-worked is he, that it is not for heaven he longs, so much as for the shadow itself-the end of his sufferings, the devouring grave. The kind Father, pitying his frame, and knowing his infirmities, permits him thus to long for death, and keeps in reserve for him beyond, the hea

venly glories. Poor, sorrowing disciple! the Saviour keeps thy crown in readiness for thee. Thy sun, which through all thy afflicted life has seemed to be enveloped in thick darkness, shall go down without a cloud, even setting in a refulgent sea of glory. Oh! didst thou know it all, thou mightest well long and pray for

sunset.

THE CODEX SINAITICUS.*

THE name of Tischendorf does not now appear for the first time in connection with Biblical literature. The course of authorship of this distinguished savant began as long ago as 1838, when an edition of the Greek New Testament proclaimed his qualifications for the task of textual criticism, and decided his career. The patronage of his own sovereign furnished him with the means of visiting Paris for the purpose of exploring its manuscript treasures, especially its Codex Ephremi Rescriptus, one of the most valuable palimpsests in the world. Since then Great Britain, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Malta, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Constantinople, have been traversed in the prosecution of his researches, and have borne witness to his combined learning and zeal. To sum up his publications were to fill a paragraph; suffice it to say, that his "Codex Friderico-Augustanus," his "Monumenta Sacra Inedita," his "Evangelium Palatinum," his "Codex Amiatinus," his "Codex Claromontanus," his "Palimpsest Fragments," his "Apocryphal Acts," "Apocryphal Gospels," "Apocryphal Apocalypses," and his successive editions of the Greek New Testament, have established his reputation as the largest contributor to textual criticism of his day, and made the name of Tischendorf celebrated far beyond the bounds of his quiet university.

In the volume before us † we have record made of one of his latest journeys, and of certainly his greatest acquisition-a very ancient manuscript, containing the most important parts of the Old Testament in Greek, and the entire New Testament, without omission or erasure, ne minimâ quidem lacunâ deformatum. Any manuscript of the Holy Scriptures, in any language, with a credible date reaching above the tenth century, would be considered a valuable addition to our stores of critical matter for settling the

This article is of such unusual interest and value to ministers and intelligent Christians, that we have thought worth while to print it on these pages, for those who may not otherwise see it.-ED. OF N. PREACHER.

Notitia Editionis Codicis Bibliorum Sinaitici. Edidit Ainoth. Frid. Const. Tischendorf. Lipsiæ: F. A. Brockhaus. 1860.

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