the destiny of the Christian. They are words which the child of God is ever required to speak to an unbelieving world, and a slumbering church,-" Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

All men are under law to God. That law is always binding. Duty is ever imperative. At no time is the one suspended, or does the other get a holiday. Each one is bound to be in the service to which he is called. Thus we learn that every one should have a business. The idler is an anomaly in the universe; and an aimless life is a libel alike upon existence and its Author. Time has another destiny than waste, and life another object than to count the weary hours. All the creatures of God have an end worthy of their Maker. The lives of trees and shrubs, of grain and flowers, subserve important ends in the economy of nature. We do not doubt their mission, and do not believe that they grow to waste. It is only relatively that the poet's lines have any truth,

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its fragrance on the desert air."

All have a purpose which they fulfil, and from which their increase rises to the praise of God.

Much more has man a business. He is furnished with all the instruments of industry, and intelligence to make a skilful use of them. His peculiar constitution, mental and bodily, suggests a high destiny to his being and a full employment of his powers. His adaptations to mind and matter indicate at once his relation to the world of spirit and the world of sense,-his service of God in the conduct of life. He has an obligation and an interest, à chief end and a welfare. And when he awakes to a consciousness of his position and duty, he is ready with all earnestness to ask the question, "Wist ye not that I must be about my

Father's business?" "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" He cannot remain idle, or purposeless, when he knows that there is work for him to do. He cannot spend all his thoughts and efforts on the affairs of time, when he is persuaded of an eternity and a judgment. He undertakes a business. He must have something to do. But it must not be confined to buying and selling, getting and spending. It has a relation to God, and consequently a responsibility of the gravest kind. This once admitted, alters the aspect of commercial transactions. Business takes a loftier bearing, commands a wider range, establishes more important connections, and requires a more frequent and rigid scrutiny. How does he stand with God? He is honourable in his dealings with men; but has he neglected his account with God? Awfully dangerous miscalculation! that item had not been entered in his ledger. Therefore the profits looked so large, and his prospects so fair. He must enter that, however, to be an honest man. How it affects the balance! How it embarrasses his affairs! "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" He had not been about his proper business, and until he be right with God, cannot proceed. Payment is stopped. He is in the gazette, a bankrupt and a beggar. What is he to do? Let him call on his creditors and ascertain the terms of his certificate. Let the guilty sinner plead for mercy at the hand of the Almighty. The sinner's Substitute will befriend him then, and with the blood of Christ upon his balance-sheet he can commence anew, a forgiven and grateful man. At peace with God, and keeping short accounts with heaven as well as earth, he may labour with profit; and notwithstanding many infirmities, may, by the grace of God, fulfil his high and holy calling. He cannot otherwise consecrate his business. No, reader, you cannot be right in your worldly

calling until you are right with God, pardoned and accepted. How do you stand with God? Are you reconciled through faith in the atonement? Are you accepted in the Beloved? Then you can take up the question of the Saviour, and say to the world, when it wonders at your conduct, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?""

When

The Christian must be about his Father's business. Jesus sat among the doctors, and onward through the various circumstances of his experience on earth, his Father's business occupied him fully. In his filial obedience under Joseph's roof, in his toilsome labour at Joseph's bench, in his public ministry, and in his dying agonies, he was about his Father's business. He never lost sight of that close relationship throughout that chequered period. It grew dearer as the work grew more trying; and the words, "Father," "My Father," mingled very frequently in his last discourses, and in his prayers at Gethsemane and Calvary. Personal considerations were lost in the higher element of sonship. Duty to his Father obtained precedence in his soul. "The cup

which my Father hath given me to drink, shall I not drink it?" was his expression at the threshold of the cross, just as to Mary's first rebuke his reply had been, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" He could not be diverted from his purpose, nor cease its hallowed pursuit; and ere he closed his career on earth, he said, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do."

On the day of his resurrection, Jesus said to Mary, "I ascend unto my FATHER, and your FATHER; and to my GOD, and your GOD." He had taught his disciples to pray, saying, "OUR FATHER which art in heaven." We are told that the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is our Father also. Then is the Christian's duty relative in all his work. It is our Father's business which we

have to do. The believer must follow the Lord Jesus. The children of God by adoption must act as did the everlasting Son, their elder brother, whose meat it was to do his Father's will. This is the Christian's occupation, and demands his energies at all times, and in all engagements. Of course we do not mean that he is to neglect his worldly business, or to be constantly occupied with religious exercises. By no means. He ought to be "not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." The spirit in which the daily calling is fulfilled, the end to which it is subordinated, the character of the man consecrating his work, are more than outward acts. Business is to be prosecuted, but it is not sanctified to God unless two things accompany it, namely, personal sanctification, and public usefulness.

Personal sanctification is an element of a Christian's business. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification.” Christ "was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," yet he maintained a conformity to the law of God, as his work on earth. With us individual holiness is conformity, and to attain that is the life-labour of the believer. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” said St. Paul; and his meaning evidently is, not that we are to deliver our souls from guilt by personal efforts, but that, being delivered by the sacrifice of Christ, we are to endeavour, by his grace, to save ourselves from corruption. To subdue the whole heart to the will of God, to cherish all the graces of the Spirit, to bring forth fruit in a sanctified character, are the business of the child of God. "Thy will be done," is his daily prayer to his Father, and must, therefore, be his constant endeavour. There are temptations to try your steadfastness, Christian reader. Christ was tempted too. There are difficulties. Christ had them also. The Jews assailed him. Satan assailed him. Friends forsook him. He was

left alone. But he had his Father's business to attend, and therefore he went through with it, that he might do the will of God. You will have the devil, the world, and the flesh against you, in the sanctification of your character; but none of these weakens your responsibility. The more holy you become, are you fitted to do your Father's business. It is only in heaven, where that holiness is perfect, that it can be said of the children of God, "They serve him day and night in his temple." But the ability is wrought out here. The character is acquired here. The education of the will is carried on here. A spiritual habit is nurtured best" on life's tempestuous sea." Here only can you have the opportunity of becoming personally sanctified. Let me, then, ask you,— "Are you about your Father's business? Have you such singleness of purpose, such aspirations after holiness, as will, when reproached by the world, lead you to reply, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?'" Personal sanctification is the ardent longing of every child of God. "My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times," said the psalmist. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." What a consecration would this give to secular calling!

Public usefulness is part of a Christian's business. The work to which Christ was set apart by his Father, concerned more than himself in his personal obedience to the divine law. He had a relation to men-to the world. Like the earth, he had not merely a motion round his own axis, to turn his whole being towards the sunshine of his Father's love, but he had also a large orbit to describe, and which influenced many others. It is so with every child of God. Each has an object beyond personal growth in grace. Each has a mission to do good in his sphere. God gave to his church the great work of evangelizing the world. Preach