hunger and thirst is, in my old Greek Testament, in the present participle, thus, "Blessed are they which are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, for they shall be filled," not by fits and starts, then, as some individuals, or like my last Sabbath congregations, having a voracious appetite for a sermon or two, and puny all the week after. It is a bad sign in a patient; he wants medicine more than food, and medicine he does not like, poor man! But when the appetite is good for one meal, and better for the next, and so on, then is health returning like a tide. It is not medicine he wants then, but good, wholesome food, and plenty of it. Next comes usefulness, a good appetite and strength for business go together. But the contrary holds good,-a disordered stomach, loss of appetite, debility and unfitness for work, are companions. All this is "easy of spiritualization." I really feel as if I could preach from this text. But not till the Huddersfield folks get a better appetite. No use to expatiate on the goodness of viands, when there is nobody to dine. Everything is beautiful in its season, I suppose. Besides, people are not fond of hearing they are really out of health, until they are made to feel it with sorrow and alarm. We shall see, by and by, O my soul! Jesus says, "For they shall be filled;" one reason why he pronounces the blessing upon them, they shall not hunger in vain; "they shall be filled," with as much as they expected, and with as good as they expected. The world does not usually fill after that fashion! and with an ability to enjoy it, there the world fails again! and with no charge upon the purse, this would bankrupt the world to fill without charge. All Christ seems to ask at his table is, 'that his guests bring a good appetite. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no - money come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah. What! "buy without money and without price?" Yes, those are the terms of the Gospel market, as well as at Christ's table. It is fact! And yet Huddersfield sinners will not accept, though on the point of spiritual starvation. But it is thus Christ fills, nevertheless; and thus Satan fills not. Poor sinners pay dear for his filling. His slaves neither get as good as they expected, nor as much, nor capacity to enjoy,—“negative happiness" or positive misery. An empty heart, a lean soul, secret discontent, warring and dissatisfied passions, prevent the enjoyment of some; a chastizing or a disappointing Providence, others; while some, like one of old, have their "loins filled with a loathsome disease;" while "the backslider in heart is filled with his own ways," as the Bible threatens. Water in the bucket is the same as water in the well; the stream resembles the fountain from whence it proceeds; fire in the grate, the same as that which fills Vesuvius; the filling which the wicked receive upon earth differs more in quantity, perhaps, than in quality, from the filling received by the damned in hell. I must sound these things aloud in the ears of these sinners; may be they will cease to feed at the devil's tables, costs have restrained many an epicure. Burns thought of this: "O, would they stay to calculate The eternal consequences; The cost of the devil's filling here is pretty heavy, on health, purse and peace; on character, liberty and life. The devil's service is expensive. His pay is dearly earned. His pleasures are high in market. "Thou hast done evil The great ones of the earth as thou couldst," is the Lord's retort upon some of the ungodly,― according to thy time, or purse, or station, or opportunity. Sinners are called "dogs" in Scripture; perhaps from the fact that so many of them feed on crumbs beneath their master's table. are not the majority in the devil's family, but they sit around his tables, and they are well furnished; the dogs catch at the sinful crumbs which fall through the fingers of those above them, or are turned off with their leavings, -too bad, seeing they are all to share the same hell! Devils grin and angels mourn. Poor creatures! they try to be content, and will hardly believe that Jesus has anything better at his tables, or a richer reward for his service. I must try to create discontent and mutiny in Satan's family. I shall try. The "dogs" will bark before long, as their namesakes do when they hear or see anything extraordinary. Let them! Satan will miss them from under his tables before long, I verily believe. Amen! Jesus has no aristocracy in his family; the poorest saint of his is fed at the same table and upon the same dainties as the richest. Of the two, the poor who are rich in faith have the preference to best and highest seats, being heirs peculiar to a kingdom, as St. James hints.- James 2: 5. If there be anything like an aristocracy, it is in holiness; but that degree is open to the poor as well as the rich,— more of the poor in it, in fact, than the rich! It is open for all who are ambitious to be like Jesus, for the lowly and the light-pursed, as well as for the wealthy. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. "How rich his entertainments are," and how free! "They shall be filled." Blessed promise! How often have I realized its truth! He fills the hungry with good things, free of charge, without impoverishing himself. When Jesus was upen the earth he fed five thousand people at once. No collection tc defray expenses. Instead of sending his disciples around to collect pay, he ordered them to gather up the fragments. And such were the profits, I question whether Judas himself complained. They had but five barley loaves and two small fishes to begin with, and these a lad carried probably in a couple of baskets. But when they gathered up the fragments they filled twelve baskets full! - John 6. O, there is enough for all the multitudes of sinners around these hills of Huddersfield! My solitary soul lingers around the promise, "Blessed are they that do hunger," &c. But is there not a reverse to this blessing? an implied curse? a terrible malediction? as much as if he had said, "Cursed are they who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness"? Are they not cursed already with a sickly soul, as a loss of appetite is with a sickly body? Are they not cursed with dismal prospects, as he whose appetite is destroyed by disease? The one forebodes the grave; the other, hell. Are they not cursed with fearful retributions? Those who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness will do so after something else. Are these spiritual appetites of the soul ever inactive? But those who hunger and thirst after something else despise the grace of God; they do so perversely, - that is, contrary to God's order. Then trouble comes, in the soul or body, business or family. The Lord treats them perversely, contrary to their order. Are they not cursed with a terrific doom on the death-bed? They may wish to have grace then; when, alas! they may not have the grace of repentance, which is often the case, and are quite void of saving faith and right motive; hungering and thirsting after righteousness is a sort of necessary passport for heaven. Not for the love of heaven, or any con geniality with its employments, but because it suits them better than to sink to hell,—as I desired a passport to France once, and sought it earnestly, not because I loved France or its religion, or desired to, but because it suited my convenience to visit that country. Poor souls! they would feel themselves as much out of their element in heaven, as I did in France. But, then, think of the terrible doom of hell! Dives thirsted in vain for a drop of water to cool his tongue. O, how much better had it been for that rich man, in his lifetime, to have said, with the psalmist, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God! My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God when shall I come and appear before God?" --Ps. 42: 1, 2. This hell-thirst is the alternative, without parable or hyperbole. Huddersfield sinners must hear of these things. There are weapons in this armory. The Holy Spirit alone can set them on, however. My dependence must be in Him, and not in the weapons themselves. Well, I did not think of writing so much. This is enough for one day. It served to relieve my solitary heart. It is easier to write than to fight or reason with the devil and unbelief! I see the fulness there is in Christ for sinful man, I feel for poor deluded sinners, and am resolved to attempt their rescue from the devil, and to bring them to Christ. - Dec. 6th.-The loadstone will not draw. An old writer says it failed in his day, because of the depth of rust on the iron! There must be much rust here, or the Gospel would draw more people to it; for I am sure Jesus the heavenly magnet is in my sermons. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." He who knows the power of free agency, and the rust of depravity, will not suspect the veracity or sincerity of my Lord. No, my soul! The Sab |