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once stop to argue their obligation or their helpfulness. That he takes for granted. His teaching about all three of them is of a precautionary character, and directed against the characteristic fault of the time-ostentatiousness. they gave alms, and prayed, and fasted, not because they loved their neighbour, and thirsted for God, and wished to discipline their own spirits, but to win the praise of men, and to hear their neighbours whisper, "See how good they are ! the reward they coveted should indeed be theirs, for what it was worth. But presently, when, at a woeful distance from them, the glories of the invisible world opened out before their eyes, none of these things would be found to have followed them. Their money, their prayers, their fasting, would all be seen to have been quite thrown away, so far as any reward in heaven is concerned-laid up on earth, and therefore rewarded there. Not to be found, not to be rewarded, in heaven.

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Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven," says our Lord; appealing, you observe, to two supreme instincts in the nature of man-that of forethought and that of acquisitiveness. As if to say, "Be not so short-sighted as to live and plan only for the present; think of eternity, and lay up in that blessed home, which you are wont to call heaven, treasures and possessions which will be imperishable, and will meet you after death, for you to keep and enjoy for ever."

Two simple questions stand out in front of us here, and our careful answers to them ought in some way to help us to turn our lives to usury.

1. What are the treasures which we are to lay up in Heaven?

2. In what does the laying up consist?

1. Now, the treasures which we are to lay up in heaven, to be ready for us when we come, presumably correspond with the three great duties of the religious life already enforced by our Lord-may not inexactly be described as their outcome and result. Friendship is to be earned by kindness, of which almsgiving is at least one expression; and do not be startled by what may seem a bald way of wording it, or suppose, in consequence, that almsgiving is the only way of earning it. You remember the closing admonition in the parable of the unjust steward: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." You remember, again, how, on an occasion of being bidden to a feast, the Lord said to those who bade Him, "When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."

Once more, you remember how, in the parable of the last judgment, those on the right hand answer the Judge, saying, "Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Thus it is that one treasure, which should meet us in heaven, and which we are to lay up there now, which shall be incorruptible, and undefiled, and never fade away, is the love of grateful souls. And, I ask, can there be a greater, a sweeter, a nobler, or one more divine? There may be divers ways of earning that gratitude-ways of body and

spirit, of precept and example, of sympathy and counsel, of warning and reproof. The love of wife and husband, whose souls have grown into each other by the tenderest and deepest of associations, and which survives parting, loneliness, and death; the love of a child to a parent, who has trained and taught it; the love of a soul to a pastor, who has brought it to the feet of Jesus to hear His Word; the love of an outcast to one who neither despised it nor despaired of it, but made a long arm of love to lift it out of the pit, and set its feet on a rock; the love of a little scholar to a Christian teacher, who taught it that God's love was its best possession; the love of a strong friend, who in a moment of golden opportunity dared to bring Jesus to the searing conscience of a thoughtless youth. My brethren, as you anticipate the moment when the cloud lifts, and you pass behind the veil to see your Judge, can you count on any one likely to be waiting for you at the gate, and to welcome you with the joy that only the redeemed can know? Has it ever even occurred to you that it is your duty as well as your honour to glorify Christ by using your time and your talents for His service--by acts of charity, of course, and deeds of sacrifice, but also by words. which move, and by example which inspires? For almsgiving does not only mean the giving of money. It may or may not be yours to say with the apostle, "Silver and gold have I none." It is love that gives just what it has to give-of courtesy, of sympathy, of friendship, and prayers. We are each sent into this world, not feebly to complain of its badness, but manfully to try to make it better; not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,

The

and to keep himself unspotted from the world." question should surely come home to us-In what way are we doing this, if indeed we are doing it at all?

Another treasure which we are to lay up in heaven is knowledge, and, of all kinds of knowledge, the best, and the most profound, and the most satisfying, and the most dignifying the knowledge of God in Christ; that knowledge which is eternal life, and which grows and matures through prayer.

Two questions you may reasonably interpose here. One is, how is it possible to conceive of our imperfect human knowledge as in any sense or degree a permanent or substantial treasure, which we shall not so much meet again as actually take with us, out of a world of shadows into the world of realities; from a place where we speak as children, and understand as children, and think as children, and know but in part, to a place where childish things will be put away, and we shall know even as we are

known?

Surely, however, it is quite reasonable to suppose, not only that the laws of the human mind are eternal and immutable, and that they will continue to operate in the life to come, though unhampered by the restrictions which now fetter them, and under new conditions which will give wings to thought, and perhaps altogether substitute intuition for reason. Also that, so far as we can see, the knowledge we possess, though scanty and fragmentary, yet if solid as far as it goes, only waits for new environments and enfranchised faculties to be deepened and widened and matured. It is certain that all mental cultivation, if only for the sake of the discipline that goes with it, must be an acquisition in the sense of those final results on which death can make

no real impression. The incessant accumulating stock of knowledge of the best and highest things will, I suppose, be one of the loftiest occupations of the æons in front, infinite in its scope, and elevating in its processes. Let no one think that honest study of any kind is waste.

Surely, if the works of God sought out of all them that have pleasure therein declare His glory, and manifest His handiwork, it is His mind, His person, His nature, His purpose, that it most helps us to know, and that in proportion to our knowledge of them convey to us eternal life. What He is, what He thinks, what He desires, what He forbids, in the perfection of His glorious attributes, in the revelation of His eternal purpose, the angels desire to look into; but the Church is privileged to possess the word of the Incarnate Son.

If you ask what prayer has to do with knowledge, in the sense of helping us to lay it up as a treasure in heaven, I answer-Much every way. Prayer, with all knowledge that touches God, vitalizes and solemnizes and deepens it. It helps us to see His face, and to hear His voice, and to feel His presence, and to touch His hand. It helps us to know that He is our Father. It reveals sin, and it proclaims pardon; it indicates the mystery of evil, and it shows us the way to escape from its awful power. I do not say that the habit or spirit of prayer is essential to all knowledge; I do say, that where there is no sense of God, no spiritual contact with the invisible world, the deepest part of this wonderful nature is ignored, and its necessities denied, and its loftiest aspirations crushed, and in the end there is a spiritual indifference, which robs the soul of its true nobleness, and a deterioration of the moral sense which means loss all round. Oh for more devoutness! By devoutness,