for living waters. The instant man fell there grew up in his bosom an intense thirst for God, though he knew it not. This thirst is the evidence of something wrong, and the prophecy also of what is needed to supply it; the living water that God gives. No leaf from earth's tree can satisfy men's deep wants; no spring in this earth can refresh the soul; till man find living religion, till he become a true Christian, he will still thirst.

An excellent clergyman, now a rector in the Church of England, who, before he was ordained, was a captain in a cavalry regiment in Spain, and was present at the retreat of Corunna, told me that he had to pass over a battle-field the evening after the battle was fought; he said the wind swept coldly over it, and bore upon it the wild cry of innumerable voices, "Water! water!" That battle-field was the type of all humanity. Its cry is "water;" but not water that earth's rivers or springs can supply, but living water from the better than the rock of Horeb, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This rock was first struck and rent; and Jesus was crucified, and bruised, and wounded for our transgressions. He endured all that we deserved as sinners; he obeyed all the law demanded of us as creatures; and by his obedience, death, and perfect righteousness, we are justified. It is not correct to say that God loves us because Christ died for us; the very reverse is the fact; Christ died for us because God loved us; Christ is the channel through which the living water flows to us, just as the rock was the channel through which the water flowed to the children of Israel. And thus, we have nothing to do but to drink and live, believe and be happy for ever. The very simplicity of the Gospel is a stumbling-block to many. God has rent the Rock,

the waters gush forth; you are not to wait; all is ready, drink freely. No sinner is so lost that he is not welcome to that glorious Gospel that saves the greatest and the oldest sinners, and sends forth its welcome to all.

The first thing we need from this Rock is the stream of pardon. There is in every man's bosom a judge that tells him he is guilty; and so long as we know not how to escape this condemnation we must be wretched. But the first stream that rushes from the Rock that was rent on Calvary awakens in its current this beautiful music, "Son-daughter-be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." Then, justified by faith, we have peace with God.

The second stream that comes from that Rock is sanctification, which is our fitness for heaven. A man needs not only pardon, that he may have a right to heaven; but also sanctification, that he may like what once he hated; that he may like the Bible better than the novel, and the house of God better than the theatre, and love a holy God whom he once hated.

The third stream is that of consolation. Every soul has its hidden bitterness; there are tragedies that were never written. But the very first effect of the Gospel is to make the heart that receives it happy. There is no necessary religion in melancholy. What can be so delightful as to know that we are sons of God? What so consoles as to know that I am immortal till my work is done? The first pulse of the Gospel is joy, and the next is holiness for ever.

Such, then, are the streams that come from this Rock, and they are copious. No man will be able to say at the judgment-seat, "I perish, because there was not Christianity enough in the Bible to save me.

These streams followed the Israelites to Canaan; and so that stream which burst forth on Calvary has rushed along the channels of the last eighteen centuries, too deep ever to be frozen in winter, and too over-shadowed ever to be evaporated by the summer's heat. It cheered the Christian worshippers in the catacombs at Rome; it carried a wave of refreshment to the Protestants who were persecuted in the eleventh, twelfth, and fourteenth centuries. These blessed streams may be traced, not by thundering cascades, or roaring cataracts, but by the belt of beautiful verdure and fragrant blossom they create on every side.

Behold the unity of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ-one rock to Israel, and many streams-one Rock to us, and many means to convey it. That is the best church, that reveals to you the living water, and adds the least of its own presbytery, or episcopacy, or congregationalism, or other taint. Without this stream the world would indeed be desolate. Wherever it is, there is the pledge of immortality; and the experiment is being made in our own most favoured land whether a Christian nation may not live for ever. National wealth corrupts; political sagacity often fails; the troops of Xerxes and the phalanxes of Macedon, the legions of Rome and the battalions of Napoleon, where are they? History answers the question. Babylon is defined by its ruins; Rome is degraded; Athens is a village, and Tyre is a dry rock on which fishermen bleach their nets; Napoleon died in exile. It remains to be seen whether an open Bible, and the fear of God, can preserve a nation.

CHAPTER X. 16, 17.

THE CUP OF BLESSING.

"THE cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we åre all partakers of that one bread."

The apostle uses these words as a dissuasive from mingling with the sins of the idolaters of this present world; and he shows that, by partaking of the privilege of access to a Communion-table, we pledge ourselves not to join in any equivocal or criminal indulgences. He shows the dignity of that festival to which Christians are admitted by saying, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” "The cup of blessing," or which commemorates and is the pledge of blessings. What entire extinction in these words, as already hinted, is there to a sacerdotal benediction, or a priestly act at the Communion-table! He does not say, "the cup which I bless;" but "the cup which we," the Corinthians, "bless." But does not this do away with all idea of a minister? Not at all. The minister acts for order, and he acts by divine commission. It is his office to

bless the communion elements; but he does so, not as a sacrificing priest, but merely as a presbyter, or bishop, or ambassador of Christ. He is merely, as Justin Martyr calls him, "the president among the brethren." Christ remains the only Priest, having an intransferable priesthood, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” To show that this cannot be literal, he does not say, "The wine which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" which would have left it open to that perverted interpretation. Literality must be taken in all its force, if at all,—and here the cup would be transubstantiated into the blood of Christ, if such an interpretation were admissible at all; but if common sense is to be heard, it follows that the cup is commemorative of the blessings purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Now the believer, just as sure as he tastes that wine in the Communion cup, so sure, if he be a believer, he partakes by faith of the spiritual blessings purchased by the atoning and meritorious death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We can conceive nothing closer than what medical men call assimilation. When I eat food, it is changed into the very flesh and muscles that compose my body. Well, our Lord teaches us, in the sixth chapter of St. John, and the apostle teaches us here, that just as the wine that we drink is exhilarating refreshment, and the bread that we eat is strength and nutriment, so the blessings which Christ has bequeathed, received by faith, become the exhilarating strength and nutriment of the soul.