to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not Himself.'" Such, briefly stated, seems to be the rule which the Apostle laid down for the guidance of these Christians in Rome, and we cannot but feel that he here gives utterance to an unchanging law of Christian life, to which we are called-in this later age, and these very different circumstances to profess subjection. Let us then look at this general question of pleasing ourselves; inquiring I. IN WHAT RESPECTS WE OUGHT NOT TO SEEK TO PLEASE OURSELVES. II. IN WHAT RESPECTS, AND TO WHAT EXTENT, WE MAY SEEK TO PLEASE OURSELVES. themselves. It is a fact which they make no secret of, upon which they seek to throw no disguise. They have no loftier aim, no worthier ambition. They seem to think that the great end of existence is answered, if they can but do as they like-do as they please. All the circumstances of life are ordered, all the relations of life determined with a view to one end-that they may please themselves. In their selfish endeavour to secure this result, they never pause to consider the feelings or scruples, the interests or rights of others; they never pause to inquire what in all this may be the pleasure of God. It is enough if they can but please themselves. There are others who seek the same end, but in a more indirect and circuitous way. They are menpleasers. They seem sedulously to court the approval, and care I. Our first inquiry is, IN WHAT fully to consult the feelings and RESPECTS OUGHT WE NOT TO SEEK TO PLEASE OURSELVES ? With whatever limitations we may understand the prohibition,and there are some necessary limitations to be observed,-we cannot but gather from the teaching of the Apostle, and, indeed, from the general tenor of Scripture, that in certain respects we ought not to seek, we ought not even to desire to please ourselves. The principle which is here laid down differs very widely from that which is ordinarily recognized among many. We have a complete inversion of the commonly prevailing opinion. There are many who are always, and avowedly, seeking to please wishes of others in whatever they do. But in all this professed regard for others, we can distinguish a selfish purpose; such meanthough they do not distinctly avow their intention-sooner or later to please themselves. Without descending to the consideration of minute details, let us note a few particular cases in which we should not seek to please ourselves. We ought not to seek, we ought not to desire to please ourselves in any instance in which selfgratification would be inconsistent with the will-the Word-the honour of God. With a presumptuous disregard of Divine authority, Satan and the rebel angels sought to please themselves, and the result was their ignominious ejection from the courts of heaven. Our first parents sought to please themselves, setting at nought the express prohibition of their Maker; and we know how they not only ruined themselves, but entailed upon their descendants a their descendants a sad inheritance of woe. From that time to this, men have been seeking to please themselves, and in doing so have despised the rule, and defied the authority of heaven. The drunkard is seeking to please himself by means of brutal excess; the voluptuary by criminal indulgence; the ambitious man by climbing some dizzy height of popular distinction; the covetous man by accumulating around himself heaps of perishable treasure; the worldling by surrounding himself with the gaieties and excitements of socalled "life." With no reference to God, perhaps with an openly expressed defiance of Him,-such are seeking to please themselves in a way that they ought not, the result being disappointment here, and not unfrequently, it is to be feared, perdition hereafter. We ought not to seek to please ourselves, when the self-gratification towards which we reach is inconsistent with the claims of our higher-our spiritual nature. We will not now speak of those grosser forms of self-indulgence, which are manifestly inconsistent with the very idea of a moral and religious life, and which are exposed to the opprobrium of men, as well as the condemnation of God. Besides these, there are certain reputable modes of life, against the ordinary, if not the inevitable influence of which we should be sedulously on our guard. Take, as an example, the common ambition of becoming rich. How many are there, the great object of whose life is to accumulate! They do nothing which exposes them to the censure of their fellow men,-indeed, their love of money is accounted a virtue rather than a vice. There is no more reputable occupation in this world than money-getting. Every one speaks well of a man if he only prosper in this respect. Yet how many are there, who, in their eagerness to appropriate the wealth of this world, wrong their own souls! We know that the possession of great wealth may consist with the manifestation of a high-toned piety. We have had some conspicuous examples of this; but they have been few and far between. God's people, as a rule, have not been distinguished by the possession of worldly wealth. They have been the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. From more than one declaration of our Saviour we gather that the rich experience special difficulties in maintaining a religious life; and we are told by the apostle that "they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." A man who proposes to please himself in this direction,-who makes up his mind to get rich,may succeed in acquiring wealth, but his very success will be associated with disappointment and loss, he will pierce himself through with many sorrows. They do not well who, in seeking to please themselves, do not look beyond or above mere selfgratification. Their lives may be outwardly of the most decent and reputable kind. There is nothing to violate the ordinary sense of propriety. The great blot is selfishness. The one aim is to secure as large an amount as possible of personal ease, comfort, enjoyment, -- there is no thought which travels beyond these things. They are "lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God"; "they mind earthly things." It is sad to think how many there are who live, having no nobler ambition than to please themselves, who can look over a long and materially prosperous career without being able to point to one single thing which was done with the intention of serving men or glorifying God. No one ought thus to seek to please himself. We are not to please ourselves at the expense of others. We are not to please ourselves where we run the risk of making others suffer loss. The reference here, of course, is a special one-to the relations we sustain to Christian brethren within the Church. We feel that we have a perfect right to do a certain thing; we could do it without any scruple, without any misgiving, without suffering any loss; and even, it is possible, with some advantage to ourselves; but there are others who not only could not do that thing themselves, but they are so weak that they could not see us do it without becoming unsettled in mind and faith. Well, what, under such circumstances, is our duty? We are not to please ourselves, but to please our weaker brethren for their good to edification. We have here, however, not only a special reference, but the statement of a general principle which admits of universal application, a principle which reverses the world's judgment, and condemns the world's practice. In the world the rule is, with certain necessary limitations,-Let every one please himself. When we come to the Gospel we meet with a higher rule of life: we are not to please ourselves, but others,our neighbour, our brother-and in doing this we are to seek to please God. This duty we have commended to us by the example of Christ, who pleased not Himself. If anyone had a right to please himself it was Christ; if anyone were able to please himself it was Christ. Yet even Christ pleased not Himself. He came not to do His own will, but the will of His Father, who bore this testimony concerning Him: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." In all that Christ did He considered us. Throughout the whole of His earthly ministry we never see Him seeking to please Himself. He went about doing good; He lived among men as one that served, and that He might render to us the most effectual of all services, He did not shrink from the pain and shame of the cross. In all this He has left us an example that we should follow in His steps. The great thing for us is to cultivate an unselfish, Christ-like spirit, not pleasing ourselves, but seeking to please others, and so to please God. If, If, in trying to please others, we keep well before us the example of Christ, we shall learn the important lesson that we are not to seek to please others, where this can only be done by weak or sinful compliance. The rule is a plain one: "Let everyone of us please his neighbour for his good to edification." If we remember this rule, we shall not, in our intercourse with men, conform our practice to that of some foolish parents, who are so intent on pleasing their children that they spoil them. II. Our next inquiry is this: IN WHAT RESPECTS, AND TO WHAT EXTENT MAY WE PLEASE OURSELVES? As it is evident that there are certain forms of selfgratification which we should not even seek to realize, so it is plain there are others which we may quite legitimately desire and aim at. When we are taught that we should not please ourselves, it means that we should not do so in neglect or defiance of God's will-that we should not do so where self-gratification involves the subordination and depression of our higher and better naturethat we should not do so where our pleasure is to be obtained at the cost of another's pain or loss. We are nowhere taught in Scripture that in an ascetic spirit, we are to deny ourselves all pleasure in life, that we are scrupulously to abstain from whatever can afford us gratification. "Religion never was designed Religion teaches us that the truest truest self-gratification is that which comes to us not as the result of self-seeking, but as associated with a self-denying attempt to please and serve others, and so to please and serve God. The cry of the world is, Whom should we seek to please, if not ourselves? The utterance of Divine wisdom is, Seek to please others seek to please God, and then you will please yourselves without seeking. Without self-denial no man can attain to self-gratification; and it may be boldly and broadly affirmed that no one ever yet pleased himself, who did not please God first. One of the lying sophistries of Satan is, that religion lays its ban on pleasure; whereas it only calls us off from the false, delusive, disappointing pleasures of sin and worldliness, and urges us to seek after true blessedness, and to seek after it in the right way. We see men blindly groping about the world for what they cannot find; we hear them uttering the old, plaintive, almost despairing cry, "Who will show us any good?" We need not ask who they are that thus speak. They may be rich and noble, having all the material of enjoyment at their disposal-wealth, and all that wealth can purchase -power, and all the obsequious attendance that power can command; or they may be at the other extremity of the social scale. But, however they differ in other respects, they agree in this-they are dissatisfied-they have not what they want-they have not succeeded in pleasing themselves -they, with all their getting, have not what can be rightly spoken of as good, The Gospel comes to men who are thus vainly attempting to please themselves, and not only tells them that they should not do this, but convinces them that they cannot. This conviction is the commencement of a better life. As long as anyone believes that earth will afford what he wants, he will never look to heaven. Man will never cease from his unavailing labour of hewing out for himself broken cisterns, till he is convinced that they will hold no water. So long as anyone indulges the fancy that he can please himself-so long will he try to do so. The very first work of God's grace, then, is to convince the sinner that this is impossible, and that same grace teaches us that the rest, the peace, the pleasure, which have been vainly sought elsewhere, are to be found in Christ. Let anyone seek to please himself-walking according to the desires and imaginations of his own heart, the result will be certainly disappointment, perhaps death. Let anyone, in God's own way, try to please God, and he will please himself without trying. LET US THEN "NOT PLEASE OURSELVES. LET EVERY ONE OF US PLEASE HIS NEIGHBOUR, FOR HIS GOOD TO EDIFICATION. FOR EVEN CHRIST PLEASED NOT HIMSELF.” The Early Christians of the Black Sea. [ANY of our readers have a vivid MAN recollection of the Crimean war-of "the Alma," "Balaclava," "Inkermann," and the strong "Sebastopol;" but not so many of them are aware that the neighbourhood of the Crimea connects itself with the New Testament and the early annals of the Christian Church. The destruction of the Turkish fleet at Sinope was one of the causes of the Russian war, and Sinope is in the district, (or near to it,) of which we wish to speak-namely, the southern shores of the Black Sea. In the Acts of the Apostles, ii. 9, "PONTUS" is spoken of; from which some of the devout Jews" had come to Jerusalem, and witnessed the wonders of the day of 66 Pentecost. "Pontus" was a portion of the southern shores of the Euxine, or Black Sea, and was so called from its situation, "pontus" being one of the Greek words for sea. We learn from Acts xviii. 2, that the good Aquila, the devoted friend of Apollos and St. Paul, was "born in Pontus." Not much is known concerning its ancient condition. "The one great brilliant passage of its history is the life of the great Mithridates; but this is also the period of its coming under. the sway of Rome. Mithridates was defeated by Pompey, and the western part of his dominions was incorporated with the province of Bythinia, while the rest was divided for a considerable time among |