more important difference. Socrates used to make the distinction between good men and bad consist not so much in their natural dispositions as in the direction in which they were making progress; namely, whether they were moving towards goodness or badness, whether they were becoming worse or better than themselves. Many shallow thinkers among us might in so far take a lesson from the heathen philosopher, defective though his knowledge was of the exceeding holiness of God's law, and of his need as a sinner of a higher righteousness than

his own.

Evidently natural temper does predispose men to particular sins and to particular virtues. Some men are constitutionally passionate, or proud, or sensual, or avaricious, or envious, or lying, or irreverent, or selfish; while others are constitutionally meek, or modest, or truthful, or contented, or sober, or kind, or liberal, or reverent. Now if we look at the subject superficially, it may puzzle us to say why we regard men as deserving of blame for those vicious tendencies, or of praise for those virtuous ones,-both being gifts of nature, like the dispositions of dogs, cats, lambs, and serpents. If we do in fact dislike persons in whom the former dispositions predominate and censure the acts they commit under their influence, while we like those who possess the latter and commend the actions they perform, the fact proves little; for we like even dogs and lambs because of their dispositions, and dislike tigers and serpents because of theirs. But then we do not attach moral blame or praise to the actions of those beasts, because we do not imagine it to be their duty, or to be possible for them, to judge themselves, and to improve themselves. We teach the dog for our own pleasure; we do not expect him to aim at doing this

for himself. Not so with man. Endowed with conscience, and with the capability of knowing God and God's salvation, he is bound to make it the aim of his life to be holy, and to become holier day by day. And between the man whose aim this is, and who is daily moving in this direction, and the man who is not, the difference is essential. This difference is of a wholly different kind from that between natural dispositions. This controls and governs those, lying wholly above them. Accordingly the Scriptures

teach us that it is a difference due not to nature, but to grace. It is characteristic of that new birth which our Saviour tells us is necessary in order to our seeing the kingdom of heaven.

We draw two practical conclusions. No man may trust in his natural good dispositions for acceptance with God or meetness for heaven. There is no merit

in them. There is no real holiness in them. They cannot blot out sin that has been committed; they cannot fit for communion with the Holy God. The blood of God's Son alone can do the former; the Holy Spirit alone can do the latter.

Secondly, Badness of natural temper and disposi

tion does not prove that a man has no grace, though habitual indulgence of such tempers and dispositions gives too much reason to fear that he has not. Let neither believers nor unbelievers confound the cases of those who are living according to their own nature fulfilling willingly the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and of those who are sorely beset with temptations to sins of temper and disposition, but who by grace are earnestly striving day by day to overcome those evil things; who are mourning in secret places over the outbreaks of them; who are fleeing to the mercy-seat both for pardon on account of them and for safety from them; and whose purpose it is never to give over until sinful nature be thoroughly transformed, by Divine power, into the very image of the Holy Son of God. "We ourselves also," says the holy apostle Paul, "were sometime foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another; but after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared,not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Tit. iii. 3–7).

THE SUNFLOWER.

"The Sun of Righteousness (shall) arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall" (Mal. iv. 2).

I LOVE the Sunflower. See his golden dish
Ever turned upwards to his rightful lord;
He seeks not earth, nor welcoming from man,
But faithful follows ever where he leads:
I too would be a sunflower
Waiting on my Sun,

To catch each glorious beam He sends,
And make it all my own.

The day is fair, the sun reigns up on high:
I see thee looking up, in gladness bright;
Thy colour like the glory of thy lord;
For he hath steeped thee in his golden beams:
Thy form too is like his, heaven's rounded arch
Without a break, thy circle all complete.
Yes! I would be a sunflower,
A copy of my Sun,

Looking to Him for daily power
Until my work is done.
The day is dark, the sunflower looks in vain
For his dear lord; will he forsake his watch?
Ah! no! he cannot turn to earth for joy;
But waiteth still, ready to welcome him
Reveals him to his longing, earnest gaze.
When the first rift that opens in the clouds

Make me then like the sunflower,
Rejoicing when He's near,
And keeping ever holy watch
Against He shall appear.

Methinks man loves thee not, passes thee by,
Not looking where thou point'st; but, stopping short
At thee the pointer, thinks the teacher vain,
And heedeth not the moral thou couldst show.
Dost thou not love the sunflower? Dost thou deem'
Him gaudy, perhaps vulgar; only fit

For cottage homes-where dwell the poor-God's

poor

Whom He hath "chosen" to be "rich in faith?"
He does not ask thy seeking: yet take note
Of him the seeker, seeker in the heavens,
Desiring not the gaze of the low earth.
Yet he too has a beauty all his own,

If thou wouldst search,-a multiple of wealth,
A miracle of marvellous beauty, traced
Within the circlet of that golden fringe
Of sun-like petals, framing its full dish.
Rise up and see! he will not bend to you:
Look at God's pencillings graven on his heart,
Within that soft, white bosom; canst thou read?
Perhaps not yet: but God can make it plain;
For He has language He alone can teach.
His light is not yet here, in its full strength,
That when He cometh shall make all things clear.
Yes! I would be a sunflower
Looking for my Lord;

Watching each day till IIe shall come,
And waiting on His word.

Note! how the sunflower treasures up the beams
For which he keeps untiring watch; then mark
How he transmits those healthful beams to earth,
Thus purifying all the air around

From noisome vapours. God thus gives to him
A healing power in sickness, and to all
Who know his virtues he has power to bless.
Then! make me like the sunflower,
Rejoicing in my Sun!

Transmitting thus each precious ray,
And ripening still from day to day,
Until my work be done.

I see this messenger from God to earth,
Making her all the richer while he seeks
No praise from man, but turns his upward gaze
Ever above: in loving stewardship

He takes, then gives, and fills his mission here.
I love the upturned sunflower
Watching in patience still:

"He that believeth makes no haste,"
But trusts the perfect Will.

grapher, "to find, that as soon as he had seen the Saviour, he desired to point Him out to others."

HOW HE BEGAN TO WORK FOR GOD.

It was about eleven months after his awakening at Dallas, in Morayshire, when he strongly felt it to be his duty to do some service for the Lord. For two months before this, he had shut himself up in his own room, reading the Bible and praying. He then said to himself that he must do something for God, but felt that he could not. Might he not at least distribute tracts? To do so would make him ridiculous: but at last he resolved to try in the most secluded part of Elgin (in which he was now living). The first person he met with was an old woman, who amazed him by accepting his tract without laughing at him. To another he presented one, and she received it with thanks. The third he gave to a policeman, who said, "Thank you, Mr. North." Sometimes indeed, as in a district in the West Highlands, where he had resided a considerable time and done much evil before his conversion (the sincerity of which was probably doubted), the people avoided him and his tracts. He bore this with humility, as a cross which he deserved to have laid on him. But he was not discouraged; he systematically continued this work through life.

By and by he began to visit among the sick and poor. He would sit down perhaps on a little stool by the unlit fire of some wretched old body who had been confined to bed for years, and amid disgusting surroundings peel oranges for her, and read and pray with her. "The flesh said, 'Do nothing of the sort;' but the Spirit gave me no rest till I did it." A dying Christian girl sent for him, anxious chiefly that through her he would say something to her father, a bad man. After several visits, the father became reformed, and careless persons who had been present were so interested that they returned whenever Mr. North visited the house. Soon the neighbours crowded the room. Then he addressed a little gathering of shoemakers; by and by he found himself holding a cottage meeting every evening of the week; and soon after, he was invited to speak in barns and lofts-case after case of spiritual impression on his hearers coming meanwhile under his notice. About the same time he received another striking proof of his call to engage in such work, in the success which attended an open-air address of his, in London, to roughs who had shouted and cursed down a speaker before him.

HOW HE BEGAN TO PREACH.

In the following year, 1856, eighteen months after his conversion, he found himself literally impressed into the work of preaching. It was in a church in that very parish of Dallas, where he had for years lived an evil life. The people were much struck by the evidence of the great change which had taken place in him, and were moved by his rousing calls to flee from the wrath to come. So he was asked to preach again on the following Sabbath, and now people from other parishes crowded to hear him. He was then invited to give an address in the town of Forres. "I have done all the harm I could in Scotland," he said; "and I intend to remain here, and do all the good I can." And, says his

biographer, his heavenly Father made him useful to many of those very persons to whom of old his influence had been baneful; one of whom, at least, praised God, on the bed of death, not only for having saved her, but for having done so through the instrumentality of one whose influence with her had formerly been all for evil. Yet the known fact of his previous evil life awakened bitter opposition in some persons to his evangelistic efforts. "How dare you," were the concluding words of a note put into his hands before one of his addresses, "how dare you, being conscious of the truth of all the above [instances of bad conduct], pray and speak to the people this evening when you are such a vile sinner?" He produced the letter and informed the people of its contents, adding, "It is all true; and how wonderful must be the grace that should quicken me, and make me a vessel of mercy! It is of Christ's redeeming love that I have now to tell you, and to entreat any here who are not yet reconciled to God to come this night in faith to Jesus, that He may take their sins away, and heal them." The people were deeply impressed, and thus the intended hinderance was overruled for good. "Why should you wonder at the change in me?" he said to an old acquaintance, now a minister; why should HE not lift the vile thing out of the dunghill?""My friends, you all know me," he said on standing up to address a large audience at Huntly Lodge, the residence of the Duchess of Gordon: "you know how I have lived in other days, but God-." Here he had to sit down, overcome with emotion. He twice again tried to speak, but failed; he however led in prayer, thanking God for His wonderful mercy to all, and especially to himself.

66

HOW HE PREACHED.

The striking contrast of Mr. North's present work to the pursuits of his youth and manhood, of itself, attracted notice to his preaching. There was much besides that contributed to do so. The expression of his face, which before his conversion wore the stamp of his sinful life, was strikingly changed now. His personal appearance in public was grave and dignified; there was "intellect in his brow, genius in his eyes, and eloquence in his mouth." For hours before ascending the platform or pulpit, he used to be weighed down under a sense of the responsibility of addressing sinners in the name of the Saviour. He began with a low faltering voice; but before he got half through the opening prayer, his breast began to heave with a convulsive sobbing, his whole frame was agitated, and the tears streamed over his cheeks. His manner of address showed a man thoroughly in earnest, and full of the deepest compassion for the perishing. And the Holy Ghost was with him. "It was all so tremendously real and present," said a hearer, "I felt as if I had never believed before that the Son of God really came down and died for sinners."

His addresses were carefully studied, but not written out, far less committed to memory. He chiefly addressed himself to the unconverted, whether openly godless or self-righteous, and to slumbering Christians; speaking to these as solemnly as he would have done to people who never said their prayers or read their Bibles. Sometimes, however,

he broke out abruptly in the middle of a sentence, with a radiant smile, to state the happy conviction that some souls were being saved, and to ask the prayer of the congregation for himself, that he might be supported in the extraordinary position in which he found himself.

WHAT HE PREACHED.

"Mr. North," said the late erudite scholar, profound divine and experienced Christian, Professor John Duncan of Edinburgh, “you are an untrained theologue." "Very untrained," was the reply. You mistake me, sir," was Dr. Duncan's rejoinder; “I laid the emphasis not on "untrained," but on "theologue."

He was a doctrinal preacher, very much confining himself to the leading landmarks of theology. GOD IS, were two words which he used to announce with most solemn emphasis, as the first great doctrine to be not only believed but realized. He regarded atheism as the capital sin, and brought the charge of it home with convincing power to many who had thought themselves far removed from it; showing them that they were "fools" in God's sight, and would one day be exposed as fools in the sight of the universe. The corollary from this was,—God is here beside me, and sees me, and hears me. His own sense of the divine presence was so manifest, that many persons who entered church in thoughtlessness felt themselves sisted before God. God present as a personal Saviour, was the next thought. He illustrated this from his own conversion: "I took the answer to my prayer from what He said, who was in the room with me; and I rejoiced in a pardon according to His word." The Bible the word of the living God:-this was the fountain of his theology, as of his inward life. Not merely God has spoken, but God speaks, giving in His word of revelation the direct answer to our petitions. Hence to anxious inquirers his undeviating counsel was, "Go home and read your Bible." It was his own constant companion and counsellor, his study all the day, and to a large extent his library. The immortality of the human soul was constantly on his lips. Many an audience was startled by his saying sharply, "I can tell you to a minute how long your life is to be; it is to be as long as the life of God." He opened up to his hearers, amid silence frequently such that you might have heard a pin fall on the floor, the vista of their eternal existence in holiness and blessedness, or in corruption and misery; warning them against resisting their impressions, so as to grieve and quench the Holy Ghost. For, he said, "I believe the sin against the Holy Ghost is grieving the Spirit once too often." He preached the utter depravity of man's nature since the fall, the necessity of a new birth of the Holy Ghost in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, and the unprofitableness of all works done before this for our salvation. He preached Christ dying as the representative of His covenant people. Yet his decided stand on these "Calvinistic" doctrines did not in the least fetter him in saying, "Pray for the Spirit: He is promised to all who ask;" or in making the fullest and freest offer of Christ's sacrifice to every sinner "Christ," he said, "died that He may have the gift of His death to give to every lost sinner who will accept it from Him." Accordingly he preached Justification by faith, very clearly; and not merely as against a doctrine

of righteousness by works that lingered in some places, but as against a tendency, even under evangelical preaching, to look for marks of grace as grounds of acceptance, instead of looking simply to the Cross;-some, who "know indeed that the Cross, with its great sin-atoning sacrifice, is the only ground. of reconciliation with the God they have offended, not knowing that the sole instrument of justification is faith, and in no case feeling, or sensibility, or emotion." His biographer considers, indeed, that the lack of the emotional [experiential?] element was a defect in his teaching, which was addressed more to the understanding than to the sympathies; yet that he did inestimable service to many, in leading them away from unhealthy introspection to a simple looking to the crucified Saviour. In a word, not to enumerate other points, he was a vivid, earnest, practical preacher of the general body of doctrine known as evangelical Calvinism.

HIS SUCCESS.

Thus preaching from the study of God's word and his own experience, his success was wonderful. By and by it attracted the notice of the most eminent persons in the Church of Christ in Scotland, so that pulpits were opened to him in the principal cities. And in May of the year 1859, the unexampled honour was accorded him of formal recognition, as an Evangelist, from the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, then met in Edinburgh. In the north and in the south of Scotland, in the north of Ireland, to some extent also in England, his public services continued to be called for; and he became the instrument not merely of the conversion of individuals uncounted by men, but (along with other labourers and in some respects as the chief among them) of a great general awakening and revival, which, in 1859 and onwards, spread its waves over the land, and carried light and salvation to many homes and hearts. Moreover, the vividness, the reality, the direct business-like character of his addresses may be said to have introduced a new style of evangelistic preaching, and had the effect of drawing into the field many imitators, both ministers and laymen, whose labours also have had much success. Indeed the effects, direct and indirect, of his work, have been such as to leave their mark on the religion of Scotland. Though those effects will be more truly estimated perhaps by a future generation than by us, yet, we cannot doubt that the name of Brownlow North will hereafter hold an honourable and high place among the men whose labours have told permanently on the Church of Christ.

HIS CHARACTER AND DEATH.

Faultless he was not, as no man is; but those who knew him best are warmest in the expression of esteem for the sincerity and consistency of his Christian character, as well as for the delightfulness of his society and the lovingness of his disposition. He did not indeed wholly escape a danger, experienced by not a few men whose Christian labours have been extensive and much blessed, in the midst of excessive outward work and of great popularity-the danger of a temporary decline from the first intensity of love and earnestness. We have sometimes thought that such a result is in some cases due largely to the sin of the Christian people, when

His

they idolize the human instrument of much good; and is permitted to put an end to their idolatry, and to leave them alone with God and Christ. "Not as in my presence only," says Paul, "but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is GOD who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." And even the most honoured men of God need to be sent back again-with nothing to boast of, not even their success in winning souls to Christ-to be received anew by Him in their now more deeply experienced emptiness, and to draw anew and more abundantly than ever out of His fulness.

In the twenty years of labour allotted to him in the great harvest-field, he did as much as most active men do in fifty. At length the hour came when his master summoned him home to his reward. He had laboured to the end, delivering an impressive address to 600 or 700 persons on the evening, in November, 1875, before he was struck down with illness. On his death-bed he said, "I used to have a great terror of death, but that is quite gone: I have no fear of it now; I am resting on Christ." Next day, when able only to speak in whispers, he looked up into the face of a Christian friend, and said very softly, "Jesus came to me and said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee;' and up to this time he never has. But," he added, "I have been a beast." The next day he departed to be for ever with the Lord.

A friend once described Brownlow North,- and he himself laughingly quoted the description as true -as "a big man, a big woman, and a big child rolled into one." His friends describe him as, after his conversion, "a broad-hearted, large-hearted, genial, and gifted Christian man;" reverenced and loved by many as their father in Christ; and taking rank, "not merely as a successful evangelist, but as the father of evangelists in our day."

IV. IN THE LOWEST DEPTHS.

"And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him" (Luke xv. 15, 16).

We have seen the prodigal leave his home, laden with his father's bounty, and full of eager anticipation and hope. We have seen him giving full scope to his passions and appetites. He has wasted his father's substance in the pursuit of self-gratification, and we have witnessed the result-want, isolation, and misery. These things lead to another step in his downward course, and add other drops of bitterness, to his already full cup.

"He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country;" that is, he sought to hire himself. He who had been a son at home, became a servant in the strange country. How severely Providence, when she is abused, avenges herself! The citizen may