Morality Without Religion.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have to run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.-LONGFELLOW.

Christ's Religion Pleasant and Right.

That may be right which is not pleasant, and that pleasant which is not right; but Christ's religion is both. There is not only peace in the end of religion, but peace in the way.-MATTHEW HENRY.

THE SABBATH.

How Still and Calm!

How still and calm the day! How still and calm
My heart, that lately throbbed with wrath or pain!
The week's wild tumult is a psalm

Borne faintly to us from some distant fane.

And from the glory of this silent hour

Confusion flies, like Satan and the night.

Strong truths stand forth, clothed with seraphic power, While cowering baseness seeks to shun the light.

See noble purpose, clouded until now,

Shine with the flame of Bethlehem's great star; And prophets, smiling, point us to the brow

Whose whiteness wreaths and glories can not mar.

From the still height of this serenest day
I trace life's motions with a clearer eye;
Men's deeds and lives are only God's highway,
Which leads into His glory by and by.

Gov. GREENHALGE.

The Glory of the Sabbath.

Nothing draws along with it such a glory as the Sal bath. Never has it unfolded without some witness an] welcome, some song and salutation. It has been the coronation day of martyrs-the first day of saints. I has been, from the first day till now, the sublime day oʻ the Church of God; still the outgoing of its morning an‹ evening rejoice. Let us, then, remember the Sabbatl day to keep it holy.-JAMES HAMILTON.

SACRIFICE.

The Duty of Self-Sacrifice.

There are some very good, self-sacrificing people who seem to want to go to Heaven alone. They, of course, ? do not talk that way; but that is what their conduct of life means. For some it is far easier to walk the thorny path of self-denial than it is to lead others to walk therein, yet the latter is fully as much a duty as the former. No one has any right to a monopoly of doing good. Self-sacrifice can not be taught by the force of example alone. Witness the wretchedly selfish children of

many most self-sacrificing mothers. Therefore, the strong ones in the Christ life must not only show forth the great pattern in their own actions, but patiently, step by step, they must lead the weaker ones to find out for then selves by actual experience that it is more blessed to give than to receive," and that he that loseth his life shall find it."

Older brothers and sisters must, then, often deny themselves the privilege of self-denial, and, what is really more of a tax, help the younger ones first to help themselves and then to help others.-J. R. MILLER.

Sacrifice a Law of Life.

Life evermore is fed by death
In earth and sea and sky;

And that a rose may breathe its breath,
Something must die.

The milk-white heifer's life must pass
That it may feed our own,

As passed the sweet life of the grass
She fed upon.

J. G. HOLLAND.

SALVATION.

The Place of Safety.

My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of death, of sin and of judgment need never trouble us -the only safe spot on earth where the sinner can stand -Calvary. Out in our Western country, in the Autumn, when men go hunting and there has not been rain for many months, sometimes the prairie grass catches fire. Sometimes, when the wind is strong, the flames may be seen rolling along, twenty feet high, destroying man and beast in their onward rush. When the frontiersmen see what is coming, what do they do to escape? They know they can not run as fast as the fire can run. Not the fleetest horse can escape it. The flames sweep onward; they take their stand in the burnt district, and are safe. They hear the flames roar as they come along; they see Death bearing down upon them with resistless fury; but they do not fear. They do not tremble as the ocean of flame surges around them, for over the place where they stand the fire has already passed, and there is no danger. There is nothing for fire to burn. And there is one spot on earth that God has swept over. Eighteen hundred years ago the storm burst on Calvary; the Son of God took it into His own bosom, and now, if we take our stand by the Cross, we are safe for time and eternity.MOODY.

Saved by Substitution.

Substitution! Oh, let me ring it out!

"For me!"

was bound to ring in his ears with every gurgling of that lapping blood. That, again, is the heart of the heart of salvation, for you and for me. There is a Savior as innocent as that white, gentle, bleating, spotless lamb. See the father as he takes the lamb in his hand. Listen to its helpless bleating, and just think of all the ideas of meekness and yielding innocence that flashed upon the mind; and again, I say, if you think of the Israelitish father killing it, not simply with his knife and with his hand, but with mind and heart and imagination working behind those outward instruments, surely there flashed upon his soul: "Life for life. If I am to go free, this innocent thing has to part with its very life's blood." I know that, in the pride and wisdom of the world, this is bitterly denounced. I am told in this very day this way of salvation by atonement, by substitution of a sinless one for sinful you and me, is a gory thing-that it is a ghastly thing that it is a religion of the shambles. God help men who talk in such a way of Heaven's best device for saving sinful men-Heaven's only device, Heaven's best, Heaven's last, Heaven's utmost of mind and heart to save sinful, guilty, damned you and me from the impending doom. Ah, it flashed on Him surely: "For me! For me!" And that is the Gospel. 66 'He loved me, and gave Himself for me-for me!" He gave Himself a ransom for men-for me, I trust, among the rest. Not with the blood of bulls, goats, heifers, lambs and rams, but by the precious blood of Christ as a lamb