And, in the second place, we must give most careful heed to ourselves. One thing we must never forget: we are Christians, Christ's disciples, and concerning His disciples, Christ says: "Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the world." That is their distinctive property, their mission. Salt is an active principle; it works, and purifies, and diffuses its saltiness. So, too, it behooves us, by speech and pen, by example and influence, by suffrage and legislation, by every agency in our power, to set ourselves against the social sins of our land and age,--intemperance, Lord's day desecration, uncharitableness, lewdness, insubordination, which, like cancers, have fastened themselves upon the moral and religious life of our nation, and are fast destroying its vitality. We are to be a salt, a savor of moral health to all who come into contact with us, and a light, so the Savior directs. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." We had respect to the evil example of parents,--why, correspondingly, should it not make for good? We find not uncommonly that the child catches the words, nay, even the tone of voice which he has heard his father use. Will he not be still more likely to catch his other habits?--to be mild and kind, sober and industrious, if the manner and behavior of his father are marked by mildness, kindness, sobriety, and diligence? And so in all deportments. They are familiar lines, fraught with deep thought: Lives of great men all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time. Let's leave some such footprints, some stimulating, ennobling influence and example, around and behind us. These, then, are the truths presented by the text. Let them be seriously and deeply considered. May God by His grace deliver us from the bitter "woe" of having given offense, causing others to sin, and grant us wisdom and power to turn many into the right way through faith in Christ Jesus, the Savior of sinners. Amen. FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT. When I see the blood, I will pass over you.--_Exodus 12, 13._ The one grand theme, the central, all-pervading subject of the Bible, from beginning to end, is redemption by the blood of Christ. It matters not who held the pen, whether Moses in the land of Midian, or David in the mountains of Israel, or Daniel in the court of Babylon, Paul, a prisoner at Rome, or John amid the bleak rocks of the Isle of Patmos,--one golden thread runs through all their records. Just as in an orchestra the various notes and chords of the musicians' instruments express the one central idea of the composition they are rendering, so whatever chords are touched by the hands of the holy writers in God's Book, one keynote vibrates, that is, _salvation through the blood of the Lamb_.