Finally, let us deduce motives for consolation under the pressure of sorrow, and for the limitation of our wishes to the necessary subsistence of life, from "a greater than Solomon." Who was it that stooped to a manger and a cross? Who fasted forty days and forty nights in the desert, refusing to employ his power in furnishing a miraculous table? Who had not "where to lay his head?" Who lived on the scanty fare of a small purse in common with the family of his disciples? Who withdrew from the entertainments of Jerusalem to the humble cottage of Mary and Martha, cheerfully subsisting on the most homely and casual provision?--HE, who has taught us to limit our desires of temporal good within the narrow circle of _one short_ request--"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD." Sapphira. Chapter IX. Mixed Constitution of the Church of Christ--benevolent Spirit of the primitive Believers at Jerusalem--Anxiety of Ananias and Sapphira to appear as zealous and liberal as others--Ananias repairs to the Apostles to deposit the price of his Possessions--is detected in Deception and dies--similar Deceit and Death of Sapphira--Nature and Progress of Apostasy--peculiar Guilt of Sapphira--Agency of Satan distinctly marked--diabolical influence ascertained--consolatory Sentiments suggested to Christians. "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.... The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil." This parable, so descriptive of the mixed constitution of the church of Christ, from the primitive times down to the present age, is strikingly exemplified in the history of Ananias and Sapphira. These were some of the first tares that appeared in the apostolic field of labour; and we should feel grateful that their names and characters are transmitted to us upon whom the ends of the world are come, for the purpose of salutary warning. Their singular atrocity was but a more full development of the very same evil principles that exist in embryo in the hearts of mankind in general; and their signal and immediate punishment, which was some deviation from the more ordinary methods of Providence, which permits the tares and the wheat to grow together till the harvest or "end of the world," was, under all the circumstances, a necessary expression of divine displeasure.