mocking around his cross. Full well he knows that the chosen race will shortly have filled up the measure of their guilt, and wrath will come upon them to the uttermost. And as the vision of their ruin rises upon the eye of his spirit, with the long ages of unparalleled tribulation and despair which must succeed the catastrophe of the beloved city, he weeps as only Infinite Compassion can weep, and laments as only an incarnate God can lament:--"Oh that thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes; for the days shall come upon thee, when thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and shall keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." In about sixty years all is fulfilled--the temple burned, the streets heaped with the dead, the plough driven over the ruins, and the hopeless remnant of a reprobate race scattered in isolated exile over the face of the earth. The curse has fallen, and "how soon is the fig-tree withered away!" And we, my brethren--shall we not take warning from the fate of the unfaithful people? "Dried up from the roots," the old Jewish tree has been torn from the soil and cast into the fire; and we--alien shoots from without the enclosure--have been transplanted into the vineyard of the Lord. Disinherited and undone, the murderers of God's Messiah are strangers and fugitives to-day over the face of the planet; but we have succeeded to their inheritance, glorified with new revelations of grace and truth. Baptized into a better covenant, with a better Mediator than Moses, we rejoice in the mercies and immunities of a better theocracy than Israel ever knew. In the midst of our camp Jehovah has pitched his tabernacle; and by the more glorious ministration of the Spirit, through the word and sacraments of an everlasting testament, he is seeking to make us fruitful in righteousness and true holiness. Brought nigh to God by adoption and regeneration, we become heirs of his kingdom and joint-heirs with his first-born--partakers of his life and expectants of his immortality. And now we have enjoyed another season of merciful visitation, and the daily services of Lent have been like vernal sun and shower to the fig-tree. Have we borne fruit, or only leaves? Has our penitential humiliation been real and effectual, or only feigned and perfunctory? Have these thirty-six days in the holy mount deepened our communion with God and intensified our love of holiness? Are we purer and wiser than we were on Ash-Wednesday--stronger to resist evil and do good--more like Christ in meekness and charity and self-denial? Be assured, my dear brethren, that your privileges bring with them a fearful responsibility. If you have received the grace of God in vain, your Lent has been a curse, and