gain is it to please the world, to please the great, nay, even to please those whom we love, compared with this? What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed, compared with this one aim, of not being disobedient to a heavenly vision? What can this world offer comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith, that heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting righteousness, that hope of glory, which they have who in sincerity love and follow our Lord Jesus Christ? Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully, to quicken our senses; to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the world to come, so to work within us that we may sincerely say, "Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee: my flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." [1] Acts ix. 6. [2] Rom. viii. 29. [3] Acts xxii. 10. [4] Matt. iv. 18-20. [5] Matt. xix. 21, 22. [6] Matt. iv. 18. [7] Matt. ix. 9. [8] Mark 11. 14. [9] Matt. xx. 6, 7. [10] Luke ix. 59-62. [11] Gen. xii. 1. [12] John xxi. 7. [13] Hosea vi. 3. SERMON III. The Trial of Saul. "_And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering._"--1 Samuel xiii. 9. We are all on our trial. Every one who lives is on his trial, whether he will serve God or not. And we read in Scripture of many instances of the trials upon which Almighty God puts us His creatures. In the beginning, Adam, when he was first created, was put upon his trial. He was placed in a beautiful garden, he had every thing given him for his pleasure and comfort; he was created innocent and upright, and he had the great gift of the Holy Spirit given him to enable him to please God, and to attain to heaven. One thing alone he was forbidden--to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; this was his trial. If he did not eat of the fruit, he was to live, if he did, he was to die. Alas, he did eat of the fruit, and he did die. He was tried and found wanting; he fell; such was the end of _his_ trial. Many other trials, besides Adam's, are recorded in Scripture, and that for our warning and instruction, that we may be reminded that we too are on trial, that we may be encouraged by the examples of those who have stood their trial well and not fallen, and may be sobered and put on our guard by the instances of others who have fallen under their trial. Of these latter cases, Saul is one. Saul, of whom we have been reading in the course of this service[1], is an instance of a man whom God blessed and proved, as Adam before him, whom He put on his trial, and who, like Adam, was found wanting.