judgment upon it and united with memory to make his present cup a bitter one. The bitterness that is always mingled with the life of the profligate becomes doubly bitter at the end. Memory throws her light upon his past, and shows him the strength, and honour, and opportunities of life squandered in licentiousness, and conscience anticipates future retribution and makes him feel the truth of the word of warning. "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge" (Heb. xiii. 4). The bitterness is increased by the reflection that the sin was committed in defiance of counsel to act differently. And thou say, "How have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof" (verse 12). Those who sin against the light of nature _only,_ find a recompense which is terrible, yet which an inspired Apostle declares to be "meet" (Rom. i. 27). The sins here mentioned are sins against nature, and nature asserts her right to punish her broken law and leave her mark upon the fornicator. But when revelation, and instruction, and good example are added to the light of nature, the cup contains ingredients of tenfold bitterness. "Whoso breaketh one hedge, a serpent shall bite him" (Eccles. x. 8). How much sharper will be the sting if a double--a threefold--hedge is broken through. +III. Sweet waters flowing from a right relationship.+ The waters are sweet or living--1. _From a consciousness that a chaste wife belongs to him alone_ (ver. 15). The profligate can lay no such claim for the woman of his choice; she is, by her own consent, common to all. The husbandman has a very different feeling concerning his own field, which he alone has a right to till, and the common land which is open to all comers. So the true husband has a feeling towards his wife to which the licentious man is an entire stranger. 2. _Because such a life is in harmony with the rights of society._ The brooks and rivers of the land cannot be pure if the springs are defiled. The social life of a nation can only be healthy while the purity of the marriage relation is maintained. God has written his doom whenever and wherever this sacred bond has been violated. The consciousness of being a blessing to the world swells the stream of satisfaction which arises from a faithful observance of this relationship. 3. _Because a true marriage is man's completion._ The sinless man in Eden felt a want until Eve was given to him, even though God had created him in His own image. How much more does man now feel the need of a "helpmeet for him," such as he finds only in a faithful wife. 4. _The waters are further sweetened by the reflection that this relationship is used to symbolise that existing between Christ and His Church._ Christ is the Head of His Church for her good. The true husband feels that he is the head of the wife for the same end. The relationship becomes doubly blessed when looked at from this point of view. _OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._