even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star." May our works be so done in truth and righteousness, that He who alone is able to know and judge them, may see fit to bestow upon us in that day His own divine approval and His own eternal recompense!

XI.

Do Loitering in the Christian Journqq.

"Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God... He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before His angels.”—REV. iii. 2, 5.

N the messages of the Spirit to the Seven Churches of Asia there is a common feature that we may observe. They all contain three distinct clauses, consisting of a retrospect, a command, sometimes combined with a warning, and a promise. In the retrospect are reviewed the state and position of the infant church, the faithfulness or unfaithfulness of its members, followed by a few words as to its future prospects. In the command is urged stedfastness and zeal, or, in the case of a lapsed church, repentance and a new life; while the promise holds out encouragement and a sure reward to those who are faithful to the end.

We may notice this division in the message before us to the Church at Sardis. The retrospect in this instance discloses to us a lamentable state of things. In a few concise but graphic words we are told by that Spirit, who knew her works, that though she had a name for living, she was dead. Truly a mournful picture do these words present: the picture of a church, outwardly full of life, yet spiritually, and in God's sight, dead, (a picture only to be equalled for sadness in a believer's eyes by one other, and that is, the individual heart in the same state). The Church of Sardis had become, like the Pharisees, whom our Lord, with biting irony, and all the more biting because deserved, had once described as being "like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness," careless, unfaithful, unwatchful, formal, dead. And to add to her criminality, these vital failings, usually the accompaniments of tottering and decrepit old age, are those of a church as yet in its infancy. The lamp that has scarcely been lighted is ready to die out. The life of the tender plant is being eaten away by the canker-worm of spiritual corruption and decay.

And yet amid the surrounding gloom of this saddening picture, one tiny ray of sunshine breaks through the dark clouds. "Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments." Yes, " even in Sardis," poor, formal, faithless, dying Sardis, we find a band, small, but pure, of those who have escaped the general defilement. And to them. comes the loving message, "They shall walk with me

in white for they are worthy." But stern and uncompromising is the command addressed to the rest of that decaying church, "Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain." Solemn too is the warning, "If thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief." But the God who commands and the God who warns is also the God who blesses, and He cannot close His message without a word of promise and encouragement, and therefore He adds the parting words, "He that overcometh," says the Spirit, "the same shall be clothed with white raiment."

Brethren, these messages to the angels of the Churches are full of instruction and consolation to every true believer; yes, and even to those outside the fold of the Redeemer. May God enable us to profit by them, and to gather the lessons that He would have us learn therefrom.

And as we seek to probe the depths of our own hearts, and examine our lives by the light of God's word, let us take up the prayer of the psalmist: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wieked way in me;" and then let us seek for divine grace, with renewed hearts and wills, to obey God's commands in the future, so that at length we may be inheritors of the promised reward.

The Church of Sardis was in a state of great danger. Her very life was threatened by two deadly enemies from within-the enemy of decay, that was eating away her soul, and the enemy of unwatchfulness, that was sapping her vital energies. And the danger was a critical one; for what disease is more to

be dreaded than that which insidiously and insensibly wastes away the body, and with stealthy but rapid strides drains the life-blood from the veins? And it came too at a critical time, just when strength and vigour and earnestness were most needed. And what rendered the danger even more critical still was that the patient was unconscious, totally oblivious of the disease. It seemed as though mortification had set in, and as if nothing short of a miracle could arrest the progress of the malady. And yet the warning voice is heard, with its message of encouragement, and even of hope: "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die." History tells us of many a church, once flourishing and full of life, whose career corresponds with that of her Sardian sister, and whose destruction was brought about by those very causes that threatened her. The cancer, if once it gets a hold upon one part of the system, will soon eat away the very life. And so, if deadness or unwatchfulness have once crept into a church, the danger is a very great one that the disease will run its course, and prove fatal. Let us therefore take warning from the past, let us be on our guard against slothfulness and unfaithfulness in any form, “lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety, so our minds should be corrupted from the simplicity," the light, and the life "that is in Christ." Let us be watchful.

Nor is it only in the case of a community of Christians that this most vital danger is to be dreaded, but even more so in the case of the individual. Insensibility proves the ruin of many thousands of