blessing — a peaceful soul — and hereafter the happiness of heaven." For God, too, is a fisher of men and such the bait He uses, and incredible though it seems, men snatch more eagerly the painted imitation than the rich reality. Why think you is it God so often and so heavily afflicts us? Why do riders whip and spur their favorite racers? God wishes us to win, and all His scourgings are but proofs of love, while the devil's siren blandishments but prove his hate. But scourge us as He may, God finds many of us as hard to guide and slow to travel toward the heavenly Jerusalem as was that lowly beast Christ rode into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. It is a fact worthy of mention, and of notice, that though the ancient law prescribed that the first-born of every flock and herd should be sacrificed to God, a sheep was always substituted for the ass, as though to show God's aversion for that animal and all who inherit its propensities. If such like be God's attitude towards the sluggard, what must His loathing be for one whose movements in the way of right suggest the slowness of the snail; who carries, like the snail, his treasury of riches on his back, and who spends his greatest energy in clinging to things of earth! " Go to," says the Proverb, " and learn wisdom from the ant." Untiring industry, a determination to overcome all obstacles, and perseverance to the death, these are the qualities by which the race is won; this is the rule of labor in the Lord's vineyard — in this way the last become first and the first last — the called receive commendation and the chosen their reward.
