derived intelligence, daubed with the untempered mortar of his own self-love. Perverted and falsified truth, united with unhallowed love, is the city in which he sets his habitation. It is to be lamented that the cities of the wicked are so numerous, and it is the more to be deplored, because they invariably nourish the principle that destroys both themselves and their inhabitants. For this principle is the pestilence which destroys, and by which the inhabitants are delivered into the hands of their enemies. This pestilence implies nothing else than the rapid decline of every kind and degree of goodness, and the opening of the mind to the dire assaults of those enemies of the soul which deprive it entirely of spiritual life. Thus the staff of their bread is broken, the real support of life, heavenly goodness, is withdrawn. They are in the condition described by the prophet: "They snatch on the right hand and are hungry, they eat on the left hand and are not satisfied." They prey upon each other, yea, they prey individually upon themselves; thus they punish one another, and "eat every man the flesh of his own arm," and thus their own pestilential evils destroy them. Let us beware how we break the covenant of the Lord our God!
October Tenth.
THE LORD'S BAPTISM.
"Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."—Mark. i. 11.
IT is desirable at all times to remember that the glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ is a pattern of man's regeneration; and if it was necessary for the
