cold clay--"Would to God I had died the day I believed the lie!" What a
picture for a painter like Rembrandt would that first funeral be! And
what are churchyards and cemeteries but the proofs that the devil lied?
Have you a grave? Does the clay cover the form once dearer than life to
you? Let it plead with you to believe God and his word, rather than to
trust to the old serpent.

Let us be thankful that the seed of the woman is the Saviour of Men. Eden
is not all shadow, even after the loss of purity. There is a promise yet
to be fulfilled. "'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' saith the Lord."
The devil is to be cast into the bottomless pit, and even those whom he
has deceived may go to a paradise where the trail of the serpent shall be
no more seen. "The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the
works of the devil," and the time is coming when war, slavery, ignorance,
tyranny, hunger, and sin shall be among the dark clouds that roll away,
as the sun which shall never set rises above the horizon to make glad the
children of men. Then shall the prophecy of the poet become history--

"In Him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost."

LIX. WHAT WAS LEARNED IN GOD'S HOUSE.
ISAIAH vi.

NOT SEEN BY EVERYONE THERE.--Isaiah had his eyes opened. The same awful
Person had been present before, but had not been seen, and He is still
there, but how few of us are conscious of His presence. How differently
the church and chapel-goers would look next Sunday morning as they come
home, if only they realised what had been going on in the place where
they had spent the last hour.

I. A LESSON FROM HISTORY.--"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the
Lord." The King of Judah was dead, but the King of Saints lives for
ever. Whatever changes go on, whatever crown shifts to another head, GOD
remains the same. In no battle is our General slain. In no national
disgrace is He humbled. Uzziah had died a leper, his brilliant history
ended in disgrace. Not so with Him whom we delight to honour. Of Him it
is more true than of anyone else, "The path of THE JUST shineth more and
more unto the perfect day."

II. A LESSON IN WORSHIP.--We see how the angels behave when in God's
house. "Covered his face." Contrast this with the way the average
church-goer acts. To look at the listless faces, the slovenly way in
which men and women pray, the want of reverence, often in choirs,