attractiveness will
disappear from the temptations around us, and we shall see that the
sirens, for all their fair forms, end in loathly fishes' tails and sit
amidst dead men's bones.

Brethren, 'looking _off_ unto Jesus' is the secret of triumph over the
fascinations of the world. And if we will habitually so look, then the
sweetness that we shall experience will destroy all the seducing power
of lesser and earthly sweetness, and the blessed light of the sun will
dim and all but extinguish the deceitful gleams that tempt us into the
swamps where we shall be drowned. Turn away, then, from these things;
cleave to Jesus Christ; and though in ourselves we may be as weak as a
humming-bird before a snake, or a rabbit before a tiger, He will give us
strength, and the light of His face shining down upon us will fix our
eyes and make us insensible to the fascinations of the sorcerers. So we
shall not need to dread the question, 'Who hath bewitched you?' but
ourselves challenge the utmost might of the fascination with the
triumphant question, 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?'

Help us, O Lord! we beseech Thee, to live near Thee. Turn away our eyes
from beholding vanity, and enable us to set the Lord always before us
that we be not moved.

LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE

'Have ye suffered so many things in vain?'--GAL.
iii 4.

Preached on the last Sunday of the year.

This vehement question is usually taken to be a reminder to the fickle
Galatians that their Christian faith had brought upon them much
suffering from the hands of their unbelieving brethren, and to imply an
exhortation to faithfulness to the Gospel lest they should stultify
their past brave endurance. Yielding to the Judaising teachers, and
thereby escaping the 'offence of the Cross,' they would make their past
sufferings vain. But it may be suggested that the word 'suffered' here
is rather used in what is its known sense elsewhere, namely, with the
general idea of _feeling_, the nature of the feeling being undefined. It
is a touching proof of the preponderance of pain and sorrow that by
degrees the significance of the word has become inextricably intertwined
with the thought of sadness; still, it is possible to take it in the
text as meaning _experienced_ or _felt_, and to regard the Apostle as
referring to the whole of the Galatians' past experience, and as
founding his appeal for their steadfastness on all the j