art, but the less the world is called in to
see them, the purer and more blessed and purifying they will be. The man
who has a sidelong eye to spectators in expressing his Christian (or any
other) emotion, is very near being a hypocrite. Expressing emotion with
reference to bystanders, is separated by a very thin line from feigning
emotion. The sidelong glance will soon become a fixed gaze, seeing
nothing else, and the purpose of fasting will slip out of sight. The man
who only wishes to attract attention easily succeeds in that shabby aim,
and has his reward, but misses all the true results, which are only
capable of being realised when he who fasts is thinking of nothing but
his own sin and his forgiving God.

TWO KINDS OF TREASURE

'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20.
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.'--MATT. vi. 19-20.

The connection with the previous part is twofold.

The warning against hypocritical fastings and formalism leads to the
warning against worldly-mindedness and avarice. For what
worldly-mindedness is greater than that which prostitutes even religious
acts to worldly advantage, and is laying up treasure of men's good
opinion on earth even while it shams to be praying to God? And there is
a close connection which the history of every age has illustrated
between formal religious profession and the love of money, which is the
vice of the Church. Again, the promise of rewarding openly naturally
leads on to the positive exhortation to make that reward our great
object.

The connection with what follows is remarkable. The injunction and
prohibition of the text refer to two species of the same genus, one the
vice of avarice, the other the vice of anxiety.

I. The Two Treasures.

These are--on earth, all things which a man can possess;--in heaven,
primarily God Himself, the reward which has been spoken of in previous
verses, viz. God's love and approbation, a holy character, and all those
spiritual and personal graces, beauties, perfections and joys which come
to the good man from above.

This command and prohibition require of Christ's disciples--

1. A rectification of their judgment as to what is the true good of man.

(a) Sense and flesh tend to make us think the visible and material the
best.

(b) Our peculiar position here in a great commercial centre powerfully
reinfor