"Day onto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge" (Psa. 19:2).

Would that all the Lord's people were parable-readers !What a wealth of voices we should hear, speaking things of God! Precious truth everywhere would open to us in nature's fruitful analogies.

The heavens declare God's glory. The sun is a type of Christ. The moon figures the Church and Israel. Stars suggest saints and assemblies. The wine is like the quickening breath of God. The ocean of air suggests the great Omnipresence in whom all live, move, and have their being. Water figures the word of God. Our daily loaf is an emblem of Christ. (How fitting to receive it with daily thanks!) Gold symbolizes God's glory, silver His salvation, copper the Word. Every precious stone gains its peculiar beauty in virtue of its way of transmitting light. The rainbow's glory, amid tears of storm, projected through prismatic raindrops, is no dim figure of the Urim and Thummim of Divine Light, refracted through the Word-made-flesh, alone in the awful storm of Calvary.

But where shall we stop? " Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God." Nature's kingdoms-animal, vegetable, mineral-unite ten million wonders in happy conspiracy to declare God's glory with the lips of a mighty cloud of witnesses. The pebble beneath the feet, the insect brushed aside, the flower we idly pluck-each is a parable. Nay, carefully examine any living thing,-plant or animal,-and its wondrous organism reveals a veritable book of parables. One after another, analogies appear of the various features of such deep things as our vital connection with God by links of eternal life and nature, and our union with Christ as members of His body. If we are children of God in communion, and not hardened scientists, we will drop the microscope and fall on our knees to lift up an anthem of praise-so rich is the treasure-house of parables in the lowliest creature!

Assuredly God has written parables in phenomena so familiar as day and night. A volume might be filled with them, which shows that we must here confine ourselves to a thought or two. The year's four seasons prophesy-the bloom of life in summer, the decay of autumn, the cold death of winter, the resurrection of spring. Day and night press home kindred lessons every twenty-four hours. What contrast so violent as between midday and midnight ? What does it suggest ? Light and darkness ! life and death ! holiness and sin! mercy and punishment ! communion with Life and Light and Love- . alienation from them! blessing in the ray of God's presence-banishment into outer darkness !

The phenomena of day and night depend entirely upon our position in relation to the sun-a type of Christ. If the sun is overhead, it is day. Clouds may obscure, or a storm be raging; yet if the solar star hangs above, it is day, and we are children of his light. But if he be below our horizon, it is night. The air may be balmy, while gentle zephyrs blow and flowery fragrance hills the senses ; yet if the sun is absent it is night-the owl, the bat and the wild beast are abroad! Put Christ in place of the sun, apply the interpretation to day and night, and the story of blessing or of curse is told. Have we Christ? Then we "walk in the light" (i John 1:7); we are "the children of light, and the children of the day:we are not of the night, nor of darkness" (i Thess. 5:5). And as the sun is the life of earthly things, so is Christ of spiritual. Having Him, we have life; for "he that hath the Son hath life" (i John 5:12).
Do these lines meet a reader's eye above the horizon of whose soul the " Light of men " shines not- in whose heart this glorious Day-Star has not arisen ? You, then, are of the night and of darkness-a child of wrath, a child of night! O come to the Light! Come! ere the wrath of God now abiding on you settles down forever, making your night eternal! God grant it may not be! But oh, do not tarry!

But some Christian asks, If night reigns over the world with Christ the Light now absent, in some sense are not even Christians on earth in night and darkness, though children of the day ? Are we not sons of light who enter man's gloom to serve him ? One would not deny this point of view. The professing Church on earth, looked at as a body with which natural men have mixed themselves, is so represented in Revelation (1:20), under the figure of a lamp, or lamp-stand. Is not a lamp a light in a dark place-a light surrounded by darkness ? Yes, indeed! It is a thing on earth, whose oil may fail, whose wick may sputter, whose light may grow dim or go out, so that the Judge removes it from its place (Rev. 2:5). Nevertheless, it is the special object of this little paper to show that Scripture has a different way of looking at the true saints of God, and their mission to the world.

The whole world lies in darkness. It "lieth in the wicked one" (i John 5:19, Gr.)-blackest midnight, surely! But the child of God walks not in, that shadow, nor enters it even to serve. We are not of the world. God's work on the first day separated the light from the darkness (Gen. 1:). His children are separated from the rest of men-translated into the kingdom of the Light of lights, while other men are in a kingdom of darkness (Col. 1:12, 13). We beseech the world as ambassadors of God, but carry the morning of Christ's glory with us. We speak with a worldling face to face; yet while in God's thought he is in midnight, we who stand beside him are bathed in fulness of glory of the noonday Sun! We speak not of physical impossibilities, but of moral realities. And even the physical world affords a perfect analogy.

The same verse (Rev. 1:20) which represents the professing Church as a lamp, figures what is really of God in it-its spirit, or angel, the true body of Christ-as a star-a figure applied to individual saints in Philippians (2:15,16). Look into the heavens ! behold the moon and glorious planets, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars ! Is not earth plunged in night ? Are not these heavenly orbs like lamps, shining into the dark place ? Yet are they themselves in darkness ? Are they in night ? If they were, would one ray come from them ? It is day upon them; the sun is above their horizon; it is his glory, reflected in their faces, that lightens up the gloomy night of earth! They are heavenly witnesses, telling earth, though it be wrapped in night, that the sun still shines in heaven! They sit in heavenly places, beholding the sun's glory, reflecting his bright rays to a benighted world below!

Beloved saint! is this your position and service, and mine, as well as that of the whole Assembly of Christ ? How do we answer to it ? The light of a single planet is strong enough to cast a shadow. The dimness of one saint may seriously affect souls ! The planet's illuminated surface, turned toward the earth, is sometimes but a narrow disk; and sometimes the orb is wholly absent from our night-sky. Dear reader ! how is it with us ? Moon and planets have their phases, figuring our failures. But we should have none. Keeping ourselves in the love of God, occupied with Christ in glory, serving and bearing witness at every opportunity, we will not have dark phases, nor eclipse.

What a glorious calling, to sit in heavenly Radiance, reflecting down to the world all the light it has in Christ's absence! How momentous such a service! How solemn its issues ! When the clouds are. absent, planets, stars and full moon make even midnight luminous ! Compared with day, such night is dim; compared with starless gloom, how clear and bright ! And mark; on such a night, for all except the blind, is there not light enough to guide the footsteps, and reveal the form and character of ordinary objects? Saved reader! it is your solemn responsibility, and mine, to afford the world such light,-sufficient for it to discern between good and evil, truth and falsehood, life and death, in all essential things. How are we meeting this wondrous privilege, this grave responsibility ? What are we going to say at the judgment-seat of Christ ?

May the night show us her knowledge, and the stars search heart and conscience with solemn prophesyings ! How they would sing together, had they our privilege! Night by night they serve us, enthroned in heavenly places, faithful to their trust. May they exhort our faith, and beckon to our courage, to mount up with wings as eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint! F. A.