I. THIS QUESTION OF ANXIETY — "Is the young man Absalom safe?"

1. And the first remark is, it is a question asked by a father concerning his son. "Is he safe?"

2. This was a question asked about a son who had left his father's house. "Is the young man Absalom safe?"

3. It is the question of a father about his rebellious son.

4. The question of a parent concerning a son who, if he were not safe, but dead, was certainly in a very dreadful plight. "Is the young man Absalom safe?"

5. This was a question, alas! which was asked by a father about a son who was really dead at the time when the question was asked. It was late in the day to enquire for Absalom's safety; for it was all over with that rebellious son.

II. You have had the question; we are now to speak upon SOME OCCASIONS WHEN THAT QUESTION WOULD VERY NATURALLY BE USED. "Is the young man Absalom safe?"

1. The question would be used, of course, in times, like the present, in reference to this mortal life. When a fearful calamity has swept away hundreds at a stroke such an enquiry is on every lip.

2. Times of disease, also, raise such enquiries. Well do I recollect some four-and-twenty years ago, when first I came to London, it was my painful duty to go, not only by day, but by night, from house to house where the cholera was raging; and almost every time I met the beloved friends at Park Street it was my sorrow to hear it said, "Mr. So-and-so is dead. Mistress A. or B. is gone," till I sickened myself from very grief. It was then most natural that each one should say concerning, his relative at a little distance, "Is he still alive? Is he still safe?"

3. But sometimes we have to ask this question about friends and children, with regard to their eternal life. They are dead, and we are fearful that they did not die in Christ, and therefore we enquire, "Is the young man Absalom safe?"

4. "Is the young man Absalom safe?" is a more practical question when we put it about young people and old people, when they are still alive, and we are anxious about their spiritual condition. "Is the young man Absalom safe?" That is to say, is he really safe for the future — for this world and for the world to come?

III. The third point is to be THE ANSWERS WHICH WE HAVE TO GIVE TO THIS QUESTION — "IS the young man Absalom safe?" This question has often bean sent up by friends from the country about their lads who have come to London — "Is my boy Harry safe? Is my son John safe?" Answer, sometimes: "No, no. He is not safe. We are sorry to say that he is in great danger." I will tell you when we know he is not safe.

1. He is not safe if, like Absalom, he is at enmity with his father. Oh, no.

2. "Is the young man safe?" Well, no. We have seen him lately in bad company. He has associated with other young men who are of loose morals.

3. And he is not safe, because he has taken to indulge in expensive habits. "Absalom prepared him," it is said, "chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him." This extravagance was a sign of evil. A youth who lavishes money upon needless luxuries is not safe.

4. Another thing. The young man Absalom is not safe, as you may see, if you look at his personal appearance. We read, "But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty." Let young men and women dress according to their stations; we are not condemning them for that. I recollect Mr. Jay saying, "If you ladies will tell me your income to a penny, I will tell you how many ribbons you may wear to a yard;" and I think that I might venture to say the same.

5. And we are sure the young man Absalom is not safe, when he has begun to be vicious. You recollect what Absalom did.

6. "Is the young man Absalom safe?" No, David, he is not, for the last time we saw him he was in a battle, and the people were dying all around him, and therefore he is not safe. How can he be safe where others fail? Yes, and I saw the young man come out of a low place of amusement late one night, and I thought, "No, the young man Absalom. is not safe there, for many perish there." I heard of his betting at the races, and I thought, "The young man Absalom is not safe, for multitudes are ruined there." I saw him in loose company one evening, and I said, "No, the young man Absalom is not safe: he is surrounded by those who hunt for the precious life." It is never safe for us to be where other people fall; because if they perish, why should not we?

7. Now, the young man is here to-night who will answer to the next description. He is a very nice young fellow. He is a great hearer and lover of the gospel word, but he is not decided. He has never taken his stand with God's people, confessing Christ as his Lord. Is the young man safe? Oh, no. He is very hopeful, God bless him! We will pray him into safety if we can; but he is not safe yet. Those people who were almost saved from the wreck of the Princess Alice were drowned; and those persons who are almost saved from sin are still lost. If you are almost alive you are dead.

8. A pleasant task remains, I will now answer that question with a happy, "Yes." Yes, the young man Absalom is safe. Why?(1) Well, first, because he is a believer in Christ.(2) The young man is saved, for he loves the gospel. He will not go to hear anything but the gospel.(3) I know he in safe, for he is very humble, He is not perfect yet: he does not say that he is, nor boast of his attainments. He does not want to be the forehorse of the team, he is willing to he placed anywhere so that he can be useful. Moreover, he is very diffident of himself. He is afraid sometimes to put one foot before another for fear he should take a wrong step. He is always going on his knees to ask for direction; he waits upon God for guidance, and does not dare to do anything without the direction of the word and the Spirit.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

2. The anxiety of David for that young man Absalom was as keen as his love was unquenchable. It is remarkable that the king did not cast off all care for one who was so unworthy. Though a king, he was a father. Absalom's guilt was deep, but his father's love was deeper.(1) David loved Absalom because he was his son. The ties of blood are strong.(2) The king not only loved but made every excuse possible for his erring son. He tried to believe that Absalom was only the tool of one more skilful and bitter, Ahithophel. His son was a willing tool. Still it was like David to admit every possible extenuation of Absalom's guilt. And was he better than our Father? Does not God make every excuse for us? The cry of Jesus on the Cross, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," is a revelation of the heart of God.(3) David was anxious for his son because he knew something of the danger of being cut off in iniquity. The revelation to him was meagre, but enough. He knew that in the death of the sinner there was no hope. To the Cross, then. There the stain of ingratitude can be removed, there the look of Christ can melt the heart, there the peace of Christ can free the soul, there the power of Christ can sustain the soul, there can be given strength to resist in life's battle, there the mystery of life can be solved, and the fret of life broken. There we, shall learn to avoid tampering with all sin.

(F. Hastings.)

I. The first great pass in a young man's life when he needs Divine help is WHEN HE CHOOSES HIS OCCUPATION OR PROFESSION. It is a serious moment when a young man gets through with his schooling, and perhaps leaves his father's house, and says: "Now, what shall I be?" Mechanism opens before him a score of trades, and professional life opens before him seven or eight callings. He must choose between these, and must choose aright, for if he make a mistake here he is gone. I have a friend who started life in merchandise. Then he went into the medical profession. After awhile he crossed over into specific surgery. Then he entered the ministry. Then he became a soldier in the army. After that he entered the ministry again, and is now a surgeon. O! if he had only had God at the start to tell him what to do.

II. The second great pass in life when a young man wants Divine direction is WHEN HE ESTABLISHES HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD. When a man builds his earthly home, he decides his eternity. I know that affiancing is usually looked upon as something to be merry over, instead of something to be prayed about; but what step is there fraught with such weal or woe? Is it not strange that an affair charged with such temporal and eternal import should depend on a whim or a glance? I do not think I put the ease too strongly when I say that when a young man marries he marries for heaven or hell! If he brings into his household the right kind of influences, the home will be elevated and upward in its impulsions. If he bring the wrong kind of influences into his house he will go down — he must go down. A minister of the Gospel came into a home where there was great poverty and destitution, and it was generally supposed that the poverty came from the fact that these people had married too early; and after the minister had looked around upon the utter want and destitution, and had rehearsed the misfortunes that had come upon the household, he turned to the poor man and said: "Don't you now regret your early marriage? Don't you think it was your great mistake in life?" And the man halted for a moment, and his eyes filled up with tears, and he looked up at his poorly-clad wife and said: "No, sir; she has been the same to ms all through!"

III. The third great pass in life in which a young man wants religion is IN THE TIME OF HIS FIRST SUCCESS. You say: "Here I have money now of my own. What shall I do with it? What investments shall I make? What house shall I buy? What wardrobe shall I create? What shall I get? What charities, what philanthropies, shall I favour?" That is the crisis where thousands of men upset. Some of them rush into dissipations. A man wants the grace of Christ at that crisis to keep him rightly balanced.

IV. The fourth great pass in a young man's life when he needs the grace of God is WHEN HE COMES TO HIS FIRST SORROW. It is preposterous for us to launch young men on life with the idea that they are going to have it smooth all the way. There will be storms. You want extra cordage. I know when our last war was over, some people came back without a scratch or a scar, but that is not so in the great battle of life: we get wounded in the hands, and wounded in the feet, and wounded in the head, and wounded in the heart. No man escapes. But now, what are you going to do with your first sorrow? The way you get through your first sorrow will decide whether you can endure the other sorrows of life.

(T. De Witt Talmaqe, D. D.)

I. GOD'S RESTRAINING AND OVER-RULING HAND AMID THE PLANS OF WICKED MEN. Absalom was free to act upon the sagacious (albeit cruelly unfilial) advice of Ahithophel; but he rejected it. He was free to reject the plausible advice of Hushai; but he chose to act upon it. "For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel. to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom." But the Lord's appointment worked not counter to, but through, the free choice of Absalom. Human freedom is a fact of individual consciousness. We know we are free, and vet we also know, from the Scriptures of truth and the teachings of history, that, in spite of all opposition, "the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." Through the very folly and sin of men God is working out His own great, pure purpose, and yet man is none the less guilty.

II. WOMEN'S WORK IS DAVID'S PRESERVATION. A female servant — a woman can go unsuspected to En-rogel, the Fuller's well — "went and told them." She was a faithful messenger; quickly, silently went and returned, and kept to herself the matter. Presently the young men were seen, suspected, and pursued by Absalom's servants: tracked to the man's house in Bahurim," where in a dry well they were hiding, and where, but for the woman of the house, they had doubtless been detected. She "took and spread a covering over the well's mouth, and spread ground corn thereon; and the thing was not known." And with evasive answer she baffled and sent away the pursuers. Had it been otherwise in the conduct of these women, it had been doubtless greatly otherwise with David's safety. Women have played no unimportant part in the needed revolutions of nations; and, more valuable still, in the extension of Christ's kingdom. They ministered to the Lord of their substance during His life on earth. When men were faithless they were faithful to Him. In all time since they, loyal to His throne, have been hastening His kingdom. How many are doing it to-day! Women, of whom the world knows little if anything; mothers among their children; servants at their lowly toil; within the narrow walls of home. or but a little way beyond them, found faithful, and so by every pure true word. every kindly deed, speeding the universal answer to their daily prayer, "Thy Kingdom come!"

III. THE END OF WOUNDED PRIDE. That Ahithophel was a sagacious man is clear. That he was a proud man is equally clear. But when preference was given to Hushai's advice his pride was cut to the quick. So home went the angry, bitter man. He "put his household in order," and then, the first of recorded suicides, "hanged himself." Stupendous folly to think more of the "order" of his household — leaving all his affairs carefully arranged — than of the safety of his soul. Unbidden, his sins upon him, he rushed into the presence of his Maker. "Pride goeth before destruction" — in his case self-destruction. It must be destroyed if the soul is to live.

IV. THE DOOM OF UN-FILIAL INGRATITUDE AND REBELLION. Sudden, irresistible, as bolt from clear skies, came his doom. Such a doom l What thoughts must have thronged him in his last awful moments! Alas for the young man Absalom! Let young men and women remember that punishment for disobedience to parents is inevitable. Many today axe bearing it in silent, unutterable remorse. Would that they could recall the dead! Would that in some little way, by present love and tenderness, they could show repentance for the unfilial past! But the dead come no more!

V. HOW PARENTAL LOVE APPEARS IN PARENTAL ANXIETY AND SORROW! The heart of David is made bare to us in this narrative. It is all tenderness towards Absalom. He sees him in the light of many a beautiful memory. The child Absalom! The youth! The faultless loveliness of form! The luxuriant and splendid locks that crowned him! The fond words when the young prince had nestled in his arms! It all lives to David. His one anxiety is for Absalom's safety. Victory will be blurred into defeat if he should perish. All day long waits the king for the battle-news; all the news shrunken to this, "What, what of Absalom?" And when the news is known, the king creeps out of sight of men, weeping, weeping as he goes, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Oh! the sad, sad cry! Heard, alas! to-day, where homes mourn over the lost, and parents' hearts break.

There is no far nor near,

There is neither there nor here,

There is neither soon nor late,

In that Chamber over the Gate,

Nor any long ago

To that cry of human woe,

O Absalom, my son!

From the ages that are past

The voice comes like a blast,

Over seas that wreck and drown,

Over tumult of traffic and town;

And from ages yet to be

Come the echoes back to me,

O Absalom, my son!

Somewhere at every hour,

The watchman on the tower

Looks forth, and sees the fleet

Approach of the hurrying feet

Of messengers, that bear

The tidings of despair.

O Absalom, my son!

But David's voice dies into silence. We hear another — a greater — the greatest of all. "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me."

(G. J. Coster.)

1. Not while he is in sin; not, while, like the unhappy Absalom, any sin has dominion over him; not while the corruption of nature is unsubdued and unconquered; not while religion is an appearance, and if not, as with Absalom, an actor's mask, yet only an empty name, and a dead formality(1) Do generous feelings make him safe? The lost Absalom had those feelings.(2) Do ability and talent make the young man safe? Absalom clearly had these! He climbed to power by the exercise of the very same talents which have placed many in our own times and many in all times in the high places of the State; for the language of the aspirant to power is often Absalom's very words — "Oh! that I were made judge; see what I would do if I were in power." Do religious education end training make the young man safe? David's son had doubtless these. He who himself so "loved the habitation of God's house and the place where His honour dwelt," would not fail to take his children there, and try to make them also love it.(3) Do power, riches, high rank, make the young man safe? Absalom had all these; yet power only created the thirst for more power; the prince's coronet made him long for the king's crown; the rank he had raised him so near to what he wished to have, that he grasped at it, and fell off the stage into hopeless ruin.(4) Do health, strength, or beauty make the young man safe? They were instruments to win admiration, to conciliate favour; but because their unhappy possessor was himself wrong, all these were only instruments of evil, and the beautiful mass of his curling ringlets only furnished a hangman's rope to execute their condemned possessor.

2. What does make the young man safe? Is it to be never tempted? If this be safety, then who is safe? We may flee from the gay and busy world, we may hide ourselves in the secluded cave, we may shut ourselves in the lonely cloister. Will there be no temptation there? Does memory cease there? Does busy fancy leave off painting her airy pictures there? Does the corrupt heart not go with us into that seclusion? "I have been dancing at Rome," said one of old, "when I was shut up in my cave in the wilderness." Do barred doors shut out the spirit that tempts man? or can man leave behind him that nature which the prince of this world, when he comes, finds as tinder to catch his sparks, as rotten wood for his fiery darts to lodge in? If that man only is "safe" who is out of the reach of temptation, then none is safe at all, for all are tempted. Is any one "safe," then? Yes. Look at this young man. He is young; life is bursting upon him; and who knows not the peculiar freshness of opening life? The bright flowers of the early spring, the warm fresh breeze loaded with the sweetness of the hawthorn, the fresh green grass, like a springing carpet under his elastic tread, the glorious sea of blue above, with its floating isles of cloud, give sensations of joy as intense, and pleasure as keen to him as to any others. But he sees more than some in these sights, and he hears more than others in these sounds. He sees the Maker in His works; he reads something of the skill that planned, the Power that executed, the perpetual Presence that works in all the things around. And he sees more. He sees a Father's love at every turn, strewing His children's path with love and blessing. Thus, then, we can answer the questions — What it is to be safe? and, when alone can we say that the young man is safe? The Scripture answers, by telling us that then and then only is the young or the old safe, when God has made the heart of man His own habitation by the Spirit, and when Satan, and the world, and the flesh have not to contend with poor weak, frail man, but with man aided, and assisted, and governed by the eternal God.

(W. W. Champneys, M. A.)

I. IS HE SAFE AS TO HIS TRAINING? A question for home and school. Parents are the world's rulers. Children are imitators, living phonographs. What they see and hear they reproduce. They will live the home life over again in the habits and characters formed there. As to character, in a life of eighty years, the first twenty form the bigger half. The first colours in the mind of a child are eternal. What means the proverb, "Once a man, twice a child?" Not the weakness of old age only, but that as the outward man perishes we return to the scenes of childhood.

II. IS HE SAFE AS TO HIS CALLING? Is he suited to his calling? If not, he cannot be safe. He is where he ought not to be; and if so, what chance has he for happiness or success? What irreparable wrong is wrought when parents insist on their son following trades or professions wholly distasteful to them! Nature's providence gives most men a genius for doing certain things easily and well. We should follow those lines of least resistance. A gifted youth was tied to a trade he loathed. He had to follow life on these lines of greatest resistance, and with a sad result. That life was wrecked through harsh and unwise treatment at the outset. Assistants like young Adam Clarke have been asked to become partakers of their masters' sins and to put their hands to evil. If all practised the golden rule, trade and commerce would soon pass out of the region of questionable methods. John Wesley used to tell his helpers, "Be ashamed of nothing but sin; no, not of cleaning your own shoes, when necessary."

III. IS HE SAFE AS TO HIS COMPANIONS? Absalom was not. He mixed with a set of vain and worthless flatterers, who made him as bad as themselves. He listened to them until they fed his ambition and puffed him up. A youth is known by the company he keeps. Woe be to the unwary who are beguiled by evil companions! Their steps lead to the gates of hell. Dr. Stalker says there are two methods of meeting temptation: one the method of restraint, the other that of counter-attraction. And, like Ulysses, who was tied to the mast of his ship and saved himself from the sirens, so there is many a cord by which young men may secure themselves. Love of home, of church, of school, and of Christian work, is a silver cord to keep them safe in willing bonds, bound yet free. And as Orpheus destroyed the charm of the inferior music by his superior strains, so there are counter-attractions by seeking which young men may be safe. Instead of evil companions, seek good ones.

IV. IS HE SAFE AS TO HIS PLEASURES? He must have them. The bow cannot be always strung. Hobbies and habits make life. It is true, as Mr. Gladstone says, that "change of labour is to a great extent the best form of recreation"; but it must not be always conscious labour That duty must be lost in the joy. To be always on duty, to be ever hearing the wheels of life's machinery, is to make life a treadmill. Such a youth will lack imagination, enthusiasm, and faith. But do our pleasures recreate? Do they give muscle to body, and force to mind? Do they send us back to our task strong and glad? If so, they are true pleasures.

V. IS HE SAFE IN HIS SUCCESS? Some men can endure sorrow, but cannot stand success. In its slippery paths they become giddy and fall. Sorrow and adversity brace them, and they are brave and patient, and play the man; but prosperity — wealth, popularity, influence — enervates, and their strength becomes weakness. When the world smiles, "pride compasseth them about," and soon they fall. Men sometimes fail at the strongest point; like Edinburgh Castle, which was once taken on the rocky side, supposed to be impregnable.

VI. IS HE SAFE IN THE HOUR OF DEATH? Alas! Absalom was not. Here was the pathos of David's lament. "My son, would God I had died for thee!" The shafts of death strike young and old. He who can face the grim monster is a man every inch of him. We are only safe in the arms of Jesus.

(Joseph Johns.)

1. Youth is a time of special susceptibility. While the grown tree will sooner break than bend, the sapling may be trained any way.

2. It is a time of ingenuous trustfulness. Much of the folly of young people may be attributed to their ignorance of the world. They see the flower, and have no suspicion of the serpent that lies concealed under it. No guilt can be greater, no sin more diabolical, than that of him who trades upon the unsuspiciousness of innocence.

3. It is a time of special impulsiveness. The young have fresh blood coursing in their veins; and the freshness of their physical being is but a type of that which characterises their whole moral and spiritual nature.

4. It is a time when new thoughts and opinions are most readily received. In a certain sense men naturally grow more conservative as they grow older. The very changableness of youth betokens the readiness with which their minds can be guided into fresh and ennobling trains of thought. The great want of youth is guidance: not restraint, but direction; not stern and repellant commands, so much as counsel.

5. It is the time when life habits are definitely formed. It is then the metal is poured into the mould, and the image stands forth through life with shape of unsightly deformity or graceful beauty. The wax is soft; but will soon harden under the impression of a Divine likeness or of one debased.

II. THAT THE SAFETY OF THE YOUNG IS A QUESTION FOR SPECIAL INQUIRY. "Is the young man safe?" A question for —

1. Parents. What is the character of the home-influence? Parents must take" their choice. They must either make the life and lessons — the love and the pleasures — of home more attractive and winning than those of the street; or they must pass through bitter experiences in the midst of which they need not Wonder at the ruin of their sons and daughters.

2. Employers. What is the example in trade life? What are the associations of the workshop and the warehouse? Are not assistants and apprentices too often left as isolated atoms on the surging sea of life? "What care they for the world that cares not for them?"

3. The Church. What is the Church doing? Are not Young Men's Christian Associations in some sense so many testimonies against the Church on account of neglected duty.

4. Young men themselves. Humanly speaking, there is no help like self-help. Dare to be men — to stand alone. Yet not alone; since Christ waits to take you under His protection. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?"

(F. Wagstaff.)

I. THE DANGERS TO WHICH YOUNG MEN ARE EXPOSED. There are, first, dangers incidental to their time of life. Every one knows that there are certain stages of life fraught with more importance, and consequently more perilous, than others. This is true. physically; for medical men will tell you, that when the child passes into the boy, when the boy merges into the young man, when the young man bursts into the full bloom of manhood, and again when the man, at what is called his grand climacteric, crosses the boundary of old age — these are all critical times; and that diseases which at any other period would be thrown of[ with ease, become then dangerous, and often fatal. Now the same thing holds of the moral and spiritual development of a man; arid there are stages of his soul-history which are just as critical and momentous for his eternal interests, as those which I have specified are for his physical.

1. There is great peril springing out of the inexperience by which a youth is characterised. Everything is new and strange to him; and when, for the first time, he embarks upon the troubled sea of commercial life, not Columbus himself, as in fear and trembling he pushed on and on over the wide waste of waters, and

"Was the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea,"

was more: inexperienced in navigation than. is he. He is out of sight of his old landmarks; he knows neither the dangers that encircle him, nor the currents in the midst of which his course is to be pursued. He has everything to learn, and everything to know.

2. But added to this inexperience, and, indeed, intensifying the danger that results from it, is that self-conceit, or self-confidence, by which every youth is pre-eminently distinguished. Though he knows so little, he imagines he knows everything; indeed, just because he knows so little, he fancies he is exceedingly intelligent; for the law is an invariable one, that the more a man knows the more he knows his ignorance; while, on the other hand, the greater a man's ignorance, the greater, too, is his ignorance of his ignorance.

3. But a third danger, incidental to the time of life at which a young man has arrived, rises out of that impatience of control which marks the time of transition between youth and manhood. Love of liberty is a good thing, but it Is apt to become, love of licence; and this is the danger of which we speak. Now, this ordinarily makes its appearance first in breaking through parental restraint.

II. A SECOND CLASS OF DANGERS TO YOUNG MEN SPRING FROM THE PLACE WHERE THEIR LIFE IS SPENT. Every locality has its own peculiar moral atmosphere, which is laden with its own poisons to the soul. The rural life has its peculiar tendencies, which you may see any day fully developed in the agricultural labourers of England, many of whom are, in almost every respect, very little above the level of the brutes they drive. Quiet provincial towns have also their own perils; and many a man who would have done well, if only kept hard at work, under a pushing master in a city, is lost for this life, and frequently also lost for eternity, from the dawdling, idling, tippling habits which in such places have so powerful sway. The ruin of many men, in such half-dead localities, is that they have not nearly enough to do, and Satan finds abundance of employment for their leisure hours.

III. YOUNG MEN ARE EXPOSED TO DANGER ALSO FROM THE TENDENCIES OF THE AGE IN WHICH THEIR LOT IS CAST. Whatever these tendencies may be, they are most powerfully felt by youth; because, from the position they occupy — being, in fact, the population of the future — they are all brought to bear upon them. I will simply mention two.

1. There is intellectualism. No one, who is at all conversant with the literature of the day, will deny that the tendency of the greater part of it is to place the intellect on the throne of the soul, and indeed also of the world. Religion is nothing; intellect is everything. The Bible is far behind the advanced thinkers of the age. It is antiquated, obsolete, effete. Its day is gone; and now intellect, not faith, must rule supreme. Now, intellect is good, very excellent good, but yet it is not God; and its province is to sit meek and believing at. the feet of Jesus. I want intellect. I want the young men of our times to be sturdy thinkers, men of mind; men who can take a subject and resolve it into its elements, and reason it out to its remotest consequences. But I want them also to know and understand that the Bible is the most intellectual book in the world. Was Paul not intellectual? Is not his little finger thicker than the loins even of the stoutest champions of intellect in modern times? And if you look at the history of the world, man for man, I will bring you a more intellectual Christian, over against your most powerful and profound infidels. There is the erudite Leibnitz over against the pantheistic Spinoza; against the flippant Voltaire, we have the thoughtful Pascal, in any of whose suggestive fragments there is more mind than in all Voltaire's books put together. Over against the sentimental Rousseau, we can put the mild, loving, John-like Fenelon. And where among the would-be pretentious intellectualists of to-day will you find the equal of Jonathan Edwards, John Foster, or Robert Hall? Be not blinded, my young friends, with the dust which these men would raise around you; depend upon it, the highest intellect will be found in meekest humility, sitting at Jesus' feet.

2. But another danger assailing young men, from the tendencies of the age, is Mammonism. Every one must see that, especially in commercial centres like this, the prevailing idolatry is the worship of the golden calf. The maxim of the day is that held up to scorn by the old Roman satirist, "Get riches, honestly if you can; but by all means, get riches;" and the prevailing heresy is, the determination at all hazards to be wealthy. Young man, ask thyself this, "What shall it profit me if I should gain the whole world and lose my own soul?"

(W. M. Taylor, M. A.)

I. THE FIRST SAFEGUARD OF WHICH I WANT TO SPEAK IS A LOVE OF HOME.

II. ANOTHER SAFEGUARD FOR YOUNG MEN IS INDUSTRIOUS HABIT. Young man, you must have industry of head, or hand, or foot, or perish! Do not have the idea that you can get along in the world by genius. The curse of this country to-day is geniuses — men with large self-conceit and nothing else.

III. ANOTHER SAFEGUARD THAT I WANT TO PRESENT TO YOUNG MEN IS A HIGH IDEAL OF LIFE. Sometimes soldiers going into battle shoot into the ground instead of into the hearts of their enemies. They are apt to take aim too low, and it is very often that the captain, going into conflict with his men, will cry out, "Now, men, aim high!" The fact is that in life a great many men take no aim at all. The artist plans out his entire thought before he puts it upon canvas, before he takes up the crayon or the chisel. An architect thinks out the entire building before the workmen begin. Although everything may seem to be unorganised, that architect has in his mind every Corinthian column, every Gothic arch, every Byzantine capital. A poet thinks out the entire plot of his poem before he begins to chime the cantos of tinkling rhythms. And yet there are a great many men who start the important structure of life without knowing whether it is going to be a rude Tartar's hut or a St. Mark's Cathedral, and begin to write out the intricate poem of their life without knowing whether it is to be a Homer's "Odyssey" or a rhymester's botch. Out of one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine have no life-plot. Booted and spurred and caparisoned, they hasten along, and I run out and say: "Hallo, man! Whither away?" "Nowhere!" they say.

IV. ANOTHER SAFEGUARD IS A RESPECT FOR THE SABBATH. Tell me how a young man spends his Sabbath, and I will tell you what are his prospects in business, and I will tell you what are his prospects for the eternal world. God has thrust into our busy life a sacred day when we are to look after our souls. Is it exorbitant, after giving six days to the feeding and clothing of these perishable bodies, that God should demand one day for the feeding and clothing of the immortal soul?

V. THE GREAT SAFEGUARD FOR EVERY YOUNG MAN IS THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Nothing can take the place of it. You may have gracefulness enough to put to the blush Lord Chesterfield; you may have foreign languages dropping from your tongue; you may discuss laws and literature; you may have a pen of unequalled polish and power; you may have so much business tact that you can get the largest salary in a banking house; you may be as sharp as Herod and as strong as Samson, and with as long locks as those which hung Absalom, and yet you have no safety against temptation. Your great want is a new heart, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I tell you so to-day, and the blessed Spirit presses through the solemnities of this hour to put the cup of life to your thirsty lips. Oh, thrust it not back r Mercy presents it — bleeding mercy, long-suffering mercy. Despite all other friendships, prove recreant to all other bargains, but despise God's love for your dying soul — do not do that.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

(H. W. Horwill.)

(Charles Buxton, M. P.)

     5511   safety
     5802   care
     5815   confusion
     8343   servanthood, in society

2 Samuel 18:19-32

     5426   news

2 Samuel 18:21-32

     5178   running

2 Samuel 18:28-33

     5087   David, reign of

The Church and the Young Man.
A Sermon Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 4, 1866, In The First Presbyterian Church, Troy, At The Request of The Young Men's Christian Association. 2 Sam. xviii, 5. "And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai saying, deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom." There are few passages of Holy writ more beautiful or suggestive than this. Notwithstanding the astounding character of Absalom's rebellion; though the mind of the sovereign and father of his people is …
Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.—Amusement: A Force in Christian Training

Samuel
Alike from the literary and the historical point of view, the book[1] of Samuel stands midway between the book of Judges and the book of Kings. As we have already seen, the Deuteronomic book of Judges in all probability ran into Samuel and ended in ch. xii.; while the story of David, begun in Samuel, embraces the first two chapters of the first book of Kings. The book of Samuel is not very happily named, as much of it is devoted to Saul and the greater part to David; yet it is not altogether inappropriate, …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament