familiar, "No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him." We have God seeking us, bringing us to Christ the Saviour, and then Christ taking us up into the tabernacle and temple of our God.

What do I beg for to-day, then? That with one act we will choose God, bringing our will to bear upon this act, using our thought and our life until we choose God and find him and dwell

in his grace.

Can we do this? Can we not agree so far as this: that we will take the Lord to be our God? Can we agree upon this to-day, brethren, and then pass on to the study of God's will and to the results of it? Here, this morning, I speak to you and I speak to my own heart. Can we covenant with God so far as this, that we will serve him with all our heart and with all our life? He who shall come so far as that shall find the mercy of God bearing him up into the glory.

Now, as we go away, shall we sing a loyal hymn, the hymn of a loyal people, the hymn of true hearts singing unto their Lord?

All hail the power of Jesus' name.

IV.

LOOKING TOWARD THE SEA.

SCRIPTURE LESSON: Acts xxvii.

TEXT: Go up now, look toward the sea: I Kings xviii: 43.

THE

HE prophet was waiting for rain. The cloud which was to bring it in abundance would come by the way of the sea. He sent his servant seven times that he might know if the cloud was coming. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea."

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It is with a similar intention that men have commonly looked toward the sea. They have sought something from it. They have looked for benefits which must pass over it to reach them. They have taken its treasures. They have made it a highway for the ships which have carried their merchandise from land to land, and exchanged the products of separated climes. They have journeyed over it that they might visit lands of historic interest, or study the living institutions of the world. The shores of our own land were sought

in ships which pressed their way across the sea, bearing the men who looked beyond the wide waters for a haven for their liberty and purity. This church, this college, this nation, came by the way of the sea.

Our greatest enterprises make an alliance with the sea and the men who belong to it. Ships must carry our missionaries to the ends of the earth, that they may erect in every land the cross of the Redeemer and the throne of the King. Our Lord himself preached from a fisher's boat, and called from the sea the men who were to be his first disciples and apostles. Men have been using the sea for their own purposes, always seeking and getting. The sea, the seamen, and the ships are the common benefactors of civilization and religion. Even now, as the summer days draw on, we are looking toward the sea for renewed health and enlarged resources of mind and heart.

It is time that we possessed and exercised a more generous spirit: that we asked if we cannot give where we have received so much; if we cannot respond to these good offices with our own thoughtful and liberal benefactions. With this thought and purpose in our minds, let us go up now and look toward the sea.

Looking off from this height, what do we behold? The vast expanse of waters, uniting the lands which they seem to keep apart, and making the lands a safe and pleasant dwelling-place for

men; the seat of great nations; the abode of an advancing civilization. But it concerns us much more to observe that there are three millions of men whose dwelling is upon the sea. They are separated from their families, and from the comfort and security of their homes, from the enjoyments of friendly society, and from the ministrations of the church.

On the other hand, they are thrown into the severest hardships. Their work is hard, their peril is constant. Whether upon ship or on shore, they are in danger. Their calling and their training make them an easy prey. The lifetime of the sailor is twenty-eight years, and his sea life eleven years. The monotonous story of shipwrecks is the saddest reading of the winter months. Along much of the seaboard the old prophecy scarcely fails of fulfilment, that the women of Colias shall roast their corn with oars.

This is for us. The sailor is the indispensable man. Should he retire from service the world would almost stand still. Look at the manifold influence of Greece upon the world. The book which is the heart of the world's life, under whose sway humanity is to attain to its renown, was written by divine appointment in the language of Greece. But Greece lies within the seas, its winding coast breaking into harbors for the ships of the great sea. Greece was fitly likened to a ship, and Corinth, "the city of the two seas, was the prow

and stern of the ship. In allegory, Corinth was a woman upon a rock between two other figures, each of which held a rudder. The symbol is well chosen. In the history of the world the ship and the sailor hold a conspicuous place.

These sailors are men like ourselves. They are brave, bold, generous, impulsive, open-handed and open-hearted men. They are the children of Our Father. Our duty is their duty. Before them stretch the endless years. The gospel of to-day and the judgment of the great day are for them. For them Christ died and rose again. They have minds which can be instructed, and souls which can be saved, and lives which can be set in highest service.

To the fishermen of Galilee the Saviour extended his personal ministry. A part of his going about doing good was on the sea. He trod its waves that he might help the weary rowers when the wind was contrary. He woke from his sleep to still the tempest and save the affrighted men in whose ship he was crossing the sea. He rescued one sinking man. He filled the nets which the night's toiling had left empty. The first to hear the good news which he brought, and the first to tell it to the world, were sailors. The Lord himself leads us to the sea, directs our gaze to the wandering ships, bids us give to them as freely as we receive from him, teaches us that we can make them the messengers of his grace around the world.