Here is a number of names; they belong to men of varied characters and different careers, though all of them were children of privilege, most of them in a high degree. We learn -

I. THAT THERE IS A VAST DIFFERENCE IN THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF PRIVILEGED MEN. We might suppose that men who have come under the same class of influences would be much like one another in spirit and behaviour. But such a supposition would be a great mistake. It is true that there is much of human nature in us all, and that the best men have their failings while the worst have their redeeming points; but it remains true that between man and man, having the same advantages, there is often a great gulf found. In the same list of names of the sons of Levi we have Moses and Samuel, who were holy among the holy, and also the sons of Samuel, who accepted bribes and perverted judgment (vers. 3, 28). It is painful to think that, while among the children of privilege may be found some that are like God himself in, their spirit and their life, there are others in whose heart the basest passions dwell, and whoso lives are pestilent and shameful. It is sadly possible for those that are "exalted to heaven" in privilege to be "cast down to hell" in guilt and condemnation.

II. THAT THERE IS A CLOSE INTERMINGLING OF GOOD AND BAD UPON THE EARTH. This is a list of men belonging to different generations, but we are reminded by contrast of the truth that good and bad are contemporaneous and closely intermingled. Here the wheat and the tares grow together. Dwelling beneath the same roof, sitting down to the same hearth and table, working in the same shop, writing at the same desk, walking the same street, are the holy and the profane, the pure and the unclean, the generous and the selfish, the wise and the foolish.

1. What a reason for watchfulness and prayer!

2. What opportunity for usefulness!

III. THAT OUR RECORD WILL BE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF GOD AS WELL AS IN THE LIVES OF MEN. Not much is written in the Book of God respecting most of these; we know nothing of them but their names. A deeper obscurity than this will be our portion; not even our names will go down one century, certainly they will not descend to thirty centuries. We need not regret that; but we shall do well to remember:

1. That not only our names but our actions are written in some imperishable record in God's unerasible handwriting.

2. That our lives are written and are repeated in the hearts and lives of men whom we have influenced. Fame is rare enough and vain enough. Lasting work, abiding influence, is common enough and serious enough. - C.

I. If we turn to the Book of Kings we shall be surprised to find how the fatal sin of Israel was often of an intellectual kind, as distinguished from the baser iniquities which corrupt and overthrow the soul. There were three instances in which the intellectual sins of the people were conspicuous —

1. In the worship of the holy places.

2. In adoration of the heavenly bodies.

3. In the practice of magic and divination.There we find nothing of adultery, drunkenness, theft, or licentiousness of any kind. There are sins and sins. One man is simply a sinner of the coarse type, a criminal seen and known of all men and cast out by society; another man sins intellectually — that is to say he mentally deposes God, and more or less secretly endeavours to live without Him, never breaking any of the great social commandments, and thereby forfeiting social confidence, yet all the while committing the sin against the Holy Ghost. In this way men write their own bibles, invent their own deities, banish from the mind all the old orthodoxies, and in hidden vanity walk after the council of their own hearts.

(J. Parker, D. D.)