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: — This heart is a labyrinth more intricate than the mausoleum of the ancient kings. There are in our souls doors that have never been opened, languages which have never been translated, enigmas that have never been solved, monsters that have never been hunted down, and it was in the appreciation of that fact that the author of my text cried out, "Search me, O God, and try me." I propose to show some of the ways in which God explores a man, and the use that comes of it.

1. God searches a man by His Holy Spirit. Here is a man who feels he is all right. A few inconsistencies, perhaps, and a few inaccuracies; but upon the whole he is in tolerably good condition. The Holy Spirit seizes him. Why now does he tremble? Why now that grief-struck look? Why now can he not sleep at nights? The Holy Spirit has come upon him. He finds there are inhabitants in his soul that he never dreamed of. The reptiles begin to uncoil and to hiss at him. The man says, "Can it be that I have been carrying such a nature as this forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years?" And he immediately begins to apologize, and he reviews the better points of his character. He says, "I don't owe a man a dollar." God says by His Holy Spirit, "You have robbed me of your whole lifetime." The man says, "I am not arrogant, I don't take on airs." The Holy Spirit says, "You are too proud to kneel." The man says, "I am moral." The Holy Spirit says, "You have had many an unclean thought." The man rouses up. He says, "I must get away from this; I must get into the fresh air. I must go to business." The Holy Spirit says, "You cannot go to business; this is the mightiest of all businesses — the business of the soul." Then all the past sins of the man's life come before him troop by troop. From that point many repent and live. From that point many turn back and die.

2. God searches a man by prosperity. He was amiable, he was kind, he was generous, he was useful, while he was in ordinary circumstances; but by sudden inheritance, or by the opening of railroad communication with his land, or by some stroke of commercial genius, he gets a fortune. God is going to search that man by his prosperities; He is going to see whether he will be as humble in the big house as he was in the small one; He is going to give him enlarged resources, and see whether his charities will keep pace with those resources. When he was worth so much he gave so much. He is worth twice as much now. Does he double his charities? God says, "I will explore that man, I will try that man, I will search that man." Fifteen years ago the man said, "What good I would do if I only had the means!" He has the means now. What does he do? Of every dollar we make God demands a certain percentage. If we keep it back, it is at our peril. The old story of the miser who died in his money-chest, because the lid accidentally fell down and fastened him in, was a type of ten thousand men in our day who are in their own money-vault finding their sepulchre. Whatever be the style of your prosperity, by every dollar Shall you make, by every house that you own, by every commercial success that you achieve, God is searching you through and through.

3. God explores a man by adversity. Some of you are going through that process now. You say, "How beautiful it is when a man's fortunes fail to see him throw himself back on spiritual resources." Yes, it is very beautiful, but it is hard to do. There are many people who suppose they have Christian faith, when it is only confidence in government securities. They think they have Christian joy, when it is only She exhilaration that comes from worldly successes. God, after a while, sweeps His hand across the estate, and it is all gone. The man first scolds the banks. He says they are not clever; they ought to have allowed him a discount. Then he scolds the Congress, because it imposed a tariff. Then he scolds the gold-gamblers, because they excited the markets. He does not understand that all the time God has him personally in the crucible.

4. God explores us often through the persecutions of the world. How we admire all those pictures which represent the sufferings of Christi Why? Because we admire patience, and we admire it although we may have but very little of it ourselves. And we sit down on the Sabbath, and we study patience, and we say, "Give us patience. What a beautiful grace it is — patience!" and on Monday morning a man calls you a liar, and you knock him down! That is all the patience you have. How little we understand how to bless those who curse us. It is the general rule — an eye for an eye,. grudge for grudge.

5. God sometimes explores us by sickness. From other misfortunes we can run away, but flat on our backs, pain in the head, in the heart, in the limbs, we cannot run away. No school, however well endowed, however supplied with faithful instructors and professors, can so well teach you as the school of a sick-bed. People wonder at the piety of Edward Payson, and Richard Baxter, and Robert Hall. How did they get to be so good? It was sanctified sickness.

6. God tries us with bereavement. He searches a man by taking away his loved ones. An author describes a mother who had lost her children, saying to Death, "Why did you steal my flowers?" Death said, "I didn't steal them; I am no thief; I transplanted them." "Well," said the mother, "why did you wrench them away so violently?" And Death said, "They would never be wrenched away but that you held on to them so violently." Oh! how hard it is when our friends go away from us to realize that they are not stolen, not wrenched, but transplanted, promoted, irradiated, emparadised. But unless you have had bereavement you do not know what a bad heart you have. We do not know how much rebellion of soul we possess until God comes and takes some of our loved ones away.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

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KJV: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

WEB: Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.