is to come to the Saviour confessing our sins, and to have had them "made white in the blood of the Lamb," and who know how to come day by day for fresh cleansing in that all-atoning blood. But there are others whose sins have never yet been washed away, whose consciences tell them that they are as yet unpardoned and unsaved, and who know that they must soon-and none of us can tell how soonappear in the presence of a perfectly Holy God, with whom they are still not at peace; and to you, my friends, God's offers of mercy and reconciliation come again and again, and again and again they return to Him rejected; and now once more to-night, ere the passing hours of another day are gone, while the fleeting sands of time are still running through your hour-glass, before the ebbing tide of life leaves you upon the shore of eternity, and before you lie down to rest once again with your sins unforgiven and your souls unsaved, the merciful accents of a heavenly Father's voice are heard saying to you, "Come now, and let us reason together . . . though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

III.

Christ-like Living.

"For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
PHIL. i. 21.

HE popular religion of the day in very many
quarters is the worship of self. Man is
taught to regard himself as the apex of the
universe, and the rest of creation as only
intended to promote his own exaltation,

and his own aggrandisement. Duty is only another word for self-seeking and self-pleasing. Even those who profess to worship "the great spirit of humanity," and to be seeking "the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number," in reality are only proclaiming the glorification of the individual, and the enthronement of self. They set up a golden image, bedecked and bedizened with the embellishments of their own fertile imaginations and their no less fertile vocabularies, and then they command men to fall down and worship the image which they have set up; but if you will only strip the so-called "deity" of his tawdry attire, and his high-sounding pretensions, you will in only too many cases discover behind these the old, shrivelled skeleton, Self.

And what these well-meaning philosophers are doing in the region of high-flown theories and fancies, ordinary mortals are doing in the lower sphere of common every-day life. Self and selfishness are at the root of well-nigh all the sins and vices and crimes which go on around us. Trace some of the many harmful and vicious practices which characterize modern society, and you will find they originate in selfishness. What else but this is at the root of the prevailing ingratitude and insincerity, the drunkenness and the worldliness, the covetousness and the disregard of parents, the greed and the fraud, which we see everywhere? It is self and selfishness which produce the drunkard, and the miser, and the churl; it is selfishness which makes men and women neglect the plain duties of life; it is self which teaches lads and girls to disobey and disregard and illtreat their parents. Analyse the elements which make up most of the unhappiness and misery in the world, and you will find that the original element is selfishness. Man is by nature possessed with a firm conviction of his own importance, and an overweening estimation of himself, and so he comes to regard all the elements and surroundings of life as mere fuel to feed the insatiable fire that burns within him.

Now the religion of Christ does what no other religious system in the world has ever done; viz., it strikes a fatal blow at self and selfishness. It teaches man, as he was never taught before, his proper position, his true duties and responsibilities, towards both God and his fellow-man; it makes him think of others; above all, it does what is better expressed by

these words of St. Paul in the text than by any other words I know, it gives us a great substitute for self; it not only gives the death blow to this tyrant, but it supplies us with a mighty, moving principle in its stead-a principle as real as self, and even more potent, but, what self can never be, elevating and divine. It teaches us that to the true Christian, to the one who has been brought under the irresistible influence of the Saviour's love, to him "to live is Christ" Christ is the essence of his very being; Christ is the life and soul of all his actions; Christ is the end of his existence, and the sum of his hopes; Christ is his all in all.

There are two common objections which may be met here. On the one hand it is urged that this may be very well in theory, but that it is not borne out in the practice and lives of Christians; and, on the other hand, it is said that this truth is not a practical one; that it savours too much of sentiment, and not enough of reality; in a word, that it soars too high. The first objection may be met by saying that we must not judge a religion by the effect which it has upon those who only imperfectly apprehend it, and only partially accept its teaching. We must take the highest examples, not the poorest ones; we must think of what Christian life ought to be, rather than what it is in so many instances. And, moreover, we must look to the Bible rather than to the lives of Christians; or, if you will, compare the two side by side. We must look at the ideal picture as well as the living one, the great original as well as the inferior copy, if we would know what Christianity really is. The

lives of Christians are, alas! very often far removed from the spirit of their Master, and the standard which He set up. If we would pass a fair judgment on a religion as influencing men's lives, we must regard those lives as they ought to be, no less than as they are. It is but a poor criticism on Christianity to say that professing Christians are often very unlike Christ; it is no argument against religion to say that the practice does not correspond in so many cases with the theory; it may condemn the half-hearted disciple, but it does not condemn the Master or His religion.

The second objection; viz., that it is an unreal and visionary theory, and not a practical one, may be met by a denial; and its falsity may best be seen by noticing a few of the effects produced on the lives of true, sincere Christians. St. Paul says, "To me to live is Christ," and we need hardly look to the apostle's life for a confirmation of this statement. And what Christianity did for St. Paul it ought to do, and it might do, for every Christian. Man is by nature very selfish; he is wrapped up in himself, and if left to himself but seldom rises above that wretched level. Then sin develops this feeling, and so he becomes gradually a mass of selfishness. But when the influence of Christ begins to be felt, a complete change sets in, a counteracting tendency begins to work, and some such results as the following are seen: The man who once lived without God in his thoughts, or perhaps only with a feeling towards Him very different from love, now delights to live with the one great desire of pleasing Him; and whatever men may say, experience teaches us that we do need some great living