the love you have spurned, the faith you have broken, the service you have forsaken, the Saviour you have dealt with so heartlessly, the God you have treated so lightly, we are constrained to cry aloud, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning."

But in spite of this lamentable falling away, so displeasing and so dishonouring to God, there is still heard the summons to retrace the erring steps. There is still room for repentance; you are bidden, urged, nay, implored, with tears and entreaties, to return unto the way of peace. The same Father, who once welcomed you to his arms, is even now waiting to embrace the returning prodigal, and watching to meet you on the way. The same home that gave you so happy a shelter before, is still open to receive you, and the same blessings await you there. Oh, say, can you resist such boundless love as this? Can you refuse such a free offer of welcome, and forgiveness, and restoration? Can you still hold out against such pleadings of divine grace? Surely not, unless your heart is of adamant, and steeled against every plea, and unless all the better feelings, and even the natural affections, are dead within you. Will you not rather, like the prodigal of old, when at last "he came to himself”—his better, truer self-will you not rise up now, and with the penitent's words, "Father, I have sinned," on your lips, throw yourself into those arms of everlasting love, and find once more the blessed shelter of the Father's home? Let your repentance be the true repentance, that looks not only to the past, but also to the future; that

which unites a godly sorrow for past sins and shortcomings, with a real and steadfast purpose, by God's help, of future amendment. And so may you be assured of an immediate pardon, and a complete restoration to all the rights and blessings that belong to the children of God.

And now, ere I close, one word to those who have not yet known the joys of even a "first love" to Christ. Let me beseech you, my dear friends, to taste and see how gracious the Lord is to those who truly turn to Him. There is only one way, by which that love can be instilled, and that is, by a true sense of His great love to us. "We love Him because He first loved us." And if, as we contemplate the fruits of that matchless, boundless love, in His life of suffering and temptation, in His cross and passion, in His death of pain and agony, if, I say, the heart is not melted by this, there is nothing else that will melt it. And if it is not melted by love, it will be hardened by unbelief and sin. But "shall it? shall it? Oh, answer, answer, 'No!'

and trust Him all in

all." Yes, trust Him now, trust Him for all, and trust Him for ever.

VIII.

Faithful to the End.

"Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days; be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”—REV. ii. 10.

HRISTIANITY is made up of paradoxes; nay, it is one glorious paradox itself. In it faith and sight are opposed to one another. The object presented to the natural eye is just the reverse of that presented to the

eye of faith; the appearance is the exact opposite of the reality. The history of the Christian Church exhibits this striking opposition. Its course has been one of victory, but it is a victory of the vanquished; its strength has been made perfect by weakness; the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, and by it they, being dead, yet speak.

The essence of Christianity is contained in a paradox; we must humble ourselves if we are to be exalted; we must weep if we are to rejoice; we must

suffer if we are to be glorified; we must die if we are to live. The essence of our Lord's teaching is one of paradoxes-"He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." "Blessed are the poor; blessed are they that mourn; blessed are they which are persecuted. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven." The Incarnation itself is a paradox; "without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh;" and we see the striking contrast heightened in our Redeemer's birth; the King of kings and Lord of lords is laid in a manger among the beasts of the stall. We see it all through His life on earth; the Monarch of angels and men rides in lowly state sitting on an ass; the Son of God washes His disciples' feet; we see it even more remarkably at His death; the acme of His triumph was at the moment when the concentrated malice and fury of His enemies had done their worst, and to all appearances seemed to have been crowned with success. And as with the Master, so with the servant. “Ye are dead," says the apostle, "and your life is hid with Christ in God." Our very position and condition in the world is an anomaly, a contradiction. We are "as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live! as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." "When I am weak,"

says the apostle, "then am I strong;" and such ought to be the experience of every child of God. What is the solution of this strange mystery? Where is the key to this otherwise inexplicable enigma? Is it not because we walk by faith, and not by sight? Is it not found in the consoling fact, that "we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen? for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Is it not that we realize the truth, that "if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable"? and is it not that we believe that “ our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"? With these thoughts in our minds, and these facts in our view, let us consider the divine command and promise contained in the words of my text, and may God enable us to obey the command, and to inherit the promise!

First of all, let us consider who it is that thus speaks. He tells us Himself, and mark the terms in which He describes Himself. "These things saith the First and the Last, which was dead and is alive." We observe the divine speaker calls Himself by two antithetical names, expressive of two antithetical relations. He says, "I am the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending;" and He carries this mode of expression still further-"I am He that was dead and is alive;" once a man on earth, now at God's right hand in heaven; once crucified, but now glorified; once dead, but now alive for evermore—the incarnate Son of God. And why is it that Jesus calls