influence. My heart is dissolved in Love. He wins all my trust. My love, full of reverence, exclaims: "My Lord, and my God!" "Art not Thou from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die." Thou art holy, and we are full of sin, and yet we shall not die." I can see it in Thy face, I can hear it, in Thy tones,"we shall not die." Hear His own words: "Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." I will die for you. I have come to die for you. You shall never die; "because I live, you shall live also."

VII.-Is the tale of the Gospel foolishness? Blunderer! what then is Wisdom? How dost thou judge of the wisdom in earth, air, fire and water? Have they not certain uses and effects. Begin thy reckoning once more, and judge of Jesus and His work, His Cross and His Death, by their uses and effects? If deeper, holier, and every way more blessed effccts have been brought about by Jesus than nature is capable of, you ought to know that the Name of Jesus is a greater Name than that of nature. Or, whether you know it, or not, it is greater.

A machine may awaken in us admiration or even wonder. It may work smoothly and with

surprising accuracy.

It may be very useful.

It

do with ease more than the work of a thousand

may hands.

It may have an awful power.

But there

is no heart in it. It has no sympathy. It hears no prayer. Such is the difference between Nature and Jesus. Nature is great and wonderful. Its uses cannot be reckoned up. It goes on and on and on, like a perfect machine, and is never tired. It keeps better time than any clock that can be made. But with all her beauty, glory and good. service, there is an awfulness about nature.

She

warm you. She is in greater haste to bring forth weeds than plants, poisons than fruit.

There are great force and great use in the motion of paddle-wheels and mill-sails; but one is relieved to know that they have a master. They are subject to the will of the engineer, or the miller ; he can stop them. Nature is not from everlasting. There is nothing like absolute necessity in her present modes. Her order, as we behold it, is not very old. She carries in herself the evidence that she has many times been utterly changed. She has had many ends and many new beginnings. We turn from Nature to Him Who was before

Nature, and we believe, that, when Nature abhors us, and sheds us like autumn leaves from her tree into her grave, He will receive us to His everlasting habitation.

"We shall not die." O Lord, had it been Thy Will that we should perish in nature's grave, Thou never wouldst have made us to know Thee, to trust Thee, to love Thee, the Everlasting One. But knowing Thee, cleaving to Thee, "we shall not die." Jesus was made sin for us and died; and yet it was not Jesus, but Death that died. Jesus rose again and entered Paradise for us.

VIII. Is it difficult to believe in a purer, lovelier, happier world than this? The difficulty would be, not to believe it. The strange mixture, contradiction and conflict of the universe are inexplicable, until we recognise its harmonious centre. The Holy One must have a true Holyland. The beautiful and the good which are here, but have not their home here, must have their Home somewhere. Life and beauty, Love and joy visit us here, but their Heaven is not under the moon. Ever and evermore they are coming from their own Heaven into these outlands to fulfil their Divine mission and to return. The whole work of God, from the obscurest flower that blooms to the

eternal many-mansioned House of His glory, is the creation and the sport of Love. The whole is but a fascinating Love-ladder beguiling man to ascend step by step until he comes to the open vision of the "All and in all."

IX.-What is there that cannot be remedied? How can a creature's case be hopeless? What possible ground can there be for despair? "Love never faileth." Is not that one word enough to make the whole intelligent creation break out into singing? Love is from everlasting. "Art not Thou from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?" There are not two everlasting powers. Evil is not from everlasting. Evil has no authority. It must be confounded. Its reign must cease. Death, the world-wide Destroyer must be destroyed. Sin is perverseness: perverseness cannot prosper. The seven-fold harmonious powers of essential being, in due time, will prevail over disharmony, corruption and death. Whatever has fallen into disorder has fallen from Love. And yet it is inconceivable that a creature should fall from Love. If a creature falls from Love, it is always into another love. The fall in Heaven and the fall on earth were falls from Love into self-love.

X. Here is the Spring-head of all disorder, misery and death. Disorder could not happen till the Chain of universal Love was broken. When the creature fell from Love to self-love, the chain was broken; unity was gone; another kingdom was founded. Such was the origin of the vast empire of Selfdom, which in every principle and operation is antagonistic to the Kingdom of Love.

Evil has done reaction.

A

But the cross of Jesus reveals to us not more the exceeding sinfulness, than the cure, of sin. Sin can go no farther. Self-love has crucified Love. The Cross of Christ teaches me that self-love would annihilate God, and be its own God. its worst. We may now look for mighty reaction has taken place. That reaction dates from the Cross of Jesus. Self-love did its utmost to kill Love, but Love could not be killed. Love rose again from the dead. Love cannot be killed. It will therefore kill self-love. Since that awful hour of conflict when Jesus stood in His bloody bath of agony, and said, "Not My will," millions have been saying, "not my will." word has rung the doom of the evil principle. It is both death-cry and birth-cry. The death of self-love is the new birth of Love. Through the great victory of Love in the Death of Jesus, multitudes, multitudes out of every generation are

This