give up his old life, whether he would avow reverence for the faith of the Fathers, whether he would yield to the claims of Christ, whether he would repent and believe the Gospel. It was the hour of grace in the day of his visitation. It passed unimproved, and forty years after he died as he had lived.

The mode in which the Gospel was presented to him illustrates the selfsame principle. It came to him in a human history, it was preached in the unfolding of a human experience, a history and experience which in a marked degree exhibit the unexpected suddenness of Divine visitations. No history is more full of confirmations of the essential facts and truths of our holy religion; and as Paul speaks we see the persuasive elements of the Divine testimony in their strongest and most conclusive form. There never was hostility more marked or more uncontrollable than Paul's. If one thing could perhaps have exasperated it into fiercer fury it would have been the suggestion that he would be added to the number of those who confessed the Crucified as God and Lord, Redeemer and King. His hate was murderous in its virulent madness. But "in the greatness of his way" he falls; amid the maddest intoxication of his dream he is stricken; -in a moment-when his power was greatest and his success assured, he heard the voice of Jesus, and he became powerless to withstand the power of His resurrection. Sudden as the lightning flash, he became 66 a new creature." The hands which "haled men and women to prison," which grasped the murderous weapon, are clasped in penitence and uplifted in supplication. The knees which trembled not, when wives and children he made widows and orphans surrounded him with their entreaties and poured into his ears their upbraidings and imprecations, are now bent in earnest, agonizing

cries for mercy. 66

Behold, he prayeth." The eyes, fired with wrathful scorn and shooting with vengeful glance, are now darkened but overflowing with tears. The lips which "breathed out threatenings and slaughter" now utter the cry of surrender: "Who art Thou, Lord," and the entreaty of submissive faith, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" And now he preaches the faith he once destroyed. And now he testifies to small and great that Christ should suffer and that He, the first-fruits from the dead, should announce the true light unto the people and the Gentiles. And now the persecutor is in turn the persecuted. It is a trophy of the power of grace. It is a marvel of omnipotent love's triumph over the mind and heart and will of an unbeliever. It is sudden and unexpected. It is conclusive and allcommanding in its influence. And

it was thus, in facts that could not be gainsayed or questioned; in facts which were palpable in their reality, that Agrippa was brought face to face with the gospel salvation and the living power of the living Christ Who had risen from the dead; and unexpectedly, suddenly, confronted with the question: "Believest thou the prophets," he was compelled to decide upon the claims of Jesus.

It is the same still. All life may be spoken of as a day of salvation. But there are also opportunities of a richer, rarer kind, in which we receive calls more express, more solemn, more weighty, more decisive. There are times when the truth comes home with a new force and power. There are times when the heart is more open to impression and is more impressed. There are times when decisive questions are put and must be answered. There are times when life-long and eternal decisions must be made. These times come upon us suddenly, unexpectedly. They are very brief, they are soon gone

and once gone are gone for ever. The gate opens on its hinges and we may enter if we are inclined to do so at once, but if we delay even for a few minutes our chance is lost, and in the clang of its close we shall hear the knell of the special hour of our visitation. Christ has to be received or rejected, and on the choice of the time depends the character of future years, the character of human and business life, the character of the death-bed, the character of the awakening in the new realm within the veil.

But this history remind us, also

II. HOW NEAR GOD'S GRACE AND SALVATION MAY COME TO A MAN ONLY TO BE REJECTED.

That Paul made a favourable impression upon King Herod Agrippa is clear from his words to Festus. But as far as the personal bearing and meaning of the spiritual testimony of the apostle went, there was frivolous indifference and scornful mockery and disdainful rejection. How often is this history repeated where the gospel is preached?

1. There is the case of those who are brought to acknowledge the reasonableness of Christianity, but who yet reject it as the spiritual rule of their lives. We are living in an age of great intellectual activity, and of much restlessness and doubt. There is a fashion in such things as well as a reality; and it is by no means uncommon to find persons who consider it the correct thing to assume a pretended attitude of critical opposition to the Gospel revelation, the Gospel miracles, and the essential Gospel doctrines. It is supposed to be a sign of mental strength and culture to affect a lofty scorn of such trifles as the life of the Man of Sorrows-His marvellous death-and the standing miracle of His uplifting and invigorating influence upon the Christian nations and the whole free

dom and life of the modern world. Ignorance and superficiality are not conditions which favour any robustness of faith; and we may cease to wonder that it is not attained. I cannot too earnestly urge you to beware of this spirit as utterly fatal to any true manly and womanly character and activity.

But there is also a real and deepseated doubt of the facts and doctrines of the Gospel. It has always been so and it must, from the nature of things, be so. Christianity must have applied to it the most searching tests that the human intellect can create and formulate, because it pretends to be a world-wide religion, and because it pretends to utter exclusiveness. When Simeon took the child Jesus into his arms, he said "this child is set for a sign which shall be spoken against." The end of the Acts of the Apostles presents the historic verification of the saying in the apostolic age: "As for this sect we know that it is everywhere spoken against." It is the same now. Doubts and difficulties about Christian miracles and Gospel doctrines ripen into complete negations and denials of everything Divine and spiritual;— the very existence of God Himself and of any moral and spiritual life in man are sunken and lost;-and 'the pretences of a so-called scientific materialism are the flimsy, empty substitutes of a strong and rational faith.

But the Gospel has been able to stand and to withstand the assaults of the scepticism of every age. It has often entered the lists, often fought single-handed against allcomers, but it has never been wounded yet; it has not lost a single drop of its life blood, it has never even been exhausted or weakened by the fray; it has always come forth triumphantly and gone on conquering and to conquer. The existing facts admit of no dispute. It is the strongest creative force

-un

But here is a man, who, having honestly doubted, has been brought to bay by the internal, experimental, and historical evidences of Christianity, who cannot honestly get over them, who can neither answer them nor set them aside. He sees that the Gospel is a system of fixed truths and Divine doings- - the same through all the ages,folding the same features, producing the same effects. By its fruits it is known. Nature may rend in twain the veil before its innermost holy of holies; science may demonstrate its latest law; but the discoveries of the Gospel cannot be superseded or its design set aside. Not one of its statements has ever been disproved, not one of its facts discredited. It is as certain as the' mechanics of the heavens and the great laws which regulate the ongoing of universal life. It can never be superseded. Its stability can never be endangered. It has all the state and authority of a kingdom, the munificence of a priceless gift, the fidelity of a testimony, the assurance of a promise, and the unclouded radiance of a changeless hope. 66 Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Why, then, when his intellect has been compelled to own the doctrine true; why, when he has nothing to answer to such pleas-why does he hesitate to receive the message and rest on the Saviour revealed? Persuasion has overpowered the intellect, but, it has not overcome the pride of the

heart in its self-sufficiency. Each man's attitude, in relation to Christianity is determined by the inward disposition-by the heart and the will. Men who cannot logically set aside the evidences of Christianity do yet scornfully refuse it as a living law. The proud mind of the flesh stands in the way of a simple, child-like reception of gospel helps and salvation. They cannot bring themselves into that attitude of humble dependence which will accept salvation as a free gift. The proud mind of the flesh inflates them with the idea of their superiority. It is the same spirit which characterised the

literati and ritualists of Christ's day when they said, "Are we blind also?" Scientific and literary scoffing at Christianity is often a feeble attempt to justify a state of mind and heart which strangely contradicts the decisions of the reasonconvinced that Jesus is the Christ. Cursed pride! It poisoned the sweetness and holiness of Eden. It holds men back from the remedy provided for the fall even when they know, surely enough, that that remedy has come from Heaven and that He who brought it is the Incarnate Love of God. Pride of reason and self sufficiency underlie this strange contradiction between the convictions of the mind and the attitude of the heart and will. So when intellect has been overborne and brought close to Christ in acknowledgment, He is rejected scornfully, and the heart says, "don't think after all to make me a Christian."

2. There is the case of those who acknowledge all divine revelations and all the marvellous beauty of the gentle life, who yet stand aloof from it and reject its grace. There are

those who would feel they were insulted if any doubt were cast on their soundness in the faith. They accept the divine inspiration of the records. They accept the marvellous teachings of the Lord. They

accept the Gospel portraiture of the sublimest character which ever trod the earth. They accept His wondrous analysis and dissection of the human heart. They own the need of a sacrifice for sin. They acknowledge the great sacrifice once offered. They are conscious of the strivings of the Holy Spirit of God. They feel in their better moments the stirrings of desire after a good and right way-after a better life, but they, also, refuse the Gospel of God's grace as a present power of deliverance from sin. In all intellectual conditions they are "not far from the kingdom of God." In all doctrinal orthodoxy they are already "fully persuaded in their own minds." How comes it then that there is this divorce between knowledge and faith, between intellect and heart. It is not here pride and self-sufficiency, but it is probably a mean and degraded clinging to fleshly lusts and appetites "which war against the soul." They do not shrink from the self-humiliating aspects of Christian truth. They do not deny personal inability and shortcomings. They are not hurt and wounded in spirit and disinclined to come down from their fancied high estate and security. No, but they shrink from the requirement "deny thyself." They enjoy their self-qualifications and they are not inclined to relinquish them. They know they are mean, they are convinced they are vile. They feel them undermining physical well being. They know they are laying up for themselves "wrath against the day of wrath." The sport and plaything of their passions, they stagger helplessly along "the broad road which leads to destruction," going with the multitude to do evil." They have the light, but they love the darkness because their deeds are evil." The antagonism between creed and conduct is a moral antagonism;

and they reject the gospel that they may remain free to sin, and "to fill up the measure of their iniquities." They "will have their fling," and they deny their better nature and the conditions of the intellect in order that they may work all uncleanness with greediness."

3. There are those who have neither intellectual doubts, nor pride, nor gross habits of sin overcoming their inner convictions and persuasions, who yet do not become decided and living Christians. There are many who spend their lives between coldness of heart and deep religious anxieties. Some were drawn towards religion in early boyhood and girlhood. They felt then that they ought and must live pure and Christian lives. They cannot doubt any great fact. They do not need any new moral conviction. They know their sin. They feel their need of the Divine grace. They sing and pray. Sometimes they feel they cannot live without the knowledge of sin's pardon; without the consciousness of Divine safety and peace. The heart throbs with intensity of emotion. They burn with agonizing desire. They pray, and pray earnestly;-and then, all passes as the morning cloud and the early dew." They do not become Christians. Once more they are roused. Startling providences shock them out of their sleepy indifference. They are summoned to the bedside of father or mother, of brother or sister, or nearest friend. They exchange the last sad farewells, press the cold lips for the last time, hear the last charge, give the promise even that they will meet the dear one passing away in heaven. And it seems now as though it must be as if the day of decision had really dawned. But no!-these impressions, so deep and sacred, become, in their turn, feeble as those which had been before experienced, and they turn again to the old life, really caring for none of these things. Here all the

elements of a true decision are present. Christ has called through His word, and providences have deepened the impression of His call. The Spirit of God has wooed-has Himself persuaded. What is the reason that convictions do not ripen into certainties, and that the heart stops short of faith which ensures salvation and life? It is the wilful waywardness of the disposition. It is "the wilful heart of unbelief. To God's come,' against reason, against conviction, against persuasion, the heart, in an act which reason cannot justify, answers "I will not." It says to God, I have nothing rational to plead for what I do. I know not why I do it, but although Thou hast persuaded me, I will not yield. Procrastination is really only present wilfulness excused by a promise of future doing.

How

near men may come to Christ and yet reject Him! "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not!"

Man's hostility to Christianity, then, is the hostility of will-of depraved disposition. He who meets the gospel thus fights against God. "He who despiseth, despiseth not man but God." And there is nothing which can be alleged which can justify delay in the practical acknowledgment of its truth. There is no reason which will bear a moment's examination, which entitles any man to take a negative or neutral position towards Christianity. It rejects all com

promise-it discovers all equivocation. It requires a complete surrender, a whole-hearted devotion, a decisive acceptance, a changeless consecration. Almost it utterly rejects and disdains. The weakest may come sure of acceptance if they come in the entireness of their being. The strongest if they come with a divided heart cannot be received at all. Almost is the equivalent of not. The devotion is to be so complete that not father or mother, sister or brother, may come between the spirit and Christ. "He that is not with me is against Me and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad." There is no conviction if it be not complete; no faith if Christ be not wholly accepted.

Almost a Christian stands without and loses all Christianity's precious and inestimable boons. This is why there can be no hesitation, no half-heartedness, no compromise, no lukewarmness. Christ must be taken as He is, Divine Lord, Prophet, Priest, and King, All in All; or He is absolutely and entirely rejected. "Who is on the Lord's side ?" These are not the days for hesitation. These are not days for dilletanteism, and indifference, and lukewarmness. The man who has come near to Jesus but has not yielded to Him a hearty, thorough, whole-hearted trust, has rejected Him. He who trifles here loses all. Who will decide for Christ now? Who is on the Lord's side?

EDITOR.

Certainties in Religion.

1 COR. ix. 26.

"I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; 80 fight I, not as one that beateth the air."

LIFE is full of uncertainties. Who can tell what a day will bring

forth? There is no one who can be certain of the next moment in life, or of the next breath. With all the resources of science, with the records of past observation, with agents in all points, and with