and agitations and persecutions endless. In the name of religion in church organization, there has been every spirit manifested but that of patience and gentleness and sweetness and love, which brings a man into God's bosom, and brings the bosom of God among mankind. That we have not seen. God so loved the world that he gave His son to die for it; but we have not yet learned to appreciate and to appropriate that dearest gift. The love of Christ was manifested in this: that he died for men while they were his enemies; but we have not yet learned what that was. And we are not in

danger of going to the extreme in that direction.

Our trouble does not lie in this: that the hoops are not tight enough on the church barrel. It lies in this: that the hoops, being tight enough, are on empty barrels, or on barrels in which the wine has turned to vinegar. And yet we go on coopering, and coopering, and coopering, driving the hoops down here, and driving them down there; and, after all, when we look on the inside we find nothing there that is worth keeping. This, in my judgment, is the sin of the world. In the times of men's ignorance God winked at their sin; but we are born to a better day than they were, to better light, to better instruction, to better uses. It is not enough for you to be as good as men were who lived five hundred years ago. Your business is to be infinitely better than they were. One thing more. While I speak of the relative subsidence of all external things, or their subordination to divine love in the human disposition, you must not understand me as undervaluing auxiliaries; you must not interpret my words as meaning that it does not matter what a man believes, and that there is no difference between one form of organization and another; but I say that where the heart of the individual and of the whole church is surcharged with the spirit of God, it is the nature of that spirit to act on the human understanding, and rectify what aberrations there may be in all instruments, and fill every heart with this divine element. You cannot think right or do right unless you have the principle of love at the root of your thought and action; and with that principle you cannot go wrong. It is the helm of the soul. It is the pilot by which God is to guide this old

staggering world through all darkness and all storms into the haven of peace and rest. Under its guidance the world will go right; but without it mankind will still have the same wearisome strifes that it has ever had.

The church is never much more than a bucket of water dipped out of the ocean. The water is the same in the bucket and in the ocean; but in the one case it is in the bucket, and in the other it is in the ocean-that is all. You are in the church; yes, but your nature is the same that it was when you were in the world. You are as greedy for money now as you were before. You are in the church; but you are as proud and sensitive about the infringement of your rights as anybody. You are not willing to lie down that some other man be the better for it; you are not willing to surrender your place and your dignity in order that others may be lifted up and benefited; you are not willing to prostrate yourself under the foot of an enemy because it will make him a better man to tread on you; but Jesus said, "I am the way," and generations have trodden on him to find heaven and glory. How many men say, "I will give my life, if need be, for the cause of humanity," and go and do it? Men talk about knowledge and about eloquence; but what are words, what is philosophy, what is learning, what is the intellect itself, as compared with this one flaine of God, this all-cleansing, allnourishing, all-guiding love, which, when a man has it, makes him suffer for others, and makes him humble himself and bow down before others, in order that he may show that spirit which was in Christ? When once love is supreme in the church, and such Christians are in it, the salvation of the race will not linger nor delay.

Christian brethren, I feel, from day to day, in the nearness of the kingdom that is to come, and in the beauty and glory of my God in Jesus Christ, how poor and worthless are the assaults and victories which racket about us here. They are hardly worthy to be considered. The dear thoughts of God toward us are worth more than all the thoughts of mankind. How we shall serve Christ by love, and how we shall in our turn be Christlike toward men, whether they love us or hate us-these questions transcend in importance, to you

and to me, all questions of empires, all questions of science, all other questions. He that is humblest, he that is meekest, he that is most like a little child-I take him, in the name of Jesus, and place him in your midst; and say, 'Honor the childlike heart, the heart that gives up, the heart that sacrifices its pride and interest for the sake of another's welfare. It is the soul that can lay down its weapons of pride, and not the soul that can take up and wield them, that is nearest the kingdom of God, and the best representative of the Master. And when this spirit of love shall once be contagious, infectious, and atmospheric, then we shall hear the word of God sounding through the heavens, and saying, Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."

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And then, O earth, the scowling cloud that has overhung thee shall be struck through with light, bearing the colors of heaven. Then, O world, groaning and travailing in pain until now, thy tears shall cease, and thy groans shall be ended. And little by little, as birds begin to sing in the morning, first one, and then three, and then five, and then a score, and then a hundred, and then all in the whole region bursting forth, so there shall go up from out of this world single strains of joy and triumph, and then more, and then still more, until at last they shall roll as the waves of the sea and the thunders of heaven, as the voice of a multitude, or as the sound of mighty waters.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

WE beseech of thee, our Father, to lift us up above the dominion of our senses, and above the influence of care and trouble, and the sound of things upon the earth, into that sacred stillness where thy Spirit communicates-into that realm where we know thee, and know not how we know. Breathe upon us the inward tranquility and silence of the uttermost thought and feeling, that God may beam in upon us things celestial.

Grant, we pray thee, this day, such a sense of the glory of our inheritance, such joy unspeakable, such gladness in view of that life which waits for us, and such a sense of the gentleness of Christ, of the infiniteness of his love, of the wonderful tenderness of his compassion, and of the transcendent patience and gentleness of his administration, that we shall seem to ourselves surrounded with all the forces of the infinite and of the omnipotent, and with all the glory and wisdom of the life above, so that we may not stand for a moment in any sense of our own wisdom, or power, or excellence. For to us there is something better than that-the love of God; the bosom of thy kindness; thy disposition of goodness. How sure a refuge it is! and how blessed are they who are able, in opening their eyes, to behold thy face smiling upon them, and saying to them, In me is thy strength.

Lord God, if thou art willing, we are at last made willing in the day of thy power. We strive by all the strength that is in us to lay aside our pride; thou knowest that we have battles with ourselves; and though we are so small, and so far away from thee, none of our strifes and struggles are insignificant in thy sight. Thou knowest that we strive to lay aside selfishness, and all its hateful brood; and thou beholdest with what ill success we labor; and thou seest how we lift up feeble hands, tired at the oar, and pray for that wind from thee which shall waft us against the forces of our nature, and the forces of life and corrupted society. Thou knowest how we are bestead by the powers of the world around about us, and by the princes of the power of the air. Thou art not ignorant of the host of temptations which are brought to bear upon us. Thou beholdest how all our most precious senses and faculties beguile us, and lead us away from the true path. Thou seest how strong we are toward the things of the flesh, and how feeble we are toward the things of the spirit. Our helplessness is such that we seem to ourselves like children that have been lost on a ship, and are in the midst of the mighty deep, with the storm above them and the waves around them, and with nothing to save them. O Lord, our God, thou art the Saviour of Israel. Not by what thou hast done, but by what thou art, and hast been from all eternity, thou art the Saviour of the lost. This is thy Godship, this is the meaning of thy holiness, and this is the great truth of the sanctuary of thy nature that thou dost love the unlovely, and strengthen the weak, and bring back the wandering, and restore the souls of those that have gone astray; and that by the power of goodness thou dost inspire goodness; and that by everlasting love thou dost wait patiently for the healing of every soul, and for its formation in thin. own image.

Now, we worship thee, and rejoice in thee. We praise and magnify thy name, not because we must, but because our souls do ache within us to give back to thee something of that which we feel that we are receiving in overmeasure every day and every hour. And if all the flowers of the field by their fragrance do not cease to speak of their dependence upon the sun that created them, what should be the volume of the praise and joy which should go up from the multitudes of flowering hearts which thou, Sun of Righteousness, hast, with the kindling of thy beams, brought into life and beauty? Oh, that there might be a wider sense of thy presence in us! Oh, that there might be a joining together of heart to heart! And as we humble ourselves, and are conscious of our weakness and our littleness, Oh, that a tide of gratitude might flow forth to-day, the songs of heaven mingling with the songs of earth in praising thee, Lord God Almighty, in love, and wisdom, and power, for what thou art, and for what thou art doing.

And now, we beseech of thee, that thou wilt glorify thyself by the services, by the sacrifices, by the suffering, by the joy, by the life, by the activity, by the standing still of thy servants-by all their experience. And we pray, to-day, that thou wilt fill them with such a sense of thy goodness to them, and of the graciousness of thy love to them, that they shall have no other feelings but those which shall rise spontaneously into the feelings of God himself—that our thought, and our feeling, and our will, and all our affections may be swallowed up in thine.

O, bring near to us the other life. Dear Lord, there are many souls that are very sick, and that would be healed if they might but once look into thy heart. There are many who are filled with pain: reach down one leaf from the tree of life that they may find their usual strength. There are many who cannot see thee because the images of their dear children are in their way: through their beloved let them see thee come forth to them, bearing their infants in their arms and blessing them again. There are those who stand in solitariness, and hardly know their own soul in its fitful griefs and wild mazes of suffering: thou Comforter, who hast dealt with sorrow from the beginning, canst thou not deal with their sorrows and bereavements?

Behold those, we beseech of thee, who seem toiling in vain; who are borne down by burdens which are heavier than they can bear; whose hearts are filled with innumerable cares and troubles. O, thou blessed One, thou that canst bring forth from the mute earth and dead matter things which are rare and beautiful, canst thou not, from the spent and parched soil of souls, bring forth all sweet and pleasant experiences? May the wilderness bud and blossom as the rose in many a dry heart!

Lord Jesus, we beseech of thee that thou will revive thy work here again. Show forth, we pray thee, thy power, as in days gone by, and fill this house with rejoicing, not for ourselves, but for the excellency and the glory of thine own name.

Now, we pray thee that thou wilt teach us, more and more, lessons of trust, lessons of peace, and lessons of contentment, in the way of the Lord God toward us, and lead us in thine own way, so that we may not stumble nor be bevond the reach of thine hand, or the hear