wonder, "Where is the promise of His coming?" for they knew by the most blessed of all experience that He was ever present with themselves. The Resurrection was very near to them, though a generation had passed away, for its power was in their hearts. His second coming was a certainty, whether He came soon or late, for their eyes could see what was hidden from the world. When they looked back upon the world's history, they could see that things had changed, and did not continue as they were from the time the fathers fell asleep; for the revelation of the cross of Christ was a change so momentous, that, though the outward course of the world was undisturbed, God was very near to every one of them, and His Spirit was everywhere doing its healing, consoling, saving work. They looked on things with different eyes: to them all things had become new.

This, my brethren, is the issue between the Christian and the man of the world. We are just leaving behind us the season of Easter. The question for us is whether it shall fade away into history and the past, or abide with us as a fact, in a region where time has no sway. We shall wander from it in time; shall we also wander from it in spirit? The events of Chris

tianity are to the believer of no time; to him, as to God, a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years. To those who daily crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts, the crucifixion is an event of to-day to those who daily rise from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, the resurrection has no past. They to whom Christ is always present will not be among the scoffers who ask, “Where is the promise of His coming?" The love of righteousness is the nurse of hope. Our faith in Christ places us in a world where God is, and with Him is no before or after. We are partakers of Christ's righteousness, and are thereby made inheritors of the life that is eternal.

SERMON XVIII.

CULTURE AND TEMPTATION.

(APRIL 10, 1870.)

"Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."-MATT. iv. 10.

WE are thinking and talking much at the present juncture about Education. Apart from the religious difficulty of the position, we are inclined to look upon the extension of knowledge to that large population yet unreached by it as the beginning of a new era in our history. We think that the extent of crime and poverty in the country will be different from what it has been, and that society will gain immensely by the changed relations between its different classes. On this question-how society will gain by the bringing within reach of the educator those who are at present the outcasts of civilization-I am not going to enter. I

Q

wish rather to speak of the influence of culture upon the recipient himself. Leaving out of sight altogether the direct influence of religious teaching, what is the effect of culture upon the educated? To what extent can it modify the influence of temptation upon them? What effect will the cultivation of new tastes have upon the moral being of mankind? I can anticipate one answer to these questions that will be immediately given. It will be said, and truly, that the Bible does not recognize human knowledge and learning as having any converting power. As man by wisdom cannot find out God, so also he cannot by wisdom please God, or acquire anything of the spirit which alone is acceptable to Him. I wish, my brethren, that we would all try to keep in mind this elementary truth of Revelation. It is because we do not do so that I have chosen this subject of temptation, as affected by culture, to speak of to-day, at a season when our Lord's temptation, the type of every man's discipline under the hands of the Tempter, is specially brought before us. The truth is, that we hold one set of doctrines, which we find in our Bibles, but practically use another set in forming our every-day judgments. We commonly

It

assume that temptation is an incident of ignorance: that when the ignorance is taken away, temptation is weakened. We argue that a population that is untaught will have low tastes; being uncultured, its amusements will be coarse and degrading, if not actually immoral. will frequent the beer-shop and the gin-palace, and use stimulants to excess; it will read low and criminal literature; it will find its pleasure in sensuality, cruelty, grossness of many kinds. The true remedy for such a state of things is education. Give to such persons the power to read; put books into their hands; open to them the mighty realms of art, of science, of the imagination; you will inculcate higher, purer tastes, which will cast out the lower.

temptation will cease to assail them.

The lower

When we

compare our own opportunities with those of the poor, we find that there are certain temptations which seem to act with irresistible power on them, which do not reach us at all. We do not feel any merit in not being guilty of sins to which they are specially liable, for we do not feel in the slightest degree tempted. We are persuaded that the reason of this is that we have other resources and interests: give them the same resources and interests, and they,