He had but to control his hands and his tongue. There were definite things prescribed for him to do as a part of religion, and if he did them he was acceptable to God. But Jesus pointed to all this common conduct when He said, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." One might live externally an admirable life, being obedient to the Commandments, á useful citizen, an unfailing attendant upon all the services of the church, and yet miss the kingdom of heaven altogether. These are they who appear at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, crying, "Lord, Lord, have we not preached in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?" He says, "I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." Their iniquity is altogether of the heart; their sin is in their emotion and their motive.

The effect of this teaching was to intensify the sense of sin. The classic expression of it is in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where St. Paul, who has lived a good life all his days, never willingly broken a commandment, and been exceedingly zealous in religion, says, "I know that in me dwelleth no good thing. When I would do good, evil is present with me": present not in word or deed, but in emotion and in motive, in the thoughts of the heart. "O wretched man that I am," he cries, "who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Immediately, he adds, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

For although Christ thus brought a new sense of sin into the world, He brought also a new assurance of salvation. He came, as He said again and again, to save us from our sins. This He did, in part, by His revelation of the fatherhood of God. The parable of the prodigal son declared that

the process of salvation is first a turning about of the strayed sinner, away from sin toward God; and then, a certain acceptance of him by God, who waits with fatherly longing and love for that return. It is simple enough, as the parable unfolds it, and any child can understand it. The prodigal son comes to himself, perceives his wretched condition, realizes that it is the natural result of his own misconduct, and resolves to stop all that and go home. That is the sense of sin, and the sorrow and repentance and beginning of amendment which follow it. The father of the prodigal son receives him with great gladness. That is how God deals with every sinner who comes back to Him, sorrowing and repenting.

When it is said that Jesus saved us from our sins by dying for us on the cross, we seem to be taken out of the beautiful simplicity of the parable of the prodigal son and brought into a region of perplexity and

confusion and hard doctrine. And it is true that there are mysteries here which are beyond our understanding. The best plan with children is to give them explanations which, while confessedly inadequate, are true as far as they go, and are sufficient for the time. The effect, for instance, of the death of Jesus upon the will of God, may be set aside as quite beyond the range either of the ideas or of the needs of childhood. We are much more directly concerned with the effect of the death of Christ upon ourselves. Whatever divine transactions may have taken place concerning us in the council chambers of eternity, it is plain that there can be no salvation from our sin without our coöperation. We cannot be saved unless we will to be saved. We must realize our sin, and be sorry and repent, and turn about and do right. That is essential. What we need is a strong incentive, and a great help. And that is provided for us by the death of Christ. To the formula of

the simplest doctrine of the incarnation"God was in Christ,"-St. Paul adds in the same verse the formula of the simplest doctrine of the atonement,-"reconciling the world unto himself."

The cross of Christ reconciles us to God, brings us back out of our sin to God, because it gives us a new emotion and a new motive.

The new emotion is that of love for Him who gave His life for us. He died for us. He saw that the sins of the hearts as well as of the bodies of men were destroying human happiness both now and hereafter; and He revealed and rebuked those sins in such a way that the scribes and pharisees, who were guilty of them, put Him to death. He died in contention against those sins which He saw were imperiling the life of the soul. It was as if a man were to die in his effort to disclose the cause of diseases which were attacking the lives of his neighbors. Such a death would reveal the condi