than an animal. Live the life of the Christ, and you will enjoy the hope of a Christ. "For this is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

If you complain that you require stronger scientific evidence respecting the resurrection than the providence of God has seen fit to accord, we may say, as we said of the faith in the life to come, that just as the belief in a future state was the vertebral column, so to speak, of the form in which the mind of man began to organize itself so soon as it became conscious of its own power of reflecting upon itself, so the faith in a Christ who had overcome death, and opened the gates of everlasting life, was the vertebral column of the form in which most of the nobler minds began to organize themselves so soon as they became conscious, so to speak, of the working of their higher nature—even of the Christ within. If, therefore, the Spirit of Christ represents the highest point that the spirit of man has yet attained, we are bound to dedicate ourselves to it, whether we consider the evidence in favour of certain historical facts as strong as we could wish, or whether we do not for, I repeat, every man is bound to act up to the best that he knows; and if he does this, it cannot but be that faith will seem to him to be more reasonable than unbelief.

As the man of vigorous health, who has been accustomed to use his muscles, has the faith, or energy, or

force of nerve to dash into the water to save a comrade's life, or arrest a frightened horse, so the man of an honest and good heart, who has been in the habit of looking on all sides for traces of the handwriting of God, possesses a soul that is so full of faith and energy that the thought of death has just no horror for him at all. It is no material evidence that makes him feel sure of a life to come, but the inward energy of the soul, which, being persistently concentrated on the direction in which it was meant to travel, feels that nothing can be more absurd than the supposition that the road which it has followed so long, and with so much advantage, can lead to nothing, and that the upward struggles which the noblest spirits amongst mankind have maintained for untold thousands of years, and which have enabled our race to grow up from the lowest conceivable origin to a condition in which it is able to replenish and subdue the earth, and live in union with God, are suddenly to be broken off just at the point where they might naturally be expected to bear their fruit and leave no trace behind.

As my sermon has already exceeded its usual length, I must try and bring it to a close; and, in doing so, would remind you that as material or scientific evidence appealing to our senses in support of the reality of the world to come is at present out of the question, the object we have before us is to consider what kind of considerations will best help us to feel assured that our

faith in the blessed hope of everlasting life, which God has given us in our Saviour Christ, is more reasonable than unbelief. And what I have said amounts to this: that the faith, when consistently acted upon, is its own justification. We must either act on the supposition that life is not only worth living, but that it is worth living well, or that it is not. If it is worth living well, it must be because we are assured that we shall one day see of the travail of our souls and be satisfied; if it is not, we are logically bound to go and commit suicide at once. But, as a rule, men do not commit suicide; and when they do, they are regarded as insane. You wish to embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. Settle it, then, well in your minds that you must win it by your own righteous efforts to obey the voice of the Christ within-" For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." According, therefore, to the aims you set before you, and the spirit in which you live, will death seem to you as a dark portal, where those who enter must leave all hope behind, or the gate through which we must pass to a joyful resurrection, where He in Whom we have hitherto trusted, and Who has put into our minds good desires, may be depended upon to bring the same to good effect.

X.

The Adam and the Christ in Man.

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."-1 COR. xv. 21, 22.

WHEN it is said that our Lord Jesus Christ has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, of course it is not meant either that the time would come when men would no longer have to pass through the gate of death to the higher life beyond, or that before Christ came men had never learned to believe in a life to come, but that the good news which He had brought into the world concerning the Fatherhood of God, and the filial spirit towards Him in which all men might live who would, coupled with the belief in His own actual resurrection from the grave, had thrown such a flood of light on what had hitherto been a comparatively feeble and uncertain feeling, that all who lived in the spirit of Him whom they had learned to love as the incarnate Son of God, no longer looked forward with dread to a dim and uncertain future, for they knew that whatever

their ignorance might be, they were destined to grow up in the likeness of Him whom they loved and reverenced more than aught beside, until the time came when they were prepared to see Him as He really is, and to know even as they themselves were known.

In gratitude for the light which the Lord Jesus Christ has thrown upon the belief in the world to come, and for the blessed hope of everlasting life which God has given us in Him, we are sometimes in danger of forgetting that even before Christ came men were able to write that "God had created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity," and that it was the inspiring belief that he was destined to survive the grave which had enabled him to become what he is at present-to emerge out of barbarism, to be strong and of a good courage, in full confidence that no labour that he performed as in the eye of God could ever be in vain.

In my last sermon I endeavoured to show that if a man desired to embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which God has given us in our Saviour Christ, and which may also be said to be the inheritance of our race, he must to a great extent be the architect of his own fortunes, and win for himself the faith he desires by faithful living, so that the belief in the life to come shall seem to him more reasonable than unbelief. We then noticed that as