Christ is that we abide in him. The word of Jesus in the mind of one who does not do the will of Jesus, lies like seed-corn in a mummy's hand. It is only by dwelling with him and receiving his character, his personality, so profoundly, so vitally that it shall be with us as if, in his own words, we had partaken of his flesh and his blood, as if his sacred humanity had been interwoven with the very fibres of our heart and pulsed with secret power in all our veins, it is thus only that we can be enabled to see his teaching as it is, and set it forth with luminous conviction to the souls of men.

And if ever we ourselves become afraid of our own task, and shrink from it; if the scepticism of our age appalls us and chills us to the marrow; if we question whether a gospel so simple, so absolute, as that which is committed to us can find acceptance in such a world, at such a time as this,-be sure it is because we have gotten out of fellowship with him who is our Peace and our Hope, our Light and our Strength. A Christless man can never preach Christ. We have been anxious and troubled about many things, and have forgotten the one thing needful. Peace we must have before we can have power. Let us straightway return, in prayer, in meditation, in trust, in faithful

simple-hearted obedience, to him who is the only centre of Peace because he is the only source of authority.

"I have a life in Christ to live,

But ere I live it must I wait
Till learning can clear answer give
Of this and that book's date?

I have a life in Christ to live,

I have a death in Christ to die;-
And must I wait till science give
All doubts a full reply?

Nay, rather, while the sea of doubt
Is raging wildly round about,
Questioning of life and death and sin,
Let me but creep within

Thy fold, O Christ, and at Thy feet
Take but the lowest seat,

And hear Thine awful voice repeat

In gentlest accents, heavenly sweet,
Come unto Me and rest;
Believe Me, and be blest."

THERE

VI

LIBERTY

are three points at which the teaching of Jesus comes into closest contact with the needs of the present age. Three problems of profound difficulty are pressing to-day upon all thoughtful men: the psychological problem of the freedom of the will; the theological problem of the actual relation of God to the universe; and the moral problem of man's duty to his fellow-men in a world of inequality. Most of the intellectual perplexities and practical perils of our times come directly from these questions, to which modern scepticism gives an answer of despair, or at best only a dubious and uncertain reply.

But the gospel of Christ, rightly apprehended and interpreted, offers us a solution of these problems which is full of light and hope. Three truths emerge in his doctrine, and stand out clear and sharp as mountain peaks against the blue: the truth of human liberty, the truth of Divine sovereignty, and the truth of universal service. Of these three truths we must never

lose sight, if our thinking is to be in accordance with the mind of Jesus. To these three truths we must bear witness, unhesitatingly, faithfully, and joyfully, if our preaching is to be a gospel for this age of doubt.

I

No one who has looked steadily upon the face of modern life as it is reflected in popular literature can deny that it is "sicklied o'er" with the shadow of fatalism. It is evident in the writings of the learned and in the scribblings of the ignorant. Everywhere there is a tendency to explain the whole life of man as the product of heredity and environment. The student of physiology, tracing the subtle correspondence between the processes of consciousness and the changes and movements of the nervous system, makes the enormous assumption that the correspondence amounts to identity. He takes for granted that the hopes, affections, and aspirations, which glorify this mortal life, are in their last analysis the result of certain puckerings of the gray matter of the nerves. The actions which flow from them are as necessary as the fall of an apple when the stem is broken. The caress which a mother gives to her child, and the blow with which a murderer

strikes his victim dead, are equally automatic and inevitable. They are the motions of delicately constructed puppets, and the triumph of modern investigation is the discovery of the string which moves them and the forces which pull it.

It is true that many of the teachers who steer us, more or less openly, towards this conclusion are careful to disavow the idea that they are teaching materialism. The name is highly unpopular at present, and there is hardly one of the men of science of to-day who has not protested with indignation that no one should dare to call him a materialist. They have devised subtle theories of something called “mindstuff" which they hold, with W. K. Clifford, "is the reality which we perceive as matter." They distinguish, with Huxley, between matter and force, and a third thing which they call consciousness and which they admit cannot conceivably be a modification of either of the first two things; but they go on to say that "what we call the operations of the mind are functions of the brain, and the materials of consciousness are products of cerebral activity." In short, they give a materialistic explanation of the origin and processes of thought, and then protect themselves against the imputation of