son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" Many a heart, I trust, can answer, and answer with no feigned lips, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee."

The great process that he pursues for creating love in our hearts, is just manifesting the love that he bare us. The very plan of the Gospel is an exhibition of his disinterested love. The only way to create a passion in my heart is for another to show great devotedness for my sake. If some one · -to illustrate great things by small-hated and detested me, what plan should I adopt to make that person love me? I would just adopt the plan of which we have a precedent in Calvary itself. If I were to command that person, he would say, An affection cannot be created by a command. If I were to threaten, supposing I had the power to injure, he would say, Love is not to be driven into a person's heart by threats. If I were to offer that person honour, rank, and wealth, if I had it in my power, he would say, Love is not to be driven into my heart by the largesses that you may offer. But if I were to leave command, and threat, and promise, and if I were to save that person's only child from destruction at the risk of my own life, and when I placed that recovered child, recovered by the exposure of my life, in the father's bosom, were I to say to him then, "Thou that once hatedst me, lovest thou me ?" His answer would be something like that of the son of Jonas, "I cannot but love thee, who hast shown me that thou lovest me." That is God's plan. He issued his command on Sinai, Thou shalt love-and man

hated him still. He issued the command from Mount Ebal, the curse shall consume you, unless you love; and man hated the more. He issued his promise from Mount Gerizim, I will crown you with blessings and loving-kindness, if you love me. And man ran from him, and only hated him the more. At last he came from a throne of glory, to which a poet's imagination never soared, to which an angel's wing never reached; and he came to a depth of humiliation, voluntary humiliation, agony, inner agony, and outer suffering; and now, nailed to a cross, my God, in my nature, manifestly appeals to my heart, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me now?" and Simon, son of Jonas, answered-"Blessed Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." And thus we shall illustrate what is stated by the Apostle so truly, "We love him, because he first loved us." Paul so feels the force and the necessity of this love, that he says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema." It is so great a crime, so great an offence, not to love him, that even the Apostle Paul says, "Let him be anathema."

Christian brethren, refresh your affections by gazing on the Cross-by hearing in Gethsemane the oppressing and the agonizing cry: "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Go and witness the spectacle presented on Calvary; witness, study what Jesus is, and what Jesus hath done for you, and for your salvation; disinterested-unprovoked, and unsent for; and then hear his question addressed to you, to me, and to us all: "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" If

we love him, we shall be like him, we shall serve him with a freedom, a persistency and a fulness of which we have had no conception before; and when all the restraints and shackles of mortality shall be removed, we shall love him purely, perfectly, fervently; and we shall be like him whom we love, for we shall see him as he is.

Brethren, how much have you given to the cause? how much have you contributed to the claims of Christ; during the last three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, during your lifetime? I don't say, how much of money? Some have time as their only capital; some have interest as their capital; others can speak for Christ as their best offering; others, who have no capital of influence, no capital of time, have wealth and treasure at their command. Whatever that be which you can give, if you have love to Christ, that on all proper occasions you will give. It is the working hand and the consistent walk that are the best proofs before men; and the inevitable and inseparable proofs in the sight of God that we love him who so loved us.

This love is the very atmosphere of the blessed-the harmony of happy spirits - the attraction of each and all to God, their common and glorious centre. Were Christians more characterized by love and less ready to indulge in the exactions of law-were the apostolic sketch in 1 Cor. xiii. their study, and the inspiration of it in their hearts their prayer, not only would the church be more sanctified, but the world would be more awakened.

Love is to a Christian what a coronet is to a noble— a crown to a monarch a cowl to a monk. It is his badge, the ensign of his greatness, the mark of his birth: the absence of it is fatal to every claim to be a Christian-it is the pulse of life.

WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT?

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"MARK Viii. 36, 37.

THIS is a great, central, absorbing question, which every man ought to answer. What is required is not an echo which empty space will give, but an answer which a patient judgment and a living heart may render. "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Let us look at this question in that impartial light in which we ought to look at so momentous an inquiry; let each feel it is not the soul of some one in an assemblage beyond the seas, or the soul of some inhabitant of a distant star, but that very soul whose pulse beats in me-which is myself-which will live when stars have faded and systems have been broken up-which every man has lost by nature, which no man can recover except by grace, and yet, for the safety of which every man is responsible in the sight of that God at whose bar we must all soon be.

"What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world?" Suppose you set out with concentrated and ceaseless energies to gain the world, there is no gua