detect this period in the eager, restless mind, perhaps in an unsatisfied and discontented spirit; in the world you can read it throughout the history of the last five hundred years, in a tone of gradually increasing inquiry, and the pondering and doubting over nature's book, as it slowly unfolds and discovers itself.

And as the first age was one of superlatives, so this is one of comparatives: everything is analyzed, sifted, contrasted, compared.

But the third age is to come-the age of simple ascertained truth. Yes, the imagination reaches forward to that day in the long future, enveloped yet in the clouds of night and mist, when the plenitude of knowledge shall come, and men who puzzle now over the secondary causes of nature, and probe into their depths, shall soar into the height of the throne of knowledge, where the Giver of all shall be discovered in His beauty and power; just as on the individual man of decaying age, whom years of searching after knowledge have clouded and cast into gloom, there breaks the evening sunlight of illuminating and positive truth and then he stands in the presence of his God.

You may think this to be a departure from my text, but I have but anticipated the meaning of the answer given to Nicodemus by Christ.

Nicodemus practically says, "Rabbi, I believe you to be a Teacher come from God, because you have

wrought miracles." What is Christ's reply? "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." There is seemingly and at first sight no connection between the words of Nicodemus and those of our Lord. But the answer of Christ means this: Miracles have brought you to the feet of Christ; but this is an inversion of what ought to be the case. Believe in My spiritual teaching; miracles are adjuncts to convince the duller soul ignorant of My true beauties. Adapt your life to My teaching first; the belief in My miracles should follow, not precede. Change the attitude of your soul, and all the rest will follow. Believe in My divinity from this My teaching, not from My acts.

Yes, this is Christ's answer to the inquiring Pharisee, an exact counterpart to His words in another place, "Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk?" an exact counterpart to the answer given to the prayer of the despairing nobleman, "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe."

It seems as if Christ always disparaged and thought little of these manifestations of His power, as things away from which men should gradually be weaned and educated; that a time should come when the Christianized world should no longer need them.

And yet to-day He says to us again, "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." It is a

mournful truth, full of meaning to us in our younger days. We go on day after day putting off the time for repentance, till perhaps, in the full career of guilt and independence, even when we are climbing the hillside of life, and scarce have brushed away with upward feet the dews of youth's morning, Death confronts us and wraps us in his shroud, and hurries us away-whither ?

Or, if the goodness of God so wills it, He scourges us with signs and wonders. It may be the sudden snapping of fond associations; it may be by the blasting of character or fortune; so that it is by external force, such as of the miracles of old, meant merely for slumbering souls, that we are led to the feet of Christ, with the dregs of a ruined and dishonoured life to give Him.

Sudden conversions these are called a rough earthbound remedy applied perforce to souls-preached up by the ignorant, and popular with the depraved, but often a doubtful two-edged advantage even to those who have experienced them.

Nay, there is a more excellent way, which Christ has taught us in His own bright words: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

Yes, heaven is easy for the young, thorny and arduous for the old. May God in His mercy grant that you may enter the kingdom of heaven upon

earth, and be born again, before the rust and dross and turmoil of the world has blunted the edge of your soul; before the summer come, and the harvest pass, and still you be not saved; before you stand, like the foolish virgins, before the door of life and find it shut; before the night cometh, when no man can work.

SERMON XI.

Guests of God.

PREACHED AT BRADFIELD, SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY,

1883.

"Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. LUKE xiv. 22.

WHEN We are told that the sayings of our Lord are susceptible of more than one application, we must be quite sure what is meant. If by such a statement it be implied that Christ had in His mind when He spoke two or three different subjects, entirely disconnected with each other, we shall, I think, be often led astray, and be induced to forsake the plains of fact for the realms of fancy.

If, on the other hand, it be merely meant that we can discover in His teachings deep underlying principles which lend themselves to different phases of human history, and valuable for our own individual guidance, then, I think, the statement becomes at once practical, true, and full of force.

Now, in dealing with the parables, this distinction between that to which Christ applies them, and that