how sin has not brought the pleasure you expected; how you have been disappointed and taken in, and wounded with the sharp thorns of the roses. that you would pluck, though they were forbidden, and you were warned. "Remember." The world's master-trick is to keep people from remembering, from thinking at all. It invents a whirl of pleasure and dissipation that leaves no time for thought. It intoxicates the soul till it cannot think or remember, but goes on stupidly like a beast to the slaughter. Read the world's own account of itself in the novels and romances of the day, and what is the conclusion to which you will come ?-that the world will let you do anything but remember. It will bid you enjoy the present; it will lure you on to some impossible future; "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant; " but it would have you forget the past. "Remember." Remember Bethlehem, and Galilee, and Calvary; remember the bitter cost of thy salvation. If thy poor soul seems not worth a thought or a moment's self-denial to thee, it was esteemed most precious by thy Saviour; He died for thee. Go bragging on through life; go working on with prone, earthwards face; go dancing through life; go stupidly sleeping through life; go sinning sensually all through life; but thy Lord thy Saviour, with His Cross, His bleeding Brow, His wounded Hands, is not far from thee. Turn for a moment with Peter and look, and there will come. a flood of memories. To remember is to repent, to be converted, to be saved. "Remember." Is it to Dives only that Abraham speaks? Nay, surely to poor Lazarus also and his successors, the sad, the suffering, the sorely tried. Remember, it is but a little while, after all; a little longer, and then Abraham's bosom. Remember how you have been brought through trials and dark times heretofore; remember past mercies in present trials, and take courage. Let remembrance have its way, and it will beget hope. You are not the first sufferers. Abraham was tried. You are called his children because you are repeating his experience. To all and each is this sober warning word addressed, "Remember;" be not like the beast; remember, think, reason, and so act wisely and well. Remember in time; memory will surely be busy enough some day, as we have seen. Remember now. Remember sin and confess it; remember judgment and forestall and disarm it; remember mercy and lay hold of it; remember thy Lord, and He will remember thee now, and when He cometh in His kingdom. CHAPTER XLIV. THE LOVER OF THE SOUL. "The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." -GALATIANS ii. 20. "I cannot love Thee as I would, So richly hast Thou loved me." Lyra Eucharistica. "O Love, who lovest me for aye, "My God, what is a heart? C. WINKWORTH. That Thou shouldst it so eye and woo, Pouring upon it all Thy art, As if that Thou hadst nothing else to do." GEO. HERBERT. LOVE is of all passions the strongest. There was a controversy in old times whether intense love could not compel those whom we loved to love us. To love is joy, but to be loved is wonderful. It is natural to love ourselves, but to know that some one else loves us stirs us to the very depths; especially it stirs up all that is good and noble in us. There comes at once a sense of unworthiness, and a desire to make ourselves more worthy of love. But what is the amazing revelation of Calvary ? St. Paul tells us it is this: "The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me!" We feel unworthy sometimes when love shines out of human eyes into ours. When some sweet innocent child holds out its little arms to us, its purity, its simplicity light up the dark corners of our heart, and we feel shamed and humbled. When we think of the great and the good, we long to see them, but we feel we should like to be ourselves unseen; we never dream that they could think of us or care for us. It is believed that each has an angel-guardian, and that he loves us dearly, deeply; but then we think how he must know what we are, how he is with us in our weakest and worse moments; that he knows our falls, our besetting faults, all that side of ourselves that we hide with more or less success from every one else; and we wonder at his love and devotion-it melts us into sorrowful tenderness when we think of it. But Calvary tells us not of human love, nor of angelic love, but of the love of God to us! We read of the Passion and of the Crucifixion ; we think what this poor world would have been without them. We are amazed at the love of God and of His Christ-that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for it; that Jesus so loved the race of men that He sacrificed Himself for us. We can conceive no adequate return for all that He endured. We see that it was simply an act of pure love, that brings its own return-that is its own reward-in some deep and high and mysterious way that transcends all our thoughts and imaginings. But all this, wonderful as it is, is not the wonderful thought as we remember Calvary. That thought is this: "The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me." Oh for light and grace to grasp that thought! It is a thought for time and for eternity. "The Son of God loved me!" Why? In my better moments I do not even love myself; I despise my meanness, my utter weakness; I compare myself with my fellow-sinners even, and I see how unworthy and poor I am. I see some good gifts of God, but I see that they have not been well used-that I have wasted talents, and time, and grace. I see that it is now impossible for me ever to be great or admirable, or of much use to God or man. I think that if near and dear ones knew me as I know myself, they would not love me as they do. But God knows all, and yet He loves me! Nay, He foresaw all at Calvary, and yet He "gave Himself for me!" For me! The hosts of mankind pass out of sight; I stand alone beneath the Cross, and know |