I ask, then, all who are not too old to be children, to come to God and find the meaning of life, and the strength to live it. You will hear a voice calling you; it will not be in the wind which moves along the streets, and bears the wisdom of this world; it will not be in the earthquake, which seems to shake society; it will not be in the fires which men are kindling on the hill-tops. The voice of God comes to us, still, small, reaching our heart, and then whispering steadily, always the same word, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; thou shalt do the things which are pleasing in his sight." Over against this oneness of our life stands the oneness of our God; and over against this singular, solitary responsibility stands the singular grace of God. Our thoughts are not to be divided, our trust is not to be parted. There is only one name under heaven given among men whereby we can be saved. There is only one law for our life, only one duty; there is only one Saviour. We need not waste a moment choosing between God and Mammon, between Christ and the world, between Christ and ourselves. Life is too hurried, life is too precious for us to have two Redeemers between whom our wandering thoughts must roam. We have one God, one life, one Saviour, one Judge, one eternity. Among these special and singular days do we make up our thoughts and plans;

and when we commit our life to God, he takes our purposes into his purposes; he takes our life into his keeping and guides us by his counsel.

I hear this morning the moving of the chariot wheels of God, the chariot of fire and the horses of fire. They are coming this way. They stopped in the last week at one of our homes, and a saintly spirit went up into the rest of God. The chariot of fire and the horses of fire, they will stop at the door of the men who love God and have used this one life worthily, and he who is ready shall ascend into the chariot and rise into the city of God which is forever, unto the everlasting youth, into the eternal years; for God has taken his life that he may give it to him in the glories of immortality.

II.

WHO LOVED ME.

ii:

SCRIPTURE LESSON: Romans viii: 14-39.

TEXT: Who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians

: 20.

ΤΗ

HERE was an apostle who delighted to speak of himself as "that disciple whom Jesus loved." It was not that man who wrote the words which have now been read to you. Yet quite as much as his brother did St. Paul exult in the love which Christ had for him. Indeed, these words. are a better expression of love than those which are used by the beloved disciple. St. John seems. almost to shut out others; "that disciple," he says, as if there were no others whom Jesus loved. This apostle is broader in his thought. He draws in the love of God to himself; he feels how much more it is to him than it is to the world; he takes it to himself as if he stood alone; yet he does not shut out the world from the affection which Christ offers to all for whom he gives himself. The words of St. Paul are broader, again, in that they

contain the method in which this love of Christ manifests itself. When St. John called himself "that disciple whom Jesus loved," or at the period in which he places those words, the great manifestation of the love of Christ had not been made. When St. Paul wrote, Christ had given himself to the cross, and the love had manifested itself in its own way. Therefore he wrote more fully as he rejoiced to write, "Who loved me and gave himself for me." Indeed, the expressions which St. Paul uses touching the love of Christ are all of the strongest character. He finds words insufficient as he rises into the vast regions which are beyond language, and beyond thought even. Thus, in his mind, the love of Christ while it is something to be known, "passeth knowledge," and reaches infinitely far away. Again, this love of Christ which comes to him is not something which touches his life, and with which he has no communion; but it is something to which his own heart is so bound that it is not possible for anything in this world, or in any world, to part the two asunder. Again, this love which Christ gives to him is a love which not only brings him the victory, but, going beyond that, bestows more than the victory, for, 66 we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." And again, this love which Christ has for him is not only a love which incites him to good deeds, and inclines him to do those things which please

Christ, but it comes with its constraining and compelling force, until he feels himself taken in hand by a strong power, and carried on to that which Christ requires of him. We have but to read these thoughts where with St. Paul expands the love of Christ, this sentence in which he declares that Christ loved him, to find how marvellous is this conception, how profoundly it is settled in his soul, and how wonderfully it is governing his life.

If we ask when it was that this love was given to him, the thought rises yet more in our minds as we remember that this love of Christ was before Christ died for him, and when this apostle was not his friend. The man was indifferent to him; the indifference grew into hostility; the hostility broke into violence of the most cruel and relentless kind. Yet Christ gave himself for one who did not love him, and continued to give himself, and give his affection, when St. Paul had become the violent persecutor. We find this affection coming to him, and working out for him this help through the cross, at a time when, if we are to trust our own thoughts, he might be reached in some other way. For St. Paul was an honest and amiable man, an upright man, and a religious man after the custom of his fathers, and very devout and very scrupulous in his religion; and it was when he was religious, and when he was honest, that Christ loved him and gave himself for him. His