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object, as it rises to the view, is able to wean us from the settled purpose of our lives. In all the departments of life there is the conflict between faith and sight. Take the subject of prayer. Sight tells us that the world is ruled by regular, inviolate laws; that events are regularly linked in the chain of causation; that no interference is possible; and that we are taking the workings of our own minds for something without our minds. But faith believes that the prayer of faith will be answered; she cheerfully concedes all the abstract truths men can discover; but she clings, in human weakness, to the loving sympathy and direct promises of the personal Christ. So, too, in Providence. Sight, as it ranges the world, sees no room for Divine Providence: faith believes and hopes and waits; it is enough that it is written. So in respect to good works. Sight will whisper to us that nothing we can do can have any effect on the sum of the world's unhappiness and ignorance and sin. It is not from the principle of sight that any thing has ever been attempted for the heathen of distant lands, or the heathen of the vast cities of Christendom But faith tells us that God's people are ordained to walk in good works, that our labour is not in vain in the Lord, and that the kingdoms of this world will be the kingdoms of God and of His Christ.

Now, this natural instinct of walking by sight is practically the spirit of infidelity. I am not now speaking of that infidelity which openly and triumph

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THE CONFLICT IN REFERENCE TO DEATH.

antly stalks abroad, but that spirit of infidelity which often lurks within the breast of a disciple, who, even like St. Thomas, the Scriptural example of the unhappiness of unblessed doubt, loves and would fain believe his Lord. Have we faith, even as a grain of mustard-seed?

So, too, in reference to death. We shrink from the thoughts, the reminders, the imagery of death. Faith, with high confidence, tells us that death has lost, and sight tells us quite as confidently and imperiously that death has not lost, its sting, and the grave the victory. Sight can only mournfully grope in that exceeding darkness, seeing the earthly elements pass away, and almost listening to the traitorous whisper, that what we call soul is only the result of our higher organisation. Faith asserts the inherent immortality of spirit, and religiously shields the reliquary dust, that shall be remodelled for its glorious habitation. Sight sorrows as without hope, and sees that since the fathers have fallen asleep all things continue the same as in this day: Faith, with sharpened eye, discerns the dawn; with sharpened ear discerns the trumpet of the coming resurrection; and then whispers, that those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. Sight clings to this world, yea, and with desperate, despairing tenacity would cling for ever: but Faith takes up the words of the Apostle of faith, that to depart and be with Christ is far better. The multitudes of Christendom cling to sight

THE OLD JUDEAN DAYS.

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in life and in death,-little of noble purpose in the one, little of heavenly consolation in the other: but Faith tells us, that whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: so that, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

Perhaps we sometimes think that, had our lot been cast in those distant days, it would have been so happy and so different. If we only could have sat upon the grassy slope listening to His blessed words, or, in the sunset of the Judæan evening, have brought forth our dear ones, sick unto death, for the healing touch of His divine hand, or in the darkness and the storm have found ourselves safe in His love and care; could we only have brought to Him our questionings and anxieties and sorrows, and have listened to Him, whether in Sabbath walk, or Temple teaching, or sacramental chamber, it would be so easy to believe, so blessed to be a disciple. But for us, us of the latter days, there is reserved a peculiar consolation, a peculiar blessing. It is not said that he who abode with our Lord in this life was not blessed. He was so indeed. Blessed, thrice blessed, was he who beheld the glances of those gracious eyes, and heard the music of that kindly voice. But he too is blessed who, though he hath not seen, yet hath believed. He too is blessed who can prove his love and his loyalty to his absent Lord. Blessed are those -the Saviour's brother, or sister, or mother-who do the will of the Father which is in heaven.

For we

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THE SAVIOUR EVER VERY NEAR.

know that the Saviour in His glorified humanity, in the sympathy of His sacred heart, is still the same— the same as when the shadows of the night found Him kneeling on the mountain's brow, or when He hushed the waves of the Galilean sea, saying, " Peace, be still!" He is still our great High Priest passed into the heavens, still evermore touched with the feeling of our infirmities, the Propitiation for our sins, our Advocate and Mediator before God. Let us draw near to Him, the living, personal Saviour. Let us pray with the disciples, "Lord, increase our faith." Let us confess with the father of the paralytic, "Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief." Let us exclaim with St. Thomas, "My Lord and my God." We may take to Him our sins, and doubts, and anxieties, and cares. We shall hear His gracious voice speaking as to those of old time, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ?" Soon, in the great light, will all shadows disappear. The conflict between faith and sight will not for ever endure, for faith will be swallowed up in sight, and hope be accomplished in fruition. Then we who know in part, and prophesy in part, shall know even as we are known. For eye to eye, and face to face, we shall see Him as He is: we shall then know that our Redeemer liveth, and in our flesh we shall see GOD.

IN some points of view there is a most material difference between the teaching of our own times and the teaching of the earliest age of the Church. And the main difference I take to be this-that the argument, discussion, exhortation, which now form the principal part of teaching, then occupied a subordinate part. The ground is now quite common to preacher and audience. We take for granted a great deal which in those days could not be so taken. For the most part, we have all the same stock of facts and of principles. But the earliest chapter of ecclesiastical history presents us with a very different aspect of things. The chief condition of apostolic teaching was, that the Apostles should have seen the Lord Jesus in the flesh, and so be able to give a direct personal testimony of what they had seen and heard. Not as yet had the teaching of the Church shaped itself into its present dogmatic form. Not as yet had the records of the Church been gathered into complete and authoritative documents. It was the brief period-a period necessarily most brief-when oral tradition could exist in