renounced Judaism, and idolatry of every form, and owned Christ as their only Prophet, Priest, and King. The Gospel (b) transformed the lives of men; "turned unto the Lord." They gave up their old prejudices and habits-turned away from sin and worldliness, became new creatures, "living epistles known and read of all men.' The change was radical and obvious;— Romans, Greeks, Jews, abandoned their pride, became as little children in the school of Christ. The faith the Gospel inspired was not a mere creed, cold and inoperative, but a Divine life that proved itself by appropriate works; for these early believers turned unto the Lord," sought what He would have them to do, laid themselves out for His service and glory. For them, henceforth, to live was Christ, and to die was gain. Christ proved the Divinity of His mission by His works; and Christianity has proved its heavenly origin by its fruits. It has changed the hearts of men, transformed their lives, quickened "men who have been dead in trespasses and sins." In turning to the Lord we turn to Hope, Holiness, Heaven.

CONCLUSION. (1) This glorious Gospel will never be exhausted. Eighteen hundred years have not disclosed all its splendour. The glowing tongue of the preacher, the ready pen of the writer, still find new beauty to charm, new utterances to deliver. In this age of abounding literature, of intellectual advancement, no life is so fresh or fertile as "the life of Christ;" no theme so inexhaustible as "the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” (2) It will never be superseded. Efforts have been made -desperate and determined-to overthrow the Gospel; attempts have been made-conceited and crafty-to invent some other Gospel for humanity; but all have signally and completely failed! The Gospel is the crown and climax to all God's revelations to the children of men, it serves every age; and, yet, like the pillar of cloud in the wilderness, it is in advance of the march of men. Its glory shall never be eclipsed, its blessings never exhausted. The Lord Jesus is still "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." May we become increasingly like Him, till we shall be eternally with Him, and sing the new song of Moses and the Lamb. CLIFTON. FREDERICK W. BROWN.

Work called for.

"SON, GO WORK TO-DAY IN MY VINEYARD."-Matthew xxi. 28.

"Son."

I. THE PERSON TO WHOM THE COMMAND IS GIVEN. (1) Coming from the lips of a father the command is authoritative. No one has a better right to give an order, and expect prompt and cheerful obedience, than he to whom the members of the household are indebted for everything. 'As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 14). The command, then, of our Father, bears the stamp of rightful authority.

(2) Coming from the lips of a father the command will be a loving one. It is not an order issued to slaves or hirelings, but to a child rejoicing in the affection of his parent. The very word Son" displays a bond of tender sympathy.

II.—THE PURPORT OF THE COMMAND.

"Go, work." Inactivity

is not permissible in the service of God. Angels are incessant in their ministry. The redeemed who are before the throne of God "serve Him day and night in His temple." On earth only is sluggishness in God's work to be found.

(1) It should not be so when it is remembered how honourable the work is. Frequently brave men will face danger-death itself for the honour of serving an earthly monarch. The Christian should esteem it incomparably more reputable to serve the King of kings.

(2) It should not be so when it is remembered how pleasant the work is. A service may be honourable, yet attended with privation and peril. Not only is God's work creditable, but wisdom's "ways are ways of pleasantness."

(3) It should not be so when it is remembered how profitable the work is. Men everywhere are affected by considerations of profit. Some seek it in the accumulation of material wealth; but "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Others seek it in obeying God's command, and find that "Godliness is profitable unto all things,

having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."

"My

III.—THE PLACE FOR CARRYING OUT THE COMMAND. vineyard." In every direction vineyard work may be found. Look at self. It requires culture. Those bound to us by ties of nature call for our attention. The Church constantly cries for the thrusting forth of more labourers into the harvest-field. The Sunday school, the ignorant and the careless who surround us, in city and in village alike, present an almost boundless sphere of labour. In short, there is no place where Christian effort can be put forth to which we are not directed by these words.

IV. THE PERIOD FOR OBEYING THE COMMAND. "To-day." This is always the time God fixes for our service. The present is ours, the future is not. Life is ever uncertain. "Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Since such is the case, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Present obedience is what God claims; for all too soon "the night cometh when no man can work.” MILLWALL. THOMAS J. DIXON.

CHRIST, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

"The clear white sunbeam contains in it all the innumerable tints of earth and sky brought together into one sovereign harmony. Nothing is more truly one than light, yet nothing is more manifold. And surely in this fact we can see, faintly pourtrayed, something of the nature of that light which Christ is, and which Christ gives. It includes the sum of every power of man, by which the Being and Will of God can be known. It is reflected in every object in which we can catch now this, now that fragment of the Divine brightness. The unity of our faith, the unity of the Church, is like the unity of Christ, the unity of light. Take from it any constituent and the whole will be less pure, less really one than it was before. And if it often happens that we can see nothing but the isolated, coloured, broken gleams, let us remember that this is the very condition of our earthly life. For us the glory of heaven is tempered in a thousand lines, but we know even now that these thousand lines spring from and issue in the light which God is, and in which He dwelleth."-CANON WESTCOTT, on "The Revelation of The Father."

Homiletical Commentary.

NOTES ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES.

The Tongue of Man.

Chapter iii. 7-12.—“ FOR EVERY KIND OF BEASTS, AND OF BIRDS, AND OF SERPENTS, AND OF THINGS IN THE SEA, IS TAMED, AND HATH BEEN TAMED OF MANKIND: BUT THE TONGUE CAN NO MAN TAME; IT IS AN UNRULY EVIL, FULL OF DEADLY POISON. THEREWITH BLESS WE GOD, EVEN THE FATHER; AND THEREWITH CURSE WE MEN, WHICH ARE MADE AFTER THE SIMILITUDE OF GOD. OUT OF THE SAME MOUTH PROCEEDETH BLESSING AND CURSING. MY BRETHREN, THESE THINGS OUGHT NOT SO TO BE. DOTH A FOUNTAIN SEND FORTH AT THE SAME PLACE SWEET WATER AND BITTER? CAN THE FIG TREE, MY BRETHREN, BEAR OLIVE BERRIES? EITHER A VINE, FIGS? SO CAN NO FOUNTAIN BOTH YIELD SALT WATER AND FRESH.”

"To tame," is to restrain from doing hurt, it is to put a limit to the power of doing damage of any kind, it is to render harmless the ferocity and force that otherwise might and would have been unfettered and unrestrained. In this sense a lion or other wild "To tame" is beast may be said to be tamed when it is driven to restrain. within and kept within its own haunts, the forest or the jungle where it has its lair or its den. In its native state it is free to roam wherever its impulse may lead it; it has unlimited liberty to roam in pursuit of its prey wherever that prey may be found. The colonist, the pioneer comes on the scene, he finds the wild beast his enemy, and his first energies are directed to restraining it, and by acting upon its fears, as by the fires kept up all night, or by more aggressive measures to render it incapable of harm.

persuade.

But there is another and a far higher sense in which the word is to be understood. "To tame" is not only to restrain from hurting, it is so to charm and persuade as to get the creature to allow itself to be put to use; so to overcome the ferocity and to It is also to overawe the will as to render both practically inoperative in the presence of the overcoming and over-awing power. You may confine the tiger within its jungle, and thus render it harmless; or you may bring it forth from its jungle, and, by infinite exertion, by power of eye, by strength of will, subjugate it so completely that it will crouch at your feet, rise when you tell it, or lie down. This latter "taming" is the more difficult and the more wonderful; and in all ages it has been ranked with the marvellous when the beasts and birds of prey, creeping things and things of the sea, have been, as if charmed out of themselves, put to the use of man: taught to hunt, as the lion by the ancient Egyptians; to become beasts of burden, as the elephant; to come and take food from your hand, as birds and fishes; or as the serpent, which the charmer can lull into harmless sleep. "Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of man." Is there anything he cannot tame; any strength, subtlety, ferocity that baffles him?

Something no

man can

restrain or persuade.

Here we are confronted by the apostle's words concerning “the tongue of man." After all his boasting how weak he is; there is one thing he cannot restrain, cannot charm into acquiescence ! "It" is untameable, unruly, poisonous, deadly; more powerful than any wild beast to do hurt; swifter than any winged thing to scatter firebrands, arrows, and death; more poisonous than the serpent's tooth. "The tongue of man can no man tame"; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. It is an evil, a restless, unruly evil; it is a poison, a deadly poison; no authority can quell it, no appeal to fear can overcome it, no persuasion charm it: "the tongue of men can no man tame."

It is the tongue of other men that the apostle has mainly in his mind when he declares it to be untameable, not one's own tongue, for this may be tamed, has been tamed (Moses, whose