your footing in the midst of the rush and swirl of that great tide of sin, here is a hand that you may grasp, and grasping will be strong." And that, for three reasons, each of which is mighty, and all of which, taken together, are omnipotent.

In Christ we have an all-sufficient pattern. I have been saying it is at our peril that we imitate men. There is a man whom it is safe and blessed and noble and peace and love and perfectness to imitate-the man, Christ Jesus. There is a man to whom all the instincts which lead us to follow the example of men around us, and which so often lead us astray, may be directed without fear, yea, rather with the happiest results. There is no need why we should seek in any other a pattern when we can read, "Leaving us an example that we should follow His steps." "So did not I, because of the fear of God." So did I, because my Master had done it before me. The one command which contains the whole of Christian duty, the whole law of moral perfectness attainable by man, is, "Be ye imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk as Christ hath walked."

That fear of God, which is all transfused and mingled with the love of Him, gives us, next, all-powerful motive. Love delights to please; fear dreads to disobey; and when the pressure strong and constant of these examples round about us is forcing itself in upon us, we have but to think of a mightier Companion, whose smile is better than all other approbations, whose condemnation is a pain that no other approval can ever efface. "He endured as seeing Him who is invisible."

And, finally, the fear of God strengthens us for resistance, because it gives us an omnipotent power within ourselves whereby we resist. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." We are not left to the following of an example that is set us from afar. That is the baldest notion, a mere humanitarian notion of the influence of Christ and His work. We are not left to the influence of the motives of love and fear built upon the recognition of His sacrifice, great and blessed as these motives arethat is a less imperfect, but still an imperfect, conception of the Gospel. The whole truth embraces both of these, and adds to them that mighty fact that we have a Divine helper breathing His grace and strength into us. We have, therefore, not merely to urge you to imitate the example of Christ, nor only to commend to your faith the love of Christ as manifested on the cross, that it may subdue by its constraining influences. the hardness and loftiness of our own evil hearts, but we have to point to Christ who died for us as the source of all our hope and the sacrifice for all our sins, and the allpowerful motive of loving obedience; to Christ who lived among us as the perfect Ideal of manhood; to Christ who is exalted at God's right hand as shedding forth this wondrous gift of a sanctifying Spirit, in whose strength we are strong, and by whose help we can resist. Therefore, because, apart from Christ, we have no wholly trustworthy guide for even the most honest efforts, nor any motive powerful enough to counterwork the baser inducements which the world offers to drag us down by,

nor any inward power to lift ourselves by ourselves--a feat as impossible in moral as in bodily gymnastics— therefore, if we seek to resist, we must be "strong in the Lord and in the power of his might." "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again."

Do not you go on this warfare at your own charges, nor while you are but putting on the armour boast yourself as he that putteth it off. If you do, you will certainly be beaten, and led away from the field a prisoner. Forsaking self, trust yourself wholly to Christ, and having yielded your soul to Him as a sinful creature who needs pardon for the past as well as power for the future, let His love sway your heart, and His example be your mark, and His Spirit your strength. As the secret of all negative forbearance from evil take for your watchword, "So did not I, because of the fear of God." As the secret of all positive allegiance to God, let your motto be, "The love of Christ constraineth me." Then the noble picture of what a youthful soul may be will be fulfilled in you "Ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the evil one."

Wilt thou not from this time say, "My Father! Thou art the guide of my youth"?

III

SERMON VIII

A DARK PICTURE AND A BRIGHT HOPE.

EPHESIANS iv, 22.

That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

IF

F a doctor knows that he can cure a disease, he can afford to give full weight to its gravest symptoms. If he knows he cannot, he is sorely tempted to say it is of slight importance, and, though it cannot be cured, can be endured without much discomfort.

And so the Scripture teachings about man's real moral condition are characterized by two peculiarities which, at first sight, seem somewhat opposed, but are really harmonious and closely connected. There is no book and no system in the whole world that takes such a dark view of what you and I are; there is none animated with so bright and confident a hope of what you and I may become. And, on the other hand, the common run of thought amongst men minimizes the fact of sin. But when you say, "Well, be it big or little, can I get rid of it anyhow?" there is no answer to give that is worth listening to. Christ alone can venture to tell men what

they are, because Christ alone can radically change their whole nature and being. There are certain diseases of which a constant symptom is unconsciousness that there is anything the matter. A deep-seated wound does not hurt much. The question is not whether Christian thoughts about a man's condition are gloomy or not, but whether they are true. As to their being gloomy, it seems to me that the people who complain of our doctrine of human nature, as giving a melancholy view of men, do really take a far more melancholy one. We believe in a fall, and we believe in a possible and actual restoration. The man to whom evil is not an intrusive usurper can have no confidence that it will ever be expelled. Which is the gloomy system-that which paints in undisguised blackness the facts of life, and over against their blackest darkness the radiant light of a great hope shining bright and glorious, or one that paints humanity in a uniform monotone of indistinguishable grey involving the past, the present, and the future-which, believing in no disease, hopes for no cure? My text, taken in conjunction with the grand words which follow, about “The new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness," brings before us some very solemn views (which the men that want them most realize the least) with regard to what we are, what we ought to be and cannot be, and what, by God's help, we may become. The old man is "corrupt according to the deceitful lusts," says Paul. There are a set of characteristics, then, of the universal sinful human self. Then there comes a hopeless commandment—a mockery—if we are to stop with