in human nature. In order to redeem it He must become subject to death, and rise above it in that new form of being which creation was intended to display, and the human race hereafter to embody. He is now the Head of the new creation, who, when the scaffolding of things seen is taken down, shall be revealed as the Image of God in His temple of creation. But it is not Christ Jesus after the flesh, but as glorified in resurrection, that is this image. This explains why no traces of the appearance of His person in the flesh are left on record, and why even the traditions of it were lost from the church, and why it is now idolatry to worship images and pictures of Jesus. The attention of the church was directed away from Jesus after the flesh to Jesus glorified.* The adoration of the crucifix is the mark of her degeneracy and shame.

But it is not alone among idolaters, pagan, and Christian, that this true idea of God has been lost. Among those to whom a purer faith has long been preached, even within the precincts of the church, this same degrading tendency is painfully manifest. Multitudes who call themselves Christians find their highest idea of God in the forms and forces of this present natural system, and in humanity as now constituted, although they may not

* 2 Cor. v. 16.

employ images to represent the idea to their minds. This present evil world they regard as the platform on which His promised kingdom is to be set up. Man must seek and find regeneration in his advancing knowledge and power over nature and in his own self-culture. The end of all this is the natural man crowning himself as God's image in this temple of nature. If there is any knowledge of Christ-and there is much pretence of it -it is "only after the flesh," as a great teacher and reformer. There is no knowledge of Him, either in His relations to humanity or to creation, or to the plan of God that shall issue in its deliverance. He is not owned as the Christ of God. "This is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come." Alas! it is fast waxing to its most presumptuous height.

And now, concerning the many false ways in which the wisdom of the world conceives of God, we know that an idol or a mere human idea of God is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. "For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many and lords many), to us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." We, who know the Lord, crave no other God than this. Here our soul's deep want is met.

Our sin, the great barrier between us and God,

is put away. The mysteries of being and creation are explained. Our own future is lighted by Him along a path of peace and blessedness, and up those splendid heights along which He ascended when He arose out of death, leading captivity captive. And as science unfolds to us the wonders of the universe, and proves these wreaths of shining mist above us to be woven from the scattered sunbeams of worlds as countless as the leaves of the forest or the sands on the sea-shore, it is our joy to know Him as now Lord of all. The thrones and dominions and principalities which represent the mighty forces at work in this domain were all made subject to Him when He rose from the dead. He has re-entered this temple of the skies as the God-man, and resumed His sovereignty over all the potent agents that traverse these glowing fields of fire, to plough and till them for that harvest of glory to be reaped thereon to His eternal praise. The highest seat of power and dominion in all this realm of wonder is the body of the man Christ Jesus. The highest effort of all these forces, working from the dawn of creation, is to rear a throne and prepare an empire for that royal race of which He is the First-Begotten from the dead.

We do not think of Him as merely enthroned among shining ranks of angels, the recipient of

a homage that terminates upon itself, but as now constituted head of that system of mighty forces that surge and play through the boundless gulf of space, sprinkling its dark depths with jewelled worlds, tossing their sun-gems along its shores as thick as pebbles on the ocean strand, rounding them in the fiery surf that beats on that eternal shore, polishing them in their own diamonddust, and fitting them up in order and beauty to flash forth forever the glory of Him who created them.

But lest this view of our inheritance in Him seem too vast and vague, His Word also assures us that the administrations of power and blessing that shall finally gladden this wide waste of worlds shall begin here on the earth. Here, where He was put to death in the flesh, must He also set up His throne, until on the earth every tongue confess Him Lord. And finally the new heavens and earth shall be the metropolis of that everlasting kingdom, extending itself in everwidening circles to the utmost confines of space, and causing its barren solitudes to blossom with infinite forms of life and intelligence and beauty.

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS?"

III.

WHAT IS MAN?

What is man ?-Ps. viii. 4.

No question can be proposed to men of greater interest than this. It meets us at every turn in this mazy path of life. It demands attention at every shifting of the scene in this wonderful drama of human history. It confronts us at the bedside of the dying.

Let us look, first, at some of the diverse elements that enter into this problem; secondly, consider some of the ways in which men attempt to solve it for themselves; and, thirdly, let us see what the Bible has to say about it. What is its answer to this significant inquiry, "What is man?”

There are many phases in which this question presents itself. We study man physically and find that he is only one, the highest indeed, in a series of animal races peopling this planet.

And this creature is but frail and perishable. He dies, as the brutes die. He has an intellect, by which he is able to scale the stars and pry into the secrets of the universe. And yet hardly is