There is more than sorrow in this world. It abounds I admit, and so does sin. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Sin is here, but a Saviour is here. Sin is here, but even through that I may have the triumph of a salvation which is to make a redeemed life the most glorious life of all.

From the lips of Christ this is a reasonable comfort, because He is able to make all grace abound towards me, because He is Lord of Sin and Death, because sorrow goes forth as His angel to purify the soul and make me meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

These Words are not Exhaustible.

You cannot come to an era in which you can say, Glorious words! How they must have sustained the hearts of disciples in the olden time! but I cannot turn them into life now! Yes you can, they are more than past history. You say, How blessed it must have been for the first disciples to have had such a consolation! But has not Christ said, 'Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!'

This comfort is not exhaustible in time! No; nor can you exhaust its kind adaptation to all variety and speciality of personal sorrow. Did Christ not know your heart, your burden, your doubt, your sorrow? It is still true, 'Lord, thou hast searched me and known me.'

This precious anodyne, then, is not like a faded flower within the pages of the Bible, with skeleton leaves. It is fresh and fragrant and fair. It is the heart's-ease of to-day.

It would not be true and real comfort, remember, if Christ were merely a figure in history. If there were no resurrection of the Saviour from the dead-if He did not live and reign-if He had not risen to the right hand of the Father, the words are exhaustible. But He Himself has said, 'I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore.'

The beauty even of an earthly friend is the inexhaustibility of his sympathies. An unwearied patience, an intellectual freshness, an absence of tame repetition, a forbearance with errors and weaknesses-these are the elements which constitute the preciousness of friendship. Love like this is to be found and to be rejoiced in on earth. But at the best human friendship is very shallow. We know that all is finite with the best of men, but it is different with Christ. To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge' was an Apostle's prayer. Then with all that is merely human comes Death. You remember, my friends, who said to you once in early days, Do not trouble, dear! You visited the old familiar home, and as you sat at table or went to the resting-place at night with the kiss of

blessing, how happy you were. The staircase clock made the same crooning noise, and the Bible rested on the same familiar table; and you felt what folly it was to worry so much when hearts at home loved you so well. You were so comforted then, and when you came away you felt that the mental burdens you came with, were all lightened. You left behind you a weight of trouble, because you had been again a child at home.

But such experiences are over with most of us now. The churchyard has a simple gravestone with an inscription on it now, beginning with your father's name and ending with Requiescat in pace.'

Christ is the only everlasting Friend, and the water He gives us, springs up unto everlasting life. How kind of Him to say, He who changes not, He who abideth always. 'Let not your heart be troubled.'

These Words are not Limitable.

They do not belong to Judea or England alone. No race, no people, no tongue is excluded. These are words of consolation for all the brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ.

No little community has any special privilege of excommunicating, nor has any large one. Often, as we study the great ecclesiasticisms of history, we might think that some of them enjoyed that better than any other of their functions, if one may judge from the noise and stir they make about it.

sorry sometimes for their heat, as they excluded the Donatists or others who differed from them; but Ecclesiastical exclusion does not bar the gates of the Church of Christ. And here I would say, that some persons positively do not like it, if they are not troubled. They would not think existence was going on properly if they did not disturb the household every morning with petty worries, and make people a present of their opinions that they may create discord, and differ about every conceivable thing that people can differ about. They can sting and irritate people into temporary madness, and worst of all they seem to like it. And there are others whose offence is milder. 'Not trouble!' Why, when you suggest a bright side to everything they are silent, or worse than silent; they have a kind of melancholia in their countenance which is like a perpetually 'grey' sky. Their most enthusiastic word is a little above freezing-point only. Trouble! Why, they seem to forget that you need, if one thing more than another in this world, good cheer. The Saviour says so sweetly, Go in peace! Do not be plunged into misery about past and forgiven sins. And all His ministry meant reconciliation-peace-joy. But I

do not know that you can give greater offence to some people than by saying, 'Let not your hearts be troubled;' because those, alas! who can be proud of little else, are often proud of the largeness of their own ailments and griefs.

Let us remember, then, that these are words for all in every place who believe on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. All through the ranges of experience Christ bids us take these words of comfort, as well as through all the ages of time. If it be said, first of all they should be applied to the heaviest sorrows. Granted! Here at Christ's Cross the most burdened may find release. Here in the consciousness of Divine fellowship all spiritual solitude is gone. But here also, in the human fret and worry of life, the words are applicable. He who guides in great things does not disdain to succour in those which are least.

The Words are not alone Temporal.

They do not simply relate to this time-world, or to our human and spiritual experiences here. They stretch far away into our relation to heaven. Christ was comforting men concerning the rest that remaineth. And the spirit of man had never been so comforted before.

There is no mere philosophic speculation here. The Christian is not left to dream of heaven or to imagine some pantheistic absorption into the Great Spirit. Christ's words are clear and consoling, faithful and true. There was no suppressio veri with Him. I will not deceive you,' Christ's whole tone suggests. I know what is on the other side of the veil. Its glories have never been absent from My mind. I came forth from the Father and came into the world.' Words which have absolutely no meaning, no appropriateness if He were simply born into the world as others are. We know what human hearts are now, and how they would grasp every promise concerning the blessed dead; and we know, therefore, what they would be then. Primarily Christ refers to His own authority, 'Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.' He is telling them that He shall still be the living Lord, their Saviour and brother, when He has ascended on high; He tells them that there will be many mansions, and amongst them homes for them. Do not trouble,' the Saviour says. Had His life-work been to lighten the path of a humanity which must find its end in the grave; had He come only to purify the national morals, to strengthen the dying righteousness of the ancient people, or to cleanse the temple, and help to lift the priestly burdens from the poor-had this been all, they might have troubled indeed at His going away. Yes! It was a tremendous responsibility to even hint at an eternal life in heaven,

and to comfort their poor hearts if it were only the fictitious consolation of a romantic dream.' So unlike Him, too, who came to bear witness to the truth! He seems to say to us, 'I would not have hidden the fact that to Me, as to all other great teachers, the future is unknown. If I had not the consciousness of that home in My heart, I would have told you. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.'

So these words should be taken up into the highest sphere of all to comfort us concerning those who sleep in Jesus, that we may not sorrow as those without hope, but remember that He went back whence He came forth, to prepare a place for us.

These Words are not Retrospective Alone.

Christ does not say, 'Do not trouble about past sins, they are forgiven you! all past errors and weaknesses are forgotten.' No! He looks forward, and says this in relation to their earthly future here and their home hereafter.

And yet what did He see in the near perspective for many of them for Peter and for James, for instance? Verily, He saw the entire course of their future history. On the edge of the

horizon He saw their crosses in the grey light of to-morrow's horizon. They shall put you out of the synagogues. Yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.'

Still He says, 'Do not trouble!' History tells us that what was fearful to anticipate was not so in experience, for their souls, quickened by faith, illumined by hope, looked up, and like Stephen, when the hour of departure came, they experienced an inward joy which transfigured their faces, and filled their hearts with perfect peace. So, indeed, it seems, and so it will be with us, if into the New Year we can carry with us these words. Come what may, we will let our hearts rest in the Lord, and wait for the God of our salvation. We will not fill our sky with the purple horrors of a dark foreboding. We will not let foolish imaginations dash our hopes with disappointments. Whatever to-morrow may yet bring, it will surely bring with it our Saviour Himself.

To devout minds alone do these words apply. To soften the griefs of worldliness is not our Saviour's aim. Ye afflicted mourn and lament,' is still the cry to them. That men sin without sorrow is the very saddest aspect of their life. And that God's arrow may pierce and pain them, should be our prayer concerning wicked men.

But taking these words as a New Year's motto, they apply to much more than I have dwelt on to-day. We trouble over unsolved problems, not of duty, but of curiosity; and we try, as an

old Puritan says, to pick locks for which God has left us no key.

And we sorrow sometimes over our hours of care. We cannot commit our way to God in the darkness. We cannot believe that the hand of love will guide us through it all.

Let us take Christ at His word, and that we may enjoy His sympathy in all our griefs and trials this New Year, let us go and tell Jesus; for

'Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.'

And Christ will lend a listening ear, and will wipe away the tear of sorrow, and will give sympathetic heed; for we can bring nothing to Him too exquisitely minute, or too magnificently great. The statesman and the little child-the anxious mother and the toiling father-the student by the midnight lamp and the servant at her morning toil-the lover in the long hours of absence and the widow bending o'er the shrouded formeach and all may find the joy of a New Year in these words— 'Let not your heart be troubled.'

THE EDITOR.

CHRISTIANITY AND SECULARISM.

BY

REV. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D.,

Professor in New College, Edinburgh.

PASSING now from the influence of Christianity and Secularism in their principles, we proceed to view the two systems in relation to the resulting facts. What, so far as can be ascertained, has been the outcome of each in practical life?

Who are the heroes of Secularism? Who are the benefactors of the world that have adorned its ranks? Who are its philanthropists and patriots? Where is their Valhalla, crowded with the portraits of the great and good?

It is not a very formidable rival to the Christian Valhalla. What name could Secularism ever dare to place beside the incomparable name of Jesus Christ? What influence could it venture to compare with that which we vaguely but significantly indicate as the spirit of Christ? Who can be matched with the Christian pioneers of British civilization, the Patricks and Columbas, the Cuthberts and Ninians; and, in another sphere of life, the Alfreds of our early history? Where shall we find