surroundings, and that, consequently, it is still open to the man of faith, as it always has been and ever will be, to picture the Almighty Creator as regarding the work of His hands, and pronouncing it very good.

VIII.

A Good Working Theory.

“Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."-2 TIM. i. 10.

It would appear from this passage that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the Apostle, was not to be understood as if it implied that the Almighty had changed His purpose with respect to mankind since the coming of His Son into the world, and was now disposed to adopt a kindlier method of dealing with His creatures, but rather as if it were the manifestation, in the person of a living, breathing, human Being, of what the kindly and loving nature of the Creator had always been before the world began, and of the gracious purpose which He had always had in view of educating mankind in His own righteousness. For of course it stands to reason that if man is to attain health and salvation, the Author of his salvation must be God alone.

Nevertheless, the gracious purpose of the Author of our being had only now become manifest and clear

by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, "who," saith the Apostle, "hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

The good news of God's Fatherly purpose towards mankind, coupled with the manifestation of the life of filial trust in God, which the Lord Jesus had shown it was possible for a human being to lead, had introduced, so to speak, into the world "a new and satisfying type of life," which all who tried it felt must be as immortal as the Being from whom it came, so that all fear of death, whether temporal or spiritual, was practically abolished; for those who welcomed the good news of God's Fatherly purpose, and welcomed also the call to live in the spirit of His dear Son, could not help cherishing the "blessed hope," as our Collect terms it, which was given them in Him of everlasting life; seeing that faith in God, and in the future that was in store for them that love Him, came easier to them than disbelief.

When, therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, and the disciples had gone about everywhere proclaiming the glad tidings of that resurrection, together with the glad tidings of God's Fatherly purpose towards mankind, and of His gracious offer of assistance to enable them to live as His beloved children, the faith in what was now recognised as the true life for man shot over the world, and a belief in that life, and in the life of the world

to come, became part and parcel of the general Christian consciousness.

Now, we may be sure that one reason why the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ shot over the world was, that it was evidently the good news of all others which mankind most required to hear, and which was also evidently suited to the nature of man. Let a man only realize that the purpose of the great Being from whom he came is to educate him, by all that happens to him here, to grow up in the Divine image, and to fit him for a glorious manhood in a world to come, and all the difficulties and trials and perplexities of our mortal life sink into insignificance, and he is able to believe, with the Apostle, that the strength of God is made perfect in our sense of weakness, and that our light afflictions, which are, comparatively speaking, but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. In short, he is in possession of a good working theory of life, which explains all its perplexities and anomalies, and which is known never to have deceived or betrayed one single human being out of the countless generations of those who have lived in accordance with it. If you question the truth of what I say, let me ask you if you have ever heard or read of any man who repented on his death-bed of having lived in the faith of Christ?

I have just spoken of the Christian being in

possession of a good working theory of life, which explains all its difficulties, and fills him with the trust that no work that is done for God can ever be in vain. Let me ask you to consider what a working theory is. There are many who will remember the remarkable instance of one which led to the discovery of the planet Neptune. Soon after the discovery of the planet Uranus, it was found that, taking all known causes into account, there was still some force affecting its motion which remained to be explained. Two astronomers, therefore, at the same time independently addressed themselves to the task. They began by forming the working theory that the cause which affected the motion of Uranus must be sought in another planet which hitherto had escaped detection. They made their calculations, therefore, accordingly, and when they had arrived at a conclusion where the planet, if it existed, ought to be found, directed a large telescope to the spot, and there, sure enough, the planet was to be seen.

Again, those who wish to understand all that is at present known on the subject of light and electricity, have to start with the working theory that light consists of undulations in a medium called ether, which is supposed to pervade all space, whilst electricity is a result of a state of tension or strain in the selfsame ether. Of course, no human being has ever seen either the ether or its undulations, but, as