is something like this that we are attributing to the Almighty, if we have no faith to understand that "God created man to be immortal, and made him to be the image of His own eternity." The faith that we have in the life to come is, then, partly based on the growing instinct of humanity, and partly on our faith in the gracious purpose of God, which, as our text informs us, was "made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

If we wish to realize in our own persons that He has brought life and immortality to light, and that our Saviour has really introduced into the world " a new and satisfying type" of life which gives peace and rest to the soul, the only way that we can do so is by trying it.

We must have a working theory of some sort to live by, if we are to live to any purpose. Can we find a better than that which our Saviour Christ has offered us? "Come unto Me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."

IX.

The Adam and the Christ in Man.

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."-1 Cor. xv. 21, 22.

It is the distinguishing excellence of man, that being possessed as he is of a reasonable soul, he is able to reflect on himself and his surroundings, so that instead of being the slave of every impulse and inclination like the inferior animals, he may learn to subordinate his inclinations to the control of his higher nature, and rule his own spirit in accordance with the will of God. However careless and thoughtless he may be, he can scarcely avoid confessing that every man who is worthy of the name ought to aim at obeying the suggestions of his nobler nature instead of those of the lower, and that in whatever degree he consciously neglects to do so, and allows himself to act in defiance of his conscience, to that extent he is guilty of sin. For sin is lawlessness. It is the refusal to submit to restraint, whatever the consequences may

be-to be bent upon self-pleasing. As, therefore, the sinful man deliberately disregards the rule of life, in accordance with which he feels it was intended he should live and thrive, we cannot be surprised at being told that "the wages of such sin is death"-death certainly to all that is best and highest in our nature, and possibly, if persisted in, leading to absolute annihilation as well.

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Now, it is often remarked that our going out of the world by death is just as natural as our coming into it at birth, and that, therefore, it is difficult for us to with the Apostle when he speaks as if he thought that the physical death of the body was originally caused by sin. But even if the physical death of the body be owing to purely natural causes, which were in operation on our globe long before man appeared on the scene, it is easy for us to understand that if mankind had all along obeyed their higher nature instead of their lower, their going out of the world by death would have seemed to them a very different thing from what it does at present, and that it is just on account of sin that death generally appears so terrible, and to come upon us as an enemy rather than as a kind and welcome friend. For is it not clear that if a man has lived only to please himself, death comes as the termination of his pleasure; whilst if he has endured hardness for the sake of right, and denied his lower nature whenever it has come

in opposition to the higher, he has accumulated in himself, so to speak, a store of spiritual force which will carry with it the conviction that, like every other form of energy with which we are acquainted, it is not destined to be wasted, or come to nothing, but to bring forth its fruit in a life to come? It is evident, then, that, under God, man is meant to be not only the architect of his own fortunes, but the builder-up of his own faith and hope in a life beyond the grave; and that just as it is owing to the sin of man-to his living a life of self-pleasing, instead of ruling his own spirit in accordance with the will of God-that death has come to appear the great enemy of our race, so it is by obedience to the dictates of his higher nature that he must win for himself the blessed hope of everlasting life.

Now, the Apostle Paul takes Adam and Christ as the representatives of the two opposite types of menof the animal man who lives only to please himself, and the spiritual man whose one great aim is to live in accordance with the will of God; and he tells us that "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." There is, so to speak, an Adam and a Christ in each one of us struggling for the mastery, and according to the degree in which we yield ourselves up to the one or the other, will be in all probability the nature of our fears or our hopes with respect to the life to come.

Well, you know-to repeat something of what I have said before-it is often thrown in our teeth that there is no evidence whatever in support of the belief that the soul is destined to survive the grave; and, of course, if by evidence is meant what is meant by it in a court of justice, that somebody has seen an event take place, it is quite clear that no man has ever seen the soul of man clothing itself with another form, and so passing through death to the higher life; whilst by the very terms on which we are accustomed to speak of our expectations of the life to come, it is taken for granted that it is a life which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive, and that, therefore, no scientific or material evidence of it is possible until men have arrived at the stage of growth when they will be prepared to enjoy it. But it is also equally clear that, if there is no material evidence in support of the belief in the life to come, there can by no possibility be any such evidence against it; so that when we are told that we are bound to face the possibility of there being no hereafter, we may confidently reply that we know we are bound to face the possibility that a great many people may lose their faith in a life to come, but as for the necessity of facing the possibility that our own faith may prove untrue, we do not see the necessity at all. For wherein does it lie? If there is no future, it is quite