earthly actions. So it is, that what we bind on earth is bound in heaven; that what we loose on earth is loosed in heaven.

Let us thank God that there are many keys by which to open the blessed door which leads into the heavenly kingdom. To one the door is opened in childhood; and the dear little feet go in, and the small curly head is already surrounded with the pure glory of a light beaming from the presence of God. Another, in youth, drops the trivialities and follies of youth, and lifts deep, earnest eyes toward the great truths of life and time, of death and eternity. One enters the kingdom by faithful work: loyalty to duty unlocks the door, and he goes in. One finds the key through temptation, sorrow, sin, remorse, penitence, turning to God in hopeless shame, but meeting hope and unexpected joy shed abroad in his heart. One rises from the bed of sickness with all of his past life closed behind him; and a new life, filled with purer hopes, opening upward into heaven. One is moved by the noble words, the holy life, and the rapt enthusiasm of the saints and martyrs, by the utterings of genius and the eloquence of fiery hearts; and follows, with enthusiastic love, their pathway, till they lead him to the mountain-heights of holy truth. The words of a dear mother, the loving kiss of a dying child, the never-fading remembrance of a departed friend, of a noble and generous sister or brother gone before us to God, raise some of us above ourselves. Such are the multitudinous paths

which lead us to God: so we come, at last, to Christ, the image of the invisible God. The air of heaven, even here, begins to fan our heated brow; the music of heaven comes softly down, mingling with our daily life; the light of the upper world shines down into our poor human hearts. God be blessed for it all, for all the sorrow, all the joy, all the experience of good and evil, light threads and dark threads shooting to and fro across the web of human life! Brothers and sisters, - dear friends of mine, fellowworkers in this wonderful world, let us be fellow-helpers through it, till we meet on that higher shore, in that larger liberty, and with that fuller

peace of rest and action, which remains for God's children, beyond the low-arched gateway that mortals call death.

XXI.

THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING.

Matt. iii. 15: "THUS IT BECOMETH US TO FULFIL ALL RIGHT

EOUSNESS."

WHEN Jesus went to Bethabara to be baptized,

John the Baptist refused to baptize him. John said, "I have need to be baptized of thee; and comest thou to me?" John had a profound feeling of the holiness and grandeur of Jesus. They were cousins; they had known each other as children, known each other in youth; and John felt that Jesus was so much holier and better than himself, that he was not fit to baptize him. Then Jesus made this answer: "Suffer it to be so now: thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." What did he mean by it? Why was it becoming in him to do this?

There seemed to be no good reason why Christ should be baptized. The usual reasons do not, apparently, apply to Jesus. Many came to John because they thought him a very holy man, whose blessing would help them in some mysterious, perhaps magical way. This was not the reason of Jesus; for there is

a slight tinge of superstition in this motive. Jesus did not expect to be made better by being touched with John's hands. Others came to John from a moral motive; came as sinners to confess their sin, to repent of it, to inaugurate a new life better than the old one. This was not the motive of Jesus: he needed not to repent, confess, or reform. He was free from sin, and needed no baptism to repentance. Another object of baptism is initiation. Proselytes were admitted into the Jewish Church by baptism; catechumens are admitted into the Christian Church by baptism. This was not Christ's object. He did not come to John to be admitted into the number of his disciples. Some say that he was baptized as a consecration to his office, as an act of self-dedication to the work of the Messiah. This could hardly be, since he did not mean to be known as the Messiah until long after.

The only reason which Jesus had for being baptized seems to be the one which he gives in our text. It was becoming. It was not necessary for himself, nor for others; it was not a baptism of repentance, nor of initiation, nor of dedication. It was simply becoming; that is, handsome, suitable, in accordance with the circumstances, in harmony with the state of things. There was moral grace and beauty in it. That was all; but that was enough.

For in human actions, beside the element of necessity, of expediency, of duty, there is also the element of beauty. Some actions are morally beautiful, and

are to be done for that reason. Such was that act of the woman in the gospel, who brought her alabaster box of precious ointment to Jesus, and anointed his feet therewith. There was no utility about it: it did no good, in any common sense. But it was 66 becoming;" it was beautiful; it expressed her intimate convictions, her love, her reverence, her devotion. Any thing which thus beautifully expresses a true and noble sentiment is becoming; and, because it is becoming, it is right. When David longed for the "water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate," and his three mighty men brake through the enemy's ranks, and procured it for him, and he would not drink it, but poured it on the ground, saying, "Is not this the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives?" that was not a very reasonable action; there was no use in wasting the good water which they all needed; but it was a very becoming action. Many actions are good because they are becoming, and for no other reason; actions which political economy and utilitarian morality would quite condemn. A clergyman in this city once declined an increase of salary. Twenty good reasons can be given why he ought not to have refused it: nevertheless, it was a becoming action. It had a moral beauty about it: no one can deny that. A butcher in Boylston Market declined selling a piece of meat to a United-States commissioner who had returned a fugitive, telling him that his money was "base money." So I knew a clergyman who sent back a part of his salary which had come