any mention of the names of the speakers in the morning or evening gatherings. We desire that people may come to commune with the King, and not merely choose one day because Mr. So-and-so is to speak on that day and not on another. Oh, that our eyes may be on the Lord, and Him alone! While thankful for the human instrumentality He uses, and glad to receive the help of His servants, yet it is from Himself we receive all blessing.

A slight change-perhaps to some a change of considerable importance--has been made in our arrangements. The various side meetings in connection with many Christian enterprises and institutions and societies have this year been abandoned; not, as we said, when asking you to meet here, from any want of sympathy with those objects and enterprises-God forbid— but because they rather tended to produce that hurry which is so undesirable in these three days of conference. The minds of many were distracted from the real object of our gathering the worship of the Lord Himself, the study of His Word, praise, and prayer. Instead of that, people were running from meeting to meeting, and this unsettlement and distraction were most undesirable. We have reverted therefore to the original objects of our gatherings, and the arrangements of the days are exclusively such as to promote these objects.

And now, dear friends, what a subject we have before us! It is a very simple one from one point of view. Very elementary you may say yes, but it is a foundation truth, and how needful it is to go back to the foundation truths! How many are unsettled in mind because, although trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are not well grounded in the truth, and therefore unable to give a reason for the hope that is in them! The foundations, thank God, cannot be destroyed, but we do well to go back to them, and see where we stand.

Union with Christ—the ground of security. It is an elementary, a foundation truth; but let us remember how deep the foundations go. The great purpose of God from all eternity, the work of Christ upon the cross, the omnipotence of the Holy Ghost, all exercised and put forth to lay this foundation for sinners to rest upon-union with the risen Saviour. Our friends will speak to us on this subject; but perhaps before they do so I may just read the passages chosen, not specially to be spoken upon, but suggestive of a line of thought by

which it is proposed we should be guided. And, as you have not these passages in full in the programmes, I would suggest that you might, with profit, supply yourselves, from the Illumination Room, with these beautifully illuminated textcards containing in full the Scriptures for the three days. Let me read those for this morning.

"Union with Christ-the ground of security:" where does it begin? "Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. i. 4). Then from eternity we pass into time: "If one died for all, then were all dead," &c. (2 Cor. v. 14-21). Crucified with Christ, dead with Christ, buried with Him, quickened together with Him, raised together with Him, and made the righteousness of God in Him. That is the ground. What is the result? "Your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 3). "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. viii. 1). "For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph. v. 30). And He says: "Because I live, ye shall live also" (John xiv. 19). Thus He takes us right forward from the past eternity through the present time into the future glory, and says, "Whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified" (Rom. viii. 30).

May the Spirit of God Himself take of these things of Christ to-day, and show them unto us, for His name's sake. At the conclusion of these remarks, hymn No. 7 was sung

"How shall we praise Thy name,
Jesus! Thou Lord of light!"

and, after prayer, the following address was given by the

REV. C. A. FOX.

I hardly think that any statement, however profound or precis, could convey the idea of union with Christ more completely or more freshly than the old familiar words out of the Holy Scripture, of the lost sheep upon the shoulder of the seeking Shepherd. Such is the union we have with Jesus. There were two tracks outward there was the track of the poor, lost, erring sheep, wandering, fitful, and halting; and then the track of the

C

seeking Shepherd as He followed His sheep. But as soon as He found the lost sheep for whom He sought, the weary one was placed on the shoulder of the Shepherd, and there were not two tracks homeward, but only one track. Saints have not two lives. We have but one life-the Christ-life. The arms of Christ are around us; He has placed us on His shoulder, and He carries us right into the fold safe home. We have not two lives, but one life; we have not two names, but one name; we have not two natures, but one nature; and we have similar wounds to those Christ bears. He bears our nature and name in Heaven. Our names are written on His shoulders, and His breast is covered with our names; even the palms of His hands, as He pleads for us, are graven with our names. And still He bears the scars of conflict. If we ask, What are these wounds? the answer is: These are the wounds wherewith they wounded Me in the house of My friends. And we bear His wounds, and as we bear the wounds of Jesus so we bear His name; for is it not written upon our foreheads? And we are actually partakers of the Divine nature. We bear the scars, "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." We bear true marks of fellowship in the sufferings of Christ. We have mutual sympathy: He with our wounds, and we with His blessed wounds. He was wounded for us, and we bear those wounds. Here, then, we have union with the Lord Jesus Christ in His nature, His name, His very sufferings.

But how, we may ask, could the Holy Spirit not be given until Christ had been glorified? for the Holy Ghost had not yet been given because Jesus had not ascended. The answer seems to be that the Holy Ghost cannot give an imperfect Gospel, cannot reveal any Christ save a full Christ. The Holy Spirit cannot reveal a Christ who is crucified only, but a Christ who is crucified, buried, risen, and ascended to the throne of His Father, there mediating for His people. It is this blessed Gospel-Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended, that the Holy Ghost reveals, and that He will reveal to each one of us to-day in, I trust, His fulness.

Now I would say one word, first of all, as to God's intention or purpose that there should be union between Christ and His people. This union has been in the heart of God from the very earliest ages.

In the first Gospel God ever gave, the Gospel of the Promise which He revealed to Adam, you see God yearning to be in union with His fallen child; for on the very same evening when the fall took place God gave a blessed promise. Instead of the curse He gave this wonderful promise: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Man was promised power in union with One who should take on Him the nature of man. And what is the next promise? That other, given when, after the flood, the Lord met His servant coming out of the ark and gave a fresh promise. It is the promise of peace: "I will not again curse the ground for man's sake." Then the third promise is given to Abraham. God gives His servant a promise of possession, the possession of the land, and this promise was handed on from one to another. Moses took it up, and brought the people into the wilderness; Joshua took it up, and brought the people into the holy land of promise. These three early promises-the promise of power, the promise of peace, and the promise of possession--under God's first Gospel were all given in union with Him-Himself the power, Himself the peace, Himself the blessed possession as well as Possessor.

But again, the next Gospel the Lord reveals was a Gospel of Precept, with which He gloriously combined object pictures of His will and way. In this Gospel of precept did He reveal anything of union, or of His desire for union? He did so. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and strength, and mind." Was not that a desire for union? God longed for the love of His people: not the mere service of fear, but love. And so in those wonderful object pictures we have His desire for union indicated. What saith the tabernacle, of union? "I will dwell with you, and ye shall be My people, and I will be your God." What saith the altar? "I will forgive you, My people." What saith the Javer? "I will cleanse you, My people." What saith the candlestick? "I will iluminate you, My people." What saith the table of shewbread? "I will communicate with you, in association with you, My people." What saith the veil between the holy place and the holy of holies? "I wil be rent asunder with you." For since that veil was rent at the cross of Calvary every believer has access to the presence of God. And in that inner place, the holiest of all, it is blessed to see that everything had to do with His union with us His

people. The mercy-seat said: "I will commune with you and meet you there." And in the cherubim over the mercy-seat God revealed not merely His union and communion with His people, but the marvellous resurrection provision which in the person of Christ He shares with His people. And what said the priest, of this union with Christ? What did he say as he came from the sinner, walked right from the altar and the laver, through the veil, and that not without sprinkling of blood, into the holiest of all? Was it not this?"I link the sinner and the Saviour together in perfect peace in the presence of God." And as on his shoulders and breastplate the names of the people were written, we have a glimpse into the very heart of Jesus, and see that we are borne by Him, united in Christ, and united with one another. And what said also the cloudy pillar? "I will guide you, My people." I know of nothing in all the Holy Scripture more affecting than the fact that when God turned His people back from the land of promise because of disobedience and unbelief, He Himself still went before them, and led them Himself by the pillar of cloud and fire, leading them all through the wilderness of provocation. He could not be torn from them by any means, not even by the means of sin and base ingratitude and unbelief. Oh, people of God, this Gospel of precept and picture beautifully reveals the union and unity of Christ with His people.

But we have a further Gospel in the Old Testament Scriptures, the Gospel of Prophecy. God sends His people into captivity on account of sin, but He goes with them Himself; He gives them glimpses of peace and coming victory; He sings bright songs of hope under the very walls of their prisonhouse: He gives them visions of the Christ, and His coming, and kingdom, like a betrothed dreaming beautiful pictures of her husband already started on his way to meet her.

Then further we have the Gospel of the Person of Jesus. God gives the person of His Son to become incarnate, God with men; to live with them, move with them, converse with them -and no sinner was so vile, so fallen, that He would not touch him, such is His wonderful love, such the intensity of His desire to draw wanderers back to Himself. And by that revelation of God in the person of His Son we learn that every foe we dread-Satan and sin, disease and death, judgment and guilt, yea, the world, the flesh, and the devil, they are all over