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VIII.

IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.

This do in remembrance of Me.-Ist CORINTHIANS xi. 24.

ERE a stranger from some unknown land, who

WERE

had never heard the name of Christ, and never witnessed any Christian worship, to come into church to-day while we are seated at the Lord's table, he would naturally ask, "What does this observance mean? Why is it a part of your religion thus to eat bread and drink wine together solemnly and silently? What mean ye by this service?" And perhaps you might not find it altogether easy to give an answer to him who should question you, which should at once instruct his ignorance, and satisfy your own feeling as to the real meaning of the sacrament of our Lord's broken body and shed blood.

An answer, no doubt, rises to the lips readily enough. You would say, "We thus sit around this table, in memory of one, who, ages ago, lived on the earth and did great works such as no man save He

has ever done, and spoke such words as no other has ever spoken, and brought to men a message from God such as they had never heard before, and at last was betrayed and slain by wicked men just because of His righteousness and truth: but on the very eve of His death He gathered His few friends around Him, and bade them eat bread and drink wine, which He blessed and gave to them, and which He told them were to be memorials to them ever after, as often as they should partake of them, of His death that was close at hand, of His body which was to be wounded, of His blood which was to be shed, so that when afterwards they should eat of the bread and drink of the cup they should be reminded how He died :—and because of all this, we who have been taught to believe in Him keep the command as exactly as we can, as He gave it to His followers long ago. We gather, like them, around a table, and we receive the bread. and wine from one who gives them to us in His name and by His authority, and so we commemorate the dying of Him whom we call Lord and Saviour."

Such might be our answer to the stranger who should ask us what this our service meant: and, yet, when we had given it, would not much remain still unexplained? Would it not still seem strange that in our religion the highest act of worship should centre in a memory-in the memory of one who died so long ago-whose death was a dishonoured death, whose

life was a life of sorrows and acquainted with grief? Other faiths and religions you may find in the world, some worn out and torpid, some living and strong; but I do not know that the believers in any of them can look back to one, from whose life and teaching. their belief took its rise and its name, and who was content to say-as the great rule for all who should believe in His words-"Remember Me: be true to My memory. That is all I ask that is all I command. Let your most solemn worship embody the expression of this remembrance."

You may have chanced to hear of the power of a pure and noble memory upon a man's heart and mind -to hear how the memory of a well loved home, for example, with all its pure home influences, rising amid the clamour of the world's temptations, like the chime of church bells over a city's smoke and din, has helped to keep back the foot from falling and the soul from death: how the memory of a generous and trustful love has been a breastplate to the heart tempted to meanness, and falsehood, and unworthy ways: how the memory of those, whose prayers and blessings have followed his steps over the world, has brought the wanderer back in safety to their side, after many a danger dared and many a sacrifice made because of that remembrance. Many of us, possibly, know of cases such as these, showing the power of a memory to arrest, to cheer, to sustain, amid the trials and

perils of life; and the knowledge of these might, to a certain extent, prepare us to understand those words of Christ to His disciples: but still in that remembrance of Him, of which the sacrament is the visible expression, there is something more than we find in any mere human memory, even the best and purest, a holier and more potent influence than any mere human principle, or belief, or dogma can exert.

Let us try to see as clearly as we can, what Christ's memory is, what is implied in remembrance of Him.

And, first of all, and in its simplest aspect, His memory is the memory of one, who lived, among men, a human life like their own, and yet a life such as none else had ever lived before, or has ever lived since.

Of that life the sacrament is a memorial. It is a memorial of one who, at a time when the world was full of darkness and unrest, came into it saying that He came from God, and had a message from God for all whose hearts were weary, whose minds were dark, whose souls were full of doubts and fears; one who seemed to prove, by the very nature of His life, that what He said of Himself was truefor it was a life which shed a brightness and gladness round it, as from a light shining in a dark place. The little children came gladly to His side. The humble household brightened as He came, and bestirred itself to give Him heartiest welcome.

Sickness and disease disappeared at His gracious presence; the blind eyes were opened to behold Him; the deaf ears were unstopped, so that their first sound of human speech should be His kindly words. Even the dead arose at His command, and re-entered the homes that they had left lonely, and went out and in among those whom their loss had made desolate and afflicted. His life was one that gladdened other lives, and bore about with it one living message of peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

Such, in its mere outward aspect, was the human life of Christ-one that it surely should do us good to remember, even had it no more sacred aspect for us than this. For, is it not well, amid all the worldliness, and selfishness, and pretension, and untruth of man's society, to be able to look back to a life in which these evil principles had no place or power, in which all was truth, honesty, earnestness, brotherly-kindness, charity; whose deeds were not done mainly for selfish pleasure or profit, with a feeble afterthought or remainder for others, or for God, but were all, from the least to the greatest of them, done for "the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate"; in which there were no envy and harshness, and sour temper and gloomy looks, but all was gentleness and generosity, and sunny serenity and calm.

If we could, with any real fidelity, call up before our mind's eye the form and fashion, the works and ways,