If we understand the rule "beginning at Jerusalem," we shall not wish to seek opportunities, but shall understand that they are always beside us; opportunities of denying ourselves for others' sake, of setting them a fair example, of doing them a kind turn, of encouraging them in right, of reproving them when we see them doing wrong, of bringing to bear on them, in fact, the power of His life and His teaching who went about doing good, who taught us it was more blessed to give than to receive, and to minister than to be ministered unto.

If each member of the Church were to do this, how fast and far the influence of the Church would spread; how wholly would she soon cover and possess the land, and gather into her fold, through the persuasive power of her own goodness, all that are ignorant and out of the way.

And this reminds us of a still more personal application of the text. If we would do any good to others we must, in the truest sense, begin at home. We must keep our own heart with all diligence, we must watch our own steps with all care. We must guard against our own besetting sins, against the temptations before which we know we are most prone to fall. Only so can we hope to be able to do good to others, and to be in any sense witnesses for Christ.

It is very easy to profess a great interest in the welfare of others, a great concern for the Church's work; very easy to give even large sums in aid of that work; but not so easy, though in God's sight alone acceptable, so to rule your heart and life in Christ's strength and after His example, as to be, through your daily walk and conversation, "living epistles" of the Lord, to be known and read of all men.

While, therefore, we interest ourselves, as we are bound to do, in every effort that our Church makes, at home or abroad, to impart to men the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, let us chiefly look to this as lying at the root of all the good we can ever hope to do, that we are ourselves. true to Him, and that we walk in the light of that knowledge of God as our merciful Father, which He has shown to us, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.

And to Whom be all glory in the Church, world without end. Amen.

290

XX.

UNSPOKEN WORDS.

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.-S. JOHN xvi, 12.

UR Lord had had much to contend with in

OUR

the slowness of mind and dulness of heart which His disciples often showed. At this very time the question put by Philip (xiv. 8) had anew disclosed to Him how little, after all His teaching, He was known and understood by those with whom He had been most constantly. And now He stops in the full tide of His discourse, as if suddenly remembering that He must have said as much as they were at all likely to comprehend, that He was possibly getting beyond their sympathy and comprehension, and He says, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. There is no use in going farther where you cannot follow, in offering you what you cannot grasp."

One can almost fancy the tone of disappointment in the voice. He was to go so soon, and to leave after all so much undone, so much untaught! He was to suffer and to die, and to ascend to heaven; and His only representatives on earth were to be these poor men who had understood Him so imperfectly, to whom He knew it would be useless to say all the things that He would. The only hope for their farther enlightenment was not in words that He could speak, but in an influence which was to work upon them after He should be gone, the influence and guidance of the Spirit, which should lead them into "all truth."

What these things were which Christ had yet to say to them, but which they could not then "bear," which would have been to them like a burden too large for them to carry, I do not know that we need strictly inquire. As He does not tell what they were, we cannot do more than guess at them. What we are most concerned with is the principle He indicates here, the idea He suggests that His teaching is necessarily influenced or regulated by the capacity and condition of those whom He teaches; and that what one receives is not to be regarded as the necessary measure of what another is to expect or to receive: and that there is an enlightenment of His true disciples ever going on, the limit of which is not fixed by any word that

He has spoken, the limit of which indeed is as wide as the circle of the truth itself, for His promise is that the Spirit, who conducts that education, is to lead those who yield themselves to His guidance into "all truth."

Now, let us look for a little at the two ideas which Christ suggests to us here. And first at this, that His own teaching, and therefore the teaching of all those who would teach in His spirit and after His example, must be modified so as to suit the capacity of those that are taught. This seems a very simple idea, and yet it is not, as generally as it should be, received and acted upon. We are far too ready to insist that within the circle of Christian teaching everything should be definite and absolute; that one system and one form should be laid down for all, and adopted by all: and this partly from a right feeling of the immense value of the great central truths of the gospel of Christ which we think, and that truly, all should receive and acknowledge. And yet these may be too much for some learners at the first. There are characters and conditions which are not fitted to receive and understand the gospel as others are. "I could not speak unto you," says S. Paul to some such, "as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to