180 Another Aspect of Christ's Priesthood.

surrender of ourselves to this divine process of purgation and sacrifice. His Spirit cannot dwell in us except as a Spirit of judgment and of burning. It must be continually searching out the evils in our lives and giving to the fire our sinful habits and tempers, our faults of character and conduct. Our whole body of sin must sooner or later be consumed in this fire of God. We may discern this priestly action of Christ in the adverse providences that bring to light these evils, in the pruning and chastening we experience, in the calamities that overtake us, in the persecutions we endure, in the diseases that burn up our bodily energies, and in the death that finally destroys them. We experience it no less in the self-discipline and the self-judgments wrought by His Spirit in us, by which we forsake and cast off our sins. In the whole progress of this self-correction, and this pruning by an unseen hand, we are really undergoing, at the hands of our High Priest, the offering of our human lives unto God, to be purged on His altar that they may ascend in true service and acceptable sacrifice before Him.

From this point of view there is an added preciousness in the Scripture statement, "For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." As He stands between us and God to offer unto Him the sacrifice of our bodies, which is our reasonable service, He knows precisely what we are able to bear, and, as was the case with His servant Paul, if He cannot remove our infirmities or our trials, He gives us strength to bear them and enables us even to glory in them. And through them and out of them, He is able to save unto the

uttermost. We have therefore an High Priest most tender and strong, compassionate, merciful, and faithful. He will not spare our sins, because He knows we cannot carry with us into God's presence these blemishes. He will not suffer us to forget that our God is a consuming fire. But He is ever with us in the midst of the fire. It is the presence of His Spirit in us that brings this baptism of fire. It is His way of offering our humanity unto God, that it may be made a fit abode in which God shall dwell forever. So that in this whole process of surrender, and of patient subjection to the will of God, by which we are made perfect through suffering, He is with us, not only as our Mediator, but as our Almighty Friend and Brother, who will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear, and who gives grace to help in every time of need.

Let us then not think that we can take Christ as our atoning sacrifice to free us from the penalty of sin, unless we admit Him also into our hearts and bodies that He may present them as a living sacrifice unto God. The two things must go together. There is no divine arrangement by which we can escape the penalty of sin, except as we get rid of sin itself. We need to remember that the doctrine. of the Book of Hebrews is not, that "God out of Christ' is a consuming fire, but that God in Christ, " Our God, is a consuming fire." If Christians in our day better understood the meaning of this statement, and ceased to pervert the atonement into a scheme by which men may escape the just consequences of their sins, they would not take up with such false and unworthy views of God's dealings with men in future punishment as now mar their Christian thinking and living and subvert the Gospel.

"COMMIT YOUR way to God, and stay your

heart on

the Eternal. Dwell here and now and ever in the true home of your waiting hearts, in the heavenly Eden of Peace. Let all earthly care be as nothing; welcome as blessings the evils of life, see in its sadness joy, and in its thorns a crown; for by them the hand of God is molding you to do work in His higher kingdom. He purifies by outward fire the inward evil; He draws the heart from a world of weariness and care, to find eternal peace and rest in Him. His love is everywhere and always around you, for He overshadows His children with His personal Presence, and breathes on them life and power. Only the dim shadow can be seen, but all is there, abiding in Him, proceeding from Him; and in endless happiness you will one day receive it all through His love. Him, we abide where He places us, we His, and He is our God forever and ever. your way for His own glory, which is your highest good. He will have you live and labor for Him, not seeing the fruit of your toil; content to know that you are doing His work, that you prepare His way, and plow up the soil of the world for the seed of the future, knowing your record is on high. He makes of your weakness the throne of His mercy, the seat of His Omnipotence."-J. F. Weir.

We live only for have no will but God directs

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.

O FRIENDS! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for GOD

And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds;
Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?
The LORD is GOD! He needeth not
The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;

I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of GOD.

Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem :
Ye seek a king; I fain would touch
The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods
A world of pain and loss;
I hear our Lord's beatitudes
And prayer upon the cross.

More than your schoolmen teach, within
Myself, alas! I know;

Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,

Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead to the dust,
I veil mine eyes for shame,

And urge, in trembling self-distrust,
A prayer without a claim.

I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;

I hear, with groan and travail cries,
The world confess its sin.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings:
I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim
And seraphs may not see,
But nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above:

I know not of His hate,-I know
His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,

And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long,
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,

Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.