wonder-shall we, in order to agree, submit to some Pope, who will bid us shut our eyes and ears, give up our taste and sense of the beautiful, and say Amen to all his decisions? Should we not rather seek to improve our respective tastes, and in the mean time mutually tolerate our few differences, and together enjoy the many glorious things which we see in common and are our life? Yes, verily! Let us each draw nearer to Jesus Christ-each learn more of Him-each be more earnest in prayer-each strive to be more humble and obedient-and in this way, if in any, we shall be brought nearer to each other and learn the same truth in the end.

For it is, alas, too evident, what is, after all, very natural because very easy, that some would substitute right "views" for a right spirit, and take shelter under the acknowledged importance of orthodox truth, to shoot their arrows at others who may truly believe a hundredfold more than ever entered their own heads or hearts.

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"Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained,

let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing."

Let us hear "the conclusion of the whole matter" as contained in the beginning of the fifteenth chapter :

"We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God,"

THE END OF THE YEAR.

"Abide with us: for it is toward evening,

and the day is far spent."-St. Luke xxiv. 29.

THE short history in which these words occur is

one of the most beautiful and instructive in the Gospels. On the evening of the resurrection day, two disciples were journeying from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, situated somewhere in its immediate neighbourhood. They were not of the twelve, and the name of only one of them is known to us. As they walked along the road, they conversed about the wondrous event which perplexed and distressed them. The death of Jesus as the Messiah was to them an inextricable riddle. It crossed all their previous beliefs, and seemed as a wall of adamant opposing all their

hopes. His reported resurrection was if possible still more mysterious, and irreconcilable with all that had been, or was ever likely to be. What did it mean? What was the truth about it? They knew not! All they knew was that nothing had happened according to their anticipations and hopes, although these were built apparently on the surest and most certain grounds. In the mean time, they were going home utterly confused and cast down in spirit.

As they pursued their Sabbath journey, a stranger suddenly joined them, and asked, "What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?" Then those simple men, amazed at the seeming ignorance of the stranger about matters with which the whole city was ringing, answered, "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?" And He, without declaring what He knew or did not know, but wishing to draw them out, the better to prepare their minds for what He had to impart, asked, "What things?" And they, thankful, I doubt not, to get out their hearts to any one who would hear their story, and thereby get some relief to their sorrow, told Him concerning

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Jesus of Nazareth-how He was a prophet mighty in deed and in word before God and all the people -how the chief priests and the rulers of their own nation had delivered Him to be condemned to death, and had crucified Him-and how they themselves had up to that moment trusted that it was He who should redeem Israel. And now, strange to say, on this the third day after these things were done, certain women of their company had made them astonished, who had been early that very morning at the sepulchre, and had not found his body, but said that they had seen a vision of angels who declared that He was alive! nay more, some of the company had gone to the sepulchre and had found it empty, even as the women had said.

Such was their simple story. And was it indeed all over with Jesus and with Christianity! Was that living One extinguished? Had He reared false hopes which were never to be fulfilled, and kindled a love in human bosoms which was to be like an earthly affection only, a thing of memory until its object was met in another and purer world? Was all this marvellous history of the last three years— this history of wonders done before the living God