of friends, but He loved to seek rather the home of sorrow and affliction. He showed endless proofs of mercy, sweetness, and goodness. He endured all contradictions of sinners; when He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself unto Him that judgeth righteously.

Believe me, the example of the man Christ Jesus will follow you, if you will study and learn it according to its very truth and reality, into the details of your actual life. In your family, in your business, in your idle times of refreshment, in your mirth, in your sadness, in your sympathy with other people's joy and sadness, the example of Jesus Christ, if you will study it and keep it before your mind, will help you to know what to do, and how to feel and how to behave.

nor corner of innoceut human life to

There is no part which it will not

supply a model,—the very model and pattern which you need.

And believe me when I say further, that by really trying to copy it, you will actually grow more like to it. You know that this is our very Christian profession,to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto Him. What we hope for is, that when He shall appear again, we may be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

The way, then, to grow to be

like Him, is to study His true likeness now, and

endeavour with all our hearts to copy it. We know where to find His likeness. It is painted for us, if I may use such an expression, in the Bible. There we must study it, and from there we must copy it in our own lives, trying by God's grace to be so pure, so dutiful, so gentle, so obedient, so true, so kindly affectioned, so strict in keeping to God's worship and service, so brave to bear and to forbear, so simple, so earnest, so holy. The sins of the Gentiles are, alas! still round us much more than they ought to be, much more than might have been thought possible in a Christian land. But if we have learned Christ as the true likeness of Him is, and if we carefully study it by reading, and endeavour to copy it in our own way of living, praying, and behaving, we shall by God's grace be kept from these things, and be made to grow more and more like Him, more and more fit to live as Christians, more and more fit to rise like Him, when the day comes when He shall appear again upon the earth, and we shall see Him as He is.

Trinity Sunday

GENESIS Xviii.

1. And the Lord appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent-door in the heat of the day.

2. And he lift up his eyes, and looked, and lo, three men stood by him ; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent-door, and bowed himself toward the ground,

3. And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant.

HY is this eighteenth chapter of the Book of

WHY

Genesis chosen, out of all the Old Testament, to be the first Lesson for Trinity Sunday? We read in it of the visit of the three angels to Abraham, of the promise given to Sarah of the birth of Isaac, and of the pleading of Abraham with God for Sodom, which might have been spared if there had been but ten righteous men among all its people.

Good and useful and edifying matter all this, no doubt; but what connection has it with the special subject of Trinity Sunday? What has it to do with the great Christian doctrine of God the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Ghost-God in substance One, in Person Three-the great Christian doctrine which belongs to this day?

Brethren, the answer to this question, as far as regards the eighteenth chapter, is to be found in the verses which I have read to you for the text.

It is one of those mysterious passages of the Old Testament which, in a dim and dark way, point to the Christian doctrine. It is one of those many mysterious passages which show, that though God did not think fit to reveal the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to the Jews, yet He was preparing it—saying things which meant it, though the Jews did not yet observe or understand them—saying things which, afterwards, when the doctrine was revealed to them, they would look back to and remember, and so come to perceive that, in a secret and hidden way, God had in fact been saying the same thing to them all along, though in such a way that they had not perceived it. So, in the first Lesson for this morning's service, the first chapter of Genesis, the reason why that chapter is read on Trinity Sunday is, that it contains this verse, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The Jews did not observe nor understand this, “Let us make man"- "us," our image," our likeness." They could not know who was meant by "we" and "us" in that verse; but

we Christians know. We know that it meant the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost-the hitherto unrevealed Trinity in the Unity of God.

The same is the case with the eighteenth chapter, appointed to be read as the first Lesson for this evening's service. In the first three verses, which I have read for the text, you will see, if you examine them, another very remarkable intimation of the same doctrine. As Abraham sat in his tent-door in the heat of the day, three angels stood before him. Why did he bow himself down toward the ground, and say, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant?" Why, if they were three, did he address them as one? Why did he not call them "Lords?" Why did he not say, " If I have found favour in your sight?" The Jews who read the story in the Book of Genesis could not have answered this question; but we can answer it: we know that this is one of those dim and early intimations of the great Christian doctrine; we know that it was an appearance of God, and that, while he was in Person Three, he was in substance only One; we know that it was another of those mysterious things which could not be altogether understood till the revelation of the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity threw light upon them, and showed that God had all along been preparing His secret witness,