of righteousness. As no individual man can be happy until he has been made thoroughly right in heart, and feel that the Great God treats him as a righteous man, so no people or country can. This rectitude is the only element that can work off all the evils that afflict mankind, and give them the tone and blessedness of a vigorous health. This is the only key-note that can set the discordant elements of the world to music. The righteousness which is essential to the salvation of a soul, is that which alone "exalteth a nation."

Another fact implied in these words is

"For

Secondly: That the grand aim of the moral law is to promote righteousness. Righteousness is the end of the law. Moses," says the apostle in the next verse, "describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them." The law was holy, just, and good, a transcript of the Divine character, given to man to guide and stimulate him in righteousness. Conformity to it is righteousness in the creature. Angels conform to it and they are righteous. The law reveals and rewards righteousness.

The other fact implied in these words is―

Thirdly: That the righteousness which the law aimed to promote is to be obtained by faith in Christ. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," The word "end" here does not mean end in the sense of termination, but in the sense of design. Christ did not abolish law, on the contrary He fulfilled it. He wrought out its principles in a grand life; He demonstrated its majesty in a wonderful death. Instead of releasing His disciples from obligation to the law, He brings the law to them with a mightier aspect and a greater force of motive. The word therefore, is to be taken in the sense of design. It means that Christ does what the law purposed doing-promote righteousness in man. What the law aimed at, it could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, through the depravity of human nature. Men sinned, and they became unrighteous in fact, and were treated as unrighteous by the government of God. They were brought into condemnation and they felt

an impassable gulf between them and their Maker. The law could do nothing for them; it could neither rectify their errors nor reconcile them to God. Its bright flashes reveal to them their wickedness, and its rumbling thunders prophesy to them their doom. The more profoundly they felt their condition, the more profoundly they felt that by the deeds of the law no flesh living could be justified or made right. Such is the condition of the sinner in relation to law. "The likest thing to it in human experience is," says Dr. Chalmers, "when a decree of bankruptcy without a discharge has come forth on the man who has long struggled with his difficulties, and is now irrevocably sunk under the weight of them. There is an effectual drag laid upon this man's activity. The hand of diligence is forthwith slackened, when all the fruits of diligence are thus liable to be seized upon, and that by a rightful claim of such magnitude as no possible strenuousness can meet or satisfy. The processes of business come to a stand, or are suspended when others are standing by ready to devour the proceeds of business so soon as they are realized, or at least to divert them from the use of the unhappy man and the good of his family. The spirit of industry dies within him, when he finds that he can neither make aught for himself, nor from the enormous mass of his obligations make any sensible advance towards his liberation. In these circumstances he loses all heart and all hope for exertion of any sort; and either breaks forth into recklessness or is chilled into inactivity by despair. And it is precisely so in the case of a sinner towards God. If he feels as he ought, he feels as if the mountains of his iniquities had separated him from his Maker. There is the barrier of an unsettled controversy between them, which, do his uttermost, he cannot move away; and the strong though secret power of this is a chief ingredient in the lethargy of nature. There is a haunting jealousy of God which keeps us at a distance from Him. There is the same willing forgetfulness of Him, that there is of any other painful or disquieting object of contemplation. God, when viewed singly as the Lawgiver, is also viewed as the Judge who must

condemn, as the rightful creditor whose payments or whose penalties are alike overwhelming. We are glad to make our escape from all this dread and discouragement, into the sweet oblivion of nature. The world becomes our hiding place from the Deity, and in despair of making good our eternity by our works, we work but for the interests of time; and because denizens of earth, we, estranged from the hopes of heaven, never once set forth in good earnest upon its preparation.”

At this point the apostle's method of making the sinner righteous comes in. What is that? Faith in Christ. “Every one that believeth" in Him is made righteous—“Believeth!" in what? Not in what men say about Him; not merely in the facts of His life, and the purpose of His mission, but in Him as the all-sufficient Saviour of the world. "Believeth!" How? Not with a mere traditional faith, but with the deepest conviction of the soul. Not merely with the intellect, but with the heart. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Believeth with a faith that brings Christ's own Spirit home to us, and gives us a new heart and a new life. This is the power to make men righteous-the power by which man obtains pardon for his past offences, and an effective influence enabling him to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Did Paul's patriotism recognize the right method, think you? I believe that the philosophy of the human mind, and the history of human experience, unite with the Bible in declaring that it is the only method that can succeed. I depreciate not for a moment some of the salutary elements that are at work in the world, such as intellectual education, scientific discoveries, wholesome legislation, and a healthful class of literature; whilst I maintain that all will prove utterly abortive apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the power of God unto salvation. Let those who aspire to the name of patriots, imitate Paul in the instrumentality he employed to raise his country. The advance of our England in all that gives real worth, nobility, and happiness to a people, depends upon the multiplication of patriots after the type of Paul.

3 Homiletic Glance at the Acts of the Apostles.

But

Able expositions of the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, describing the manners, customs, and localities described by the inspired writers; also interpreting their words, and harmonizing their formal discrepancies, are, happily, not wanting amongst us. the eduction of its WIDEST truths and highest suggestions is still a felt desideratum. To some attempt at the work we devote these pages. We gratefully avail ourselves of all exegetical helps within our reach; but to occupy our limited space with any lengthened archæological, geographical, or philological remarks, would be to miss our aim; which is not to make bare the mechanical process of the study of Scripture, but to reveal its spiritual results.

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SECTION TWELFTH.-Acts iv. 23-37.

And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the

apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.”—Acts iv. 23—37.

THE

SUBJECT: A Specimen of Christian Socialism.

CHE apostles Peter and John having baffled the Sanhedrim in its attempts violently to restrain them in their mission to extend the knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth, return at once to the company of their fellowdisciples. The passage which comes now for our consideration, is a brief narrative of their return to the society of their brotherhood, the profound feelings with which the brotherhood received their communications, the spirit which inspired the body, and their thorough communion both in religious sentiment and in common life. The narrative gives us such a view of Christian Socialism as throws the secular thing called by that name into contempt, and reveals the lamentable imperfection connected even with the highest form of spiritual fellowship now existing on this earth. From it we learn that the socialism which these first Christians enjoyed was attractive, religious, and amalgamating. It was:—

I. ATTRACTIVE. No sooner were the two apostles free, than they returned at once-as if drawn by a magnetic force to their chosen society. "And being let go, they went to their own company." They "went to their own: "— Their own people, friends, or brethren; those who were one with them in the most vital things of existence. There were two things that made "their own" people attractive to them, and which are always found in connection with true Christian Socialism-responsive listening and sympa thetic co-operation. They had something to say, and they felt that in that brotherhood they should have responsive listeners. They wanted to report all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. Whether they wished to "report" this to awaken the congratulations of their brethren on account of their triumphs, or to get their counsels on account of their difficulties, or both, you have no data to