these we may, if we will, hear His voice inviting us to make good our place in a city where God will wipe away all tears.

But above all His voice is heard in the ordinances of His own kingdom, in the streets, the places of concourse of His Zion. There He cries aloud, He spares not, He lifts up His voice.

He speaks in the text which sticks in the memory like a barbed arrow, which no effort can shake off, and no earthly draught can drown its pain.

Most lovingly does His voice sound in the invitation to the Sacrament of His Body. The very sight of the table spread and decked for the heavenly feast is His voice to many, to remind them that He must be their Bread of Life if they would live for ever, and that they must stretch out their hands, and receive each one for himself the Body of the Lord if they are to have His life in them.

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XI.

CHRIST KNOWN ONLY BY FAITH.

JOHN i. 26.

"There standeth One among you whom ye know not."

WE are told by a heathen author, that at the time when the Son of God was about to come amongst us there was a sort of presentiment among the people dwelling in eastern regions, that one was coming who was to have the dominion, that is, some sort of universal dominion; but of the nature of this dominion none could speak. The sacred narrative, as contained in the four Gospels, fully proves the truth of the statement of the Gentile writer. Many incidents in the narrative, with more or less clearness, teach us that some one was then expected, and there was a feverish anxiety respecting any one who might happen to be the centre of any religious movement, as to whether he was the one for whom all looked. St. John the Baptist was, as the Gospel for this day teaches us, the subject of this anxiety. He was preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and baptizing men with water, and he excited by his preaching a prodigious stir among the dry bones of

dead Judaism. Multitudes from all parts of the Holy Land flocked to hear his preaching, and to receive his baptism. Upon this the leaders of the Jewish religion in Jerusalem sent to him with such questions as, Who art thou? Art thou Elias? Art thou that prophet? Why baptizest thou if thou be not Christ, or Elias, or that prophet? John, in answer to all this, disclaimed all personal honour. He declared that he was but a voice —a voice to announce the coming of Another; a fore-runner to herald His near approach; but, besides this, he assured them that the One Whose coming all men were hoping for was actually in their midst: "There standeth one among you whom ye know not."

But St. John did not stop here. He went on further to assure them that there was an absolutely immeasurable distance between this unknown One and himself: "He it is Who, coming after me, is preferred before me, Whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose."

Let us dwell for a moment upon these words, in which the Holy Baptist describes the enormous distance betwixt himself and One Who was his near relative after the flesh.

St. John was by birth of the very first family among the Jews.* He was the son of one of

* In illustration of this we find Josephus, the Jewish historian, commencing the history of his life thus: "The family from which I am derived is not an ignoble one, but hath

the heads of the courses of the priests, among whom the high priesthood was, as it were, divided. If, then, St. John had chosen to dwell in Jerusalem, after the death of his father Zacharias, he might have presided at the highest acts of national religious worship. In addition to this, St. John was a great man through the inherent force of his own moral and religious life and character. He was apparently raised up to set on foot a great religious reformation amongst his countrymen. In bringing this about he took upon himself to denounce in terms of the most unsparing invective the hypocrisy of those who filled the highest places in the eyes of his co-religionists. "Oh! generation of vipers," he says to the leaders of the then religious world, “ who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Here then was one who, we may be sure, would bend before no human being. We know how, shortly after, he reproved a king, who had the power of life and death in his hands, and how he lost his life for his boldness. And yet this man, of such a family, with such popularity, so bold, so uncompromising, so fearless of the frown of his fellow-creatures, declares that there is one amongst the surrounding crowd

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descended all along from the priests; and as nobility among several people is of a different origin, so with us, to be of the sacerdotal dignity is an indication of the splendour of a family."

for Whom he was unworthy to perform the most menial office-" whose shoe's latchet he was not worthy to unloose." Surely this, said by one who, of all men, would not flatter or cringe, who was withal an inspired messenger of God, must betoken an infinite distance. And we know that it does; at least we are inexcusable if we do not. For to that unknown One we have all of us been offering up this morning nothing short of Divine worship. Some of us met early this morning, to shew forth before God, angels, and men His death of shame, and to partake in some mystical, but not the less real, way of His Flesh and Blood. All of us have, throughout the service of prayer and praise, been addressing Him as if He could hear us, which He can, and as if He could answer us, which He can. We have sung to His special praise the words "Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ! Thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father.... Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father. We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge. We therefore pray Thee help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood. Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting."

We have also besought Him, "by the mystery of His Holy Incarnation; by His Holy Nativity and Circumcision; by His Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation: by His Agony and Bloody