life in no stinted measure.

"I am come that

they may have it more abundantly." Now, what is this grant of more abundant life, as distinguished from the grant of life?

Must we not set it forth in this way? It is life to the Christian soul when he looks to the Cross of Christ, and when he sees there Him Who knew no sin made sin for us. But there is a further application of the doctrine of the Cross enforced both by our Lord and by His servants. Christ says much more than "Look to Me dying on the cross, and lay your sins on Me," when He says, "He that will come after Me must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." And His servant, St. Paul, says much more than "I look to the Cross and trust in the atonement wrought out upon it," when he says, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

It is life that we should look to the Cross and trust in the atonement; but it is more abundant life to exercise ourselves in self-denial and self-sacrifice, and by the Cross to mortify sin and be crucified to the world. To take trouble about our religion, to choose the rough path rather than the smooth, to visit the sick, to give up time to teaching the ignorant, which we might more pleasantly spend in other things, and at inconvenience to ourselves to attend

daily worship: such things seem sorry selfdenials compared with the self-denials of the primitive saints and martyrs, but they are beginnings. Perhaps some who say that they look to the Cross and trust in Him Who hung upon it have not even begun these.

We know not what is coming on the Church. They who have studied well the current of thought and opinion on the Continent tell us that the spirit abroad predominant among the masses is not one indifferent to Christianity in any shape, not even hostile to it, but fiercely intolerant of its very existence.

Unless we deny ourselves and put ourselves to inconvenience to do something for Christ when the profession of His Name is easy, may we not justly fear lest He leave us to forsake Him altogether when the profession of His Name is hard to flesh and blood?

Again, take another case, in which the grant of more abundant life is manifest, and that is, intercessory prayer. It is a sign of life when men pray for themselves, for the wants of their own souls, and for the souls of those more immediately connected with them; but intercessions for others, for the Church of Christ, for the spread of the Gospel, for the conversion of sinners, for the building up of saints in the faith-all this is a sign of more abundant life than prayer for ourselves only or for those who are as ourselves. As one has well said, "Christ

did not die to leave man as he was, sinful, ignorant, and miserable. He did not die to see His purchased possession as feeble in good works, as corrupt, as poor spirited and as desponding as before He came. Rather He died to renew him after His own image, to make him a being that He might delight and rejoice in, to make him a partaker of the Divine nature, to fill him within and without with a flood of grace and glory, to pour upon him gift upon gift, virtue upon virtue, and power upon power, each acting upon each, and working together one and all, till he become an angel upon earth instead of a rebel and an outcast. He died to bestow upon him that privilege which implies or involves all others, and brings him into nearest resemblance to Himself, the privilege of intercession. . . . Christ intercedes above and the Christian intercedes below. Why should he linger in the doorway, praying for pardon, who has been allowed to share in the grace of the Lord's Passion, to die with Him and to rise again? He is already in a capacity for higher things. His prayer henceforth takes a higher range, and contemplates, not himself merely, but others also." If, then, we have life so as to pray for ourselves, let us have, as we may, and as we ought to have, more abundant life, so that as priests of Christ and of God we should pray for others. It is no presumption to aim at that which Christ came to bestow.

If He came to make us priests of God and of Himself we but honour Him the more when we exercise our priesthood.

Let our times of Holy Communion be especially times of Intercession. They who come to communicate and are not, like the clergy, employed all the time in administering the elements, have much time to spare, and they should account these moments precious indeed. For the Lord's Death is there being shown forth before God, angels, and men. The great sacrificial memorial of the Son of God is going on. We are then joining in that great act of Intercession which is going on at the right hand of God. Be much, then, on your knees at such a time. Have the wants of your Church, the wants of your families and friends, the wants of your ministers, the conversion of sinners, the advance of religion, the spread of the Gospel, the unity of the mystical Body of Christ-have. these all-important things much in your hearts and on your lips, and you know not what blessings you may call down from Him Who came to confer upon us, His brethren, no small benefits, no common-place privileges, Who came to fit us for no mean duties, and to enable us to fill no mean places in His heavenly kingdom.

16

II.

CHRIST'S RESURRECTION A NECESSITY.

ACTS ii. 24.

"Jesus of Nazareth . . . whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it."

THE one great miraculous manifestation of the truth of the Gospel is the Resurrection, which took place as on the morning of this Easter Day.

The Incarnation may have been a greater miracle, perhaps, far greater, if it be lawful to compare two things of which God alone knows the dimensions; but the Incarnation was not so manifest an exhibition of the power of God. The Incarnation was hidden from the world; the Fathers say that it was hidden from the evil powers of the unseen world; but it was not so with the Resurrection. "He showed himself alive by many infallible proofs," and in the spiritual invisible world "He spoiled principalities and powers, making a show of them, openly triumphing over them."

The Scriptures invest the Resurrection of Christ with a glory far greater than that of the greatest of His own mighty works-with a glory, for instance, far, far greater than that