conscious affinities with the Infinite ;-these are some of the glorious possessions brought by Him who manifested the Father's Name to the men given Him out of the world.

Shall we, then, reject and disown the Christ? Myriad voices of the purest and noblest that have ever lived come out from the graves to answer" No." A long procession of the mightiest intellects and most potent workers for the good of man-Fathers, Schoolmen, Reformers, statesmen, philosophers, and divines, from Paul down to this present-presses forward to answer "No. It was from Him we had our brightest light, and it was out of love to Him we labored, sacrificed, and suffered." A vast choir of the greatest poets and singers of the world, with hearts and lyres attuned to His praises, pour out their answer, "No." The grand old painters, musicians, and architects who made our modern art, and made it so full of light and tenderness and love, feeling how much their inspiration depended on the new-creating grace in Him, shout their indignant protest, "No." And unnumbered souls, without hope against their sins but in His blood, cry out in tears and agony of entreaty, "No-no-no; for He alone is our salvation! He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. What He was eighteen hundred years ago, what He was to our fathers, He is

now to us, and will be to our children from generation to generation. He is the outbeaming of the eternal Godhead, the supreme Revelation, the infallible Teacher, the Healer and Pardoner of sin, the Opener of the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Yea, He is the everlasting Son of the Father—our Lord who died for us, our God who ever lives to redeem, help, and glorify us!"

Dear friends, enter into this faith, and when life's burdens press, and that solemn hour comes when human help is vain, you will not repent having the arm of an almighty Saviour on which to lean. May He be our Portion and our Consolation both now and for ever! And glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

LECTURE NINTH.

Emplied Results.

ROM. 8:31: What shall we then say to these things?

T seems to me, dear friends, that we have by this

IT

time reached conclusions of very great moment, on which it becomes us to spend a few thoughts before advancing farther.

On the basis of fair reasoning and facts which no one can gainsay we have been brought to what enters most essentially into right thinking and right life.

To explain the enigma of our being and of the universe, to satisfy the tragic search and ceaseless outcry of the human soul, and to maintain a just consistency with ourselves, we are compelled to admit that there is a God.

From the peculiarities of our nature and surroundings in this world we have seen something of the deep need of faith in God in order to true spiritual consolation and happiness, and how near, natural, and inrooted with all the elements of life religion is. From the incapacity of unaided human reason to give us any sure and authoritative teaching to serve

as a guide to faith, righteousness, and a satisfying hope, we have seen how desirable, important, and necessary it is that we should have some adequate and certain revelation or word from Heaven.

From the ancient Creation Record, which the latest science, as far as science can reach, has proven to be true, and which could have come only from some supernatural showing, as also from the transcendent and world-conditioning story of Jesus, which can by no possibility be accounted for, either in ideal or fact, except on some supernatural interference of God Himself, we have found two demonstrative proofs that God has spoken-spoken to make known to man His eternal power and Godhead, to acquaint us with His sublime perfections, love, fatherhood, and gracious will and purposes, and to afford us the requisite information for the adjustment of ourselves to Him in hope of a blessed immortality.

And on these two great pillars alone, without reference to the many other buttresses of the truth on this point, we have found the whole fabric of the Christian revelation amply sustained and irrefragibly established.

"" 'WHAT SHALL WE THEN SAY TO THESE THINGS?" I. If there is any solidity whatever in the conclusions which we thus have reached, we are here fur

nished with a test by which to free ourselves from many dangerous speculative errors and false systems of thinking.

We must then say that atheism of every species is a lie, absurd in principle, destructive in tendency, and the height of spiritual immorality; for here is the clear testimony that there is an infinite, selfexistent, eternal, and almighty God, from whose creative activity heaven and earth and time and all things took their beginning and have their being, and that only “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."

We must then also say that polytheism, or the worship of many gods, is a monstrous perversion of the truth, thrusting other things into the place of the one true and only God, giving the glory of the everlasting One to another, and besotting the soul with all kinds of degrading abominations. “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many and lords many), to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him;" "The Lord our God is one Lord;" "There is one God; and there is none other but He."

And with this must go the dualism of the Zoroastrians, of the Greek philosophers, and of the Gnostic sects, which conceives of two infinities, self-existent