Our God is a consuming fire."-HEBREWS xii. 29.

THIS is one of the shortest texts in the Bible. It takes rank with those other three brief sentences which declare the nature of God: God is Light, God is Love, God is Life. But to many it is one of the most awful sayings in the whole of Scripture. It rankles in the memory; recurs continually to the uneasy conscience; and rings its wild tocsin of alarm in the ear of the anxious inquirer. And yet there is an aspect in which it may be viewed which will make it one of the most comforting, precious passages in the whole range of inspiration.

Fire is indeed a word significant of horror. To be awakened from sleep by that one awful cry will make the flesh tremble and the heart stand still. A baby's cradle wrapped in flame; a beloved form suddenly enveloped in a burning fiery furnace; a ship on fire amid the wild expanse of the homeless ocean, and slowly burning down to the level of the waves-in any of these figures you have a suggestion of almost unparalleled horror.

And yet, for all that, what comfort and homelikeness and genial blessedness there are in the kindly glow of firelight! There is no sign of more abject poverty than the fireless grate. And however warm the rooms may be in Russia or France, the traveler greedily longs for the blaze of the open fireplace of his native land. Besides, what should we do without this strong, good-natured giant, which toils for us so sturdily? It draws our carriages along the metal track. It drives the machinery of our factories. It disintegrates the precious ore from its rocky matrix. It induces a momentary softness in our toughest metals, so that we can shape them to our will. The arts of civilized life would be impossible but for this Titan worker.

It is obvious, therefore, that whilst Fire is the synonym for horror and dismay, yet it is also full of blessing and goodwill. It is the former only when its necessary laws are violated. It is the latter when those laws are rigorously and reverently observed. Yes, and are not destruction and ruin the strange and unnatural work of fire? whilst its chosen mission is to bless and beautify and enrich; consuming only the dross and thorns and rubbish, so that there may be a clearer revelation of the enduring realities over which it has no power.

When, therefore, our God is compared to fire, is it only because of the more terrible aspects of his nature, which are to be dreaded by transgressors? Is there not also, and perhaps more largely, a suggestion of those beneficent qualities which are needed for our purity and comfort? Surely there is a strong flavor of such characteristics in the assurance given to us by the prophet Isaiah, "The light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day" (Isa. x. 17).

Fire in the Word of God is not always terrible. When of old God came down on Sinai, its upper peaks were veiled with impenetrable folds of smoke, like the smoke of a furnace. And in the heart of the smoke there was the appearance of devouring fire. There is dread here! Bounds had been set to keep the people back; but a special message must be see fit to warn them against breaking through to gaze, lest the fire should break forth upon them. But there was no harm so long as they kept without the barriers; and when Moses entered into the very heart of it, it did not singe a hair of his head, and injured him no more than when it played round the fragile acacia bush, which burned with fire without being consumed, not a leaf shriveled, nor a twig scorched. It is quite true that in the desert pilgrimage there was much of the punitive aspect in the divine fire; as when there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men with censers who had joined in Korah's rebellion, and had spoken contemptuously of God's anointed servants: but, on the other hand, it did not hurt one other soul; and these were destroyed, awfully indeed, but almost too suddenly to feel the keen smart of pain. And surely that fire did a beneficent work in staying the further progress of evil, which would have honeycombed the whole nation and led to their destruction as a people.

In the days of Elijah the fire of God consumed two captains and their fifties; but the captains and their troops were full of wanton insolence. There was no hurt done to him who knelt at the mountain foot, beseeching the man of God with reverence and humility. And when, shortly afterward, the great prophet was to go home, it was a chariot of fire in which he sat himself, as in some congenial and friendly element, to waft him to his home.

And on the day of Pentecost when each head bent low beneath the sound as of a mighty rushing wind, a moment afterward each was girt with fire. Apostles, disciples, and women alike experienced this sacred investiture; but it hurt them not. They were far from being perfect characters; and yet there was evidently nothing to fear in the descent of that fiery baptism. They were baptized with the Holy Ghost, but they were unconsumed.

Do not these instances shed light upon our text?

OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE; AND THERE IS TERROR IN THE SYMBOL. But the terror is reserved for those who unceasingly and persistently violate his laws and despise his love. For those who willfully follow courses of sin, after they have received the knowledge of the truth, there is doubtless a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. On those who will not obey the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, clearly presented to them, vengeance will be taken in flaming fire. No words can exaggerate the terror, the anguish, the dreadfulness of their fate. Sin is no light matter. In this world even it is fearfully avenged. Walk through certain wards in our hospitals, and tell me if anything could exceed the horror, the agony, of the penalty which is being inflicted on those who have flagrantly violated the laws of nature. And, so far as we can see, the physical penalties which follow upon wrongdoing are not unto life and restoration, but unto death and destruction. It is necessary that these sufferings should be veiled from the eye of man; but surely they must be taken into account when we estimate God's treatment of sin. And if such pain, keen as fire, consumes those who violate physical law, surely we must admit that there is a still more awful doom for those who violate the laws of God's love and grace and pleading mercy.

God forbid that we should say one word to lessen men's dread of the penal consequences of sin. There is a great danger lest, amid our growing conceptions of the love of God, we should come to think that he is altogether such a one as we are inclined to be in our dealings with our children, soft, easy, and indulgent. God is love; and yet he permits the little child to be burned, if it plays heedlessly with flame. God is love; but he permits bodies to rot in loathsome disease, without hope of cure, if men persistently do despite to his law. God is love; but he allows the whole course of a life to be blasted by one yielding to transgression and sin. And thus, though God is love, it is possible for sins to be punished with sufferings, bitter as the gnawing worm, keen as the fire that is not quenched.

If once we realized these things (and we should realize them if we would quietly consider the clear statements of the Word of God on such matters), we should come to understand much better the desperate nature of sin; and to yearn with deeper compassion over those who obstinately resist the grace of God, either following the evil courses suggested by their own hearts, or led captive by the devil at his will.

O disobedient soul, who hast read these words thus far, stop and bethink thee of thy danger! Beware lest thou be as the chaff or thorns, which are burned up with unquenchable fire, on the part of the Lord himself. Be quick to turn to him and live. Yet if thou suffer irretrievable ruin, remember thou wilt have only thyself to blame; because thou hast broken the elementary laws of thy nature, and hast set thyself in opposition to the God who loves thee, and would redeem thee, but whom thou hast refused and defied. If only thou wouldst bend thy stubborn neck and submit to shelter thyself in the person and work of Jesus, God's perfect holiness would bring thee, not hurt, but blessing and help.

OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE; AND THERE IS COMFORT AND BLESSING IN THE THOUGHT.  When we yield to God's love, and open our hearts to him, he enters into us, and becomes within us a consuming fire; not to ourselves, but to the evil within us. So that, in a very deep and blessed sense, we may be said to dwell with the devouring fire, and to walk amid the eternal burnings.

Fire is warmth. We talk of ardent desire, warm emotion, enthusiasm's glow and fire; and when we speak of God being within us as fire, we mean that he will produce in us a strong and constant affection to himself. Do you long for more love? you really need more of God: for God is love; and when he dwells in the heart, love dwells there in power. And there is no difficulty in loving him or loving men with the love which has entered in majestic procession in the entrance of God. Live in God, make room for God to live in you; and there will be no lack to the love which shall exemplify in daily action each precept of the holy psalm of love (1 Cor. xiii.).

Fire is light. We are dark enough in our natural state; but when God comes into the tabernacle of our being, the Shekinah begins to glow in the most holy place, and pours its waves of glory throughout the whole being: so that the face is suffused with a holy glow, and there is an evident elasticity and buoyancy of spirits which no world joy can produce or even imitate. The light that shone on the face of Moses was different from that which shone on the face of Jesus. That was flung on it from without; this welled up from within. But the latter rather than the former is the true type of the blessed effect produced on that nature which becomes the temple of the indwelling God.

Fire is purity. " How long, think you, would it take a workman with hammer and chisel to get the ore from the rocks in which it lies so closely imbedded? But if they are flung into the great cylinder, and the fires fanned to torrid heat, and the draught roars through the burning mass, at nightfall the glowing stream of pure and fluid metal, from which all dross and rubbish are parted, flows into the waiting mold." This is a parable of what God will do for us. Nay, more: he will burn up the wood, hay, and stubble, the grit and dross, the selfishness and evil of our nature; so that at last only the gold and silver and precious stones shall remain. The bonds that fetter us will be consumed; but not a hair of our heads shall fall to the ground.

"The Lord shall sit as a refiner of silver." He the refiner, and he the fire. Contact with God, being bathed in his Holy Spirit, the perpetual yielding of the nature to him, will work a marvelous change upon us. At first the face of the melting metal may be dark and lurid-deep orange red, over which a flickering flame shall pass; but, as the process is pursued, the color will become lighter, the dark fumes will pass off, and the metal shall bear the appearance of the highly polished mirror, reflecting the beholder's face. The process may be long; but the result is sure.

Is not fire painful and terrible, though applied by infinite love? It may be so; but he will not ply us with more than we can bear, and he will enable us to endure. And it will be more than a compensation, as we find one after another of the old evils losing its power. We shall never in this life be free from a sinful tendency, which seems part of our human nature. Nor shall we ever, on this side of heaven, be perfect; but we may expect to be growingly transformed into the image of the Son of God.

God, who art as fire, be thou a consuming fire to our inbred sins; burn deeply into our inmost hearts, until all that grieves thee is compelled to yield to the holy intensity of thy grace, and our whole being, made free from sin, begins to serve thee in holiness and righteousness, through Jesus Christ, who came to kindle thy Sacred Fire on the earth!

"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." HEBREWS xiii. 8.

THREE times over in this chapter, the closing chapter of an Epistle the study of which has been so pleasant and helpful, the sacred writer urges his readers to think kindly of those who ruled over them. The full force of the Greek word is better represented by the marginal rendering guide, than by the word rule. But in any case he referred to those who were the spiritual leaders and teachers of the flock. The three injunctions are-Remember (ver. 7); Obey (ver. '7); Salute (ver. 23).

It is a proud name for the Christian minister to be called a leader. But unless he has some other claim to it than comes from force of character, eloquence, or intellectual power, his name will be an empty sound, the sign of what he might be rather than of what he is. Those who are qualified to lead other men must be themselves close followers of Christ; so that they may be able to turn to others and say, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ;"  "Be followers together with Me."

But the Christian minister must also watch for souls (ver. 17). He is not sent to his charge to preach great sermons, to elaborate brilliant orations, or to dazzle their intellects; but to watch over their souls, as the shepherd watches over his flocks scattered upon the downs, while the light changes from the gray morning, through the deep tints of the noon, into the last delicate flush of evening far up on the loftiest cliffs. He must indeed keep careful watch, for he must give an account in the evening; of his hand every missing one will be required.

It is told of the holy Melville, that his wife would sometimes find him on his knees in the cold winter night; and on asking him to return to bed, he would reply, "I have got fifteen hundred souls in my charge, and fear that it is going ill with some of them." It is not difficult to remember or obey or salute men like that. They carry their Master's sign upon their faces. They are among Christ's most precious gifts to his Church.

But there is this sorrow connected with all human leaders and teachers. However dear and useful they are, they are not suffered to continue by reason of death. One after another they pass away into the spirit world, to enter upon their loftier service, to give in their account, to see the Master whom they have loved. The last sermon lies unfinished on the study table; but they never come there to complete it. The final word is spoken. The closing benediction is given. The ministry is done. But what a relief it is to turn from men to Christ: from the constant change in human teachers to the unchanging Master; from the under-shepherds who are here today but gone tomorrow, to the chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls who watches his sheep in the evening shadows of this era, equally as in the first bright beams of its Pentecostal morning!

This is the meaning of our writer (ver. 7). The verb is in the past tense: "Remember them which had the rule over you, such as spoke unto you the word of God: the end of whose life considering, imitate their faith." Evidently they had been lately called to witness the end of the life and ministry of some who had been very precious to them. And, as their hearts were sorrowing, their attention was turned from the changing guide and leader to the ever-living, unchanging Lord, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

WHAT IS DENIED. It is denied that either time or mood or circumstances or provocation or death can alter Jesus Christ our Lord.

Time changes us. Your portrait, taken years ago, when you were in your prime, hangs on the walls of your home. You sometimes sadly contrast it with your present self. Then the eye flashed with fires which have been quenched with many tears. Then the hair was raven and thick, which is now plentifully streaked with the gray symptoms of decay. Then the face was unseamed by care, unscarred by conflict; but now how weary and furrowed! The upright form is bent, the step has lost its spring.

But there is a greater difference between two mental and two physical portraitures. Opinions alter. The radical becomes conservative; temper changes, and affections cool. Names and faces which used to thrill are recalled without emotion. Faded chaplets lie where once flowers of rarest texture yielded their breath in insufficient adoration. Thus is it with those who are born of woman. Time does for them what hardship and authority and suffering would fail to effect. And sometimes the question arises, Can time alter him whose portrait hangs on the walls of our hearts, painted in undying colors by the hands of the four Evangelists?

Of course, time takes no effect on God, who is the f AM; eternal and changeless. But Jesus is man as well as God. He has tenses in his being: the yesterday of the past, the today of the present, the tomorrow of the future. It is at least a question whether his human nature, keyed to the experiences of man, may not carry with it, even to influence his royal heart, that sensitiveness to the touch of time which is characteristic of our race. But the question tarries only for a second. The moment it utters itself it is drowned by the great outburst of voices which exclaim, "He is the same in the meridian day of the present as he was in the yesterday of his earthly life; and he will be the same when tomorrow we shall have left far behind us the shores of time and are voyaging with him over the tideless, stormless depths of the ocean of eternity."

If we could ask the blessed dead if they had found him altered from what they had expected him to be from the pages of the holy Gospels, they would reiterate the words of the angels-this same Jesus; they would tell us that his hair is white as snow, not with age, but with the light of intense purity; that his face shines still as the sun in his strength, with no sign of westering; and that his voice is as full as when he summoned Lazarus from the grave, as mellifluous as when it called Mary to recognize him. Time is foiled in Jesus. He has passed out of its sphere, and is impervious to its spell.

Moods change us. We know people who are like oranges one day and lemons the next; now a summer's day, and, again, a nipping frost; rock and reed alternately. You have to suit yourself to their varying mood, asking today what you would not dare to mention tomorrow; and thus there is continual unrest and scheming in the hearts of their friends.

But it is not so with Jesus. Never tired, or put out, or variable. Without shadow cast by turning. In his earthly life, wherever we catch sight of him-on the mountainside, on the waters of the lake, beneath the olive trees in the evening; in the synagogue, or alone; at work in the sunlight, at prayer in the moonlight, at supper in the upper room, he was always the same Jesus. And the apparent exceptions when, for a certain purpose, he entered his manner and made himself strange, only brought his essential sameness into stronger relief. And so is he today And we shall become happy and strong when we remove from all thought of others' moods or our own, and settle down under the unchanging empyrean of his love.

Circumstances change us. Men who in poverty and obscurity have been accessible and genial, become imperious and haughty when they become idolized for their genius and fawned on for their wealth. The butler who would have done any favor for Joseph in the prison forgot him when he was reinstated in the palace. New friends, new spheres, new surroundings, alter men marvelously.

What a change has passed over Jesus Christ since mortal eyes beheld him! Crowned with glory and honor; seated at the right hand of the Father; occupied with the government of all worlds; worshiped by the loftiest spirits. Can this be he who trod our world, confessing his ignorance of times and seasons, surrounded by a handful of the poor and despised, an outcast and a sufferer? It is indeed he. But surely it were too much to expect that he should be quite the same! Nay, but he is. And one proof of it is that the graces which he shed on the first age of the Church were of exactly the same quality as those which we now enjoy.

We know that the texture of light is unaltered; because the analysis of a ray, which has just reached us from some distant star, whence it started as Adam stepped across the threshold of Eden, is of precisely the same nature as the analysis of the ray of light now striking on this page. And we know that Jesus Christ is the same as he was; because the life which throbbed in the first believers resulted in those very fruits which are evident in our own hearts and lives, all having emanated from himself. He has to govern the worlds; but he is still as accessible to the vilest, as gentle and tenderhearted, as humble and lovely, as when that Jewish woman could not restrain her envy of the mother who had borne him, and when he sat to rest amid the sycamores of Bethany, and the sisters rested by his feet.

Sin and provocation change us. We forgive seven times, but draw the line at eight. Our souls close up to those who have deceived our confidence. We are friendly outwardly, but there is frost within. We forgive, but we do not forget; and we are never the same afterward as before. But sin cannot change Christ's heart, though it may affect his behavior. If it could do so, it must have changed his feelings to Peter. But the only apparent alteration made by that sad denial was an increased tenderness and considerateness. "Go, tell my disciples, and Peter, that I am risen." "He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve." "He said unto Peter, Lovest thou me?"

Your sins may be many and aggravated; and you are disposed to think that you should give up all profession of being his at all. But you do not know him. He is not oblivious to your sins; he has noticed each one with sharp pangs of pain. His eye has followed you in all your way ward wanderings; but he is absolutely unchanged. You are as dear to him as when, in the first blush of your young hope, you knelt at his feet, and were clothed, as the old warriors used to be, by a stainless tunic over your armor of proof. Naught that you have said or done has lessened his love by a single grain, or turned it aside by a hair's-breadth. He loved you in eternity; he foreknew all that you would be before he set his heart upon you; he cannot be surprised by any sudden outburst of your evil. You may be, but he cannot be; and he laid his account for this, and more, when he undertook to redeem. Your sins, child of God, can no more alter your Lord's heart than can the petulance of a child alter its mother's.

WHAT IS AFFIRMED. He is the same in his Person (Heb. i. 12). His vesture alters. He has exchanged the gabardine of the peasant for the robes of which he stripped himself on the eve of his incarnation; but beneath those robes beats the same heart as heaved with anguish at the grave where his friend lay dead. We shall yet see, though in resurrection glory, the face on which stood the bead-drops of bloody sweat; and touch the hands that were nailed to the cross; and hear the voice of the Son of man. What does the mystery of the forty days teach us, except this, that he carried with him from the grave, and upward to his home, the identical body of his incarnation-though the corruptible had put on incorruption, and the mortal had put on immortality? Thus he is the same as "Jesus."

He is also the same in his once (Heb. vii. 24). Aaron died on Hor, and all his successors in mystic procession followed him. Ancient burying-grounds are closely packed with the remains of priests, abbots, and fathers. The ashes of the shepherds are mingled with those of their flocks. The office remains, but the occupants pass. But Christ, as the Anointed Priest, is ever the same. Unweariedly he pursues his chosen work as the Mediator, Priest, and Inter cessor of men. He does not fail, nor is he discouraged. Though the great world of men neither knows nor heeds him, yet does he bear it up upon his heart, as when he first pleaded for his murderers from his cross. "Forgive them, Father, forgive them !" is his unwearying constant cry. And though the age be black with tempest and red with blood, his pity wells up like one of those perennial fountains which heat cannot scorch, nor cold freeze; because they draw their supplies from everlasting sources. He is the same as "Christ."

WHAT IT IMPLIES. It implies that he is God. It implies, too, that the Gospels are a leaf out of his eternal diary, and may be taken as a true record of his present life. What he was, he is. He still sails with us in the boat; walks in the afternoon with us to Emmaus; stands in our rnidst at nightfall, opening to us the Scriptures. He wakes our children in the morning with his "Talitha cumi"; calls the boys to his knees; watches them at their play; and rebukes those who would forbid their Hosannas. He feeds us with bread and fish; lights fires on the sands to warm us; shows us the right side of the ship for our nets; and interests himself with the results of our toils. He takes us with him to the brow of the Transfiguration Mount, and into the glades of Gethsemane.

When we are slow to believe, he is slower still to anger. He teaches us many things, graduating his lessons, according to our ability to understand. When we cannot bear more, he shades the light. When we strive for high places, he rebukes. When soiled, he washes our feet. When in peril, he comes across the yeasty waves to our help. When weary, he leads us aside to rest.

Oh, do not read the Gospels as a record merely of the past, but as a transcript of what he is ever doing. Each miracle and parable and trait is a specimen of eternal facts, which are taking place by myriads, at every moment of the day and night; the achievements of the ever- living, ever-working Lord. No lake without that figure treading its waters. No storm without that voice mightier than its roar. No meal without that face uplifted in blessing, or that hand engaged in breaking. No grave without that tender heart touched with sorrow. No burden without those willing shoulders to share the yoke.

Oh, take me not back through the long ages to a Christ that was! He is! He lives! He is here! I can never again be alone, never grope in the dark for a hand, never be forsaken or forlorn. Never need a Guide, a Master, a Friend, or a Husband to my soul. I have him, who suffices for uncounted myriads in the dateless noon of eternity. He who was everything in the yesterday of the past, and who will be everything in the tomorrow of the future, is mine today; and at each present moment of my existence-here, and in all worlds.

The Revised Version adds a significant yea to this verse, to bring out the emphatic accentuation which the writer lays upon the unchangeableness of Jesus. It is well placed. And with what a thunder of assent might that word be uttered! All who are of this opinion answer YEA. First, the innumerable company of angels utters it; then the spirits of just men made perfect reaffirm it; then the universe of created things, the regularity of whose laws and processes is due to it, bursts forth with one great Amen. God himself says Amen; "for how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea: wherefore also through him is the Amen, unto the glory of God.

"It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein." HEBREWS xiii. 9.

IT is a good thing to have an established heart. With too many of us the inner life is variable and fickle. Sometimes we have days of deep religious earnestness, when it seems impossible for us to spend too long a time in prayer and fellowship with God. The air is so clear that we can see across the waters of the dividing sea, to the very outlines of the heavenly coasts. But a very little will mar our peace, and bring a veil of mist over our souls, to enwrap us perhaps for long weeks. Oh for an established heart!

Now there is one thing which will not bring about this blessed state of establishment. And that is indicated by the expression, "meats"; which stands for the ritualism of the Jewish law. There is ever a tendency in the human heart toward a religion of rites. It is so much easier to observe the prescriptions of an outward ceremonial than to brace the soul to faith and love and spiritual worship. Set the devotee a round of external observance, it matters little how rigorous and searching your demands, and the whole will be punctually and slavishly performed, with a secret sense of satisfaction in being thus permitted to do something toward procuring acceptance and favor with God.

There is a great increase of ritualistic observance amongst us. We behold with astonishment the set of our times toward genuflections; the austerities of Lent; the careful observance of prolonged and incessant services; and all the demands of a severe ritual. People who give no evidence in their character or behavior of real religion are most punctilious in these outward religious rites. Young men will salve their consciences for a day of Sabbath-breaking by an early celebration. In many cases these things are revivals of ancient Babylonish customs, passed into the professing Church in the worst and darkest days of its history. But their revival points to the strong religious yearnings of human nature, and the fascination which is exerted by outward rites in the stead of inward realities.

But "meats" can never establish the inner life. The most ardent ritualist must confess to the sense of inward dissatisfaction and unrest, as the soul is condemned to pace continually the arid desert of a weary formalism, where it comes not to the green pastures or the waters of rest. "They have not profited them that have been occupied therein."

Another obstruction to an established heart arises from the curiosity which is ever running after divers and strange doctrines. In all ages of the Church, men have caught up single aspects of truth, distorting them out of the harmony of the Gospel, and carrying them into exaggerated and dangerous excess; and directly any one truth is viewed out of its place in the equilibrium of the Gospel, it becomes a heresy, leading souls astray with the deceitfulness of the false lights that wreckers wave along the beach. And when once we begin to follow the vagaries and notions of human teachers, apart from the teaching of the Spirit of God, we get into an unsettled, restless condition, which is the very antipodes to the established heart.

There is only one foundation which never rocks, one condition which never alters. "It is good that the heart be established with grace." Primarily, of course, the established heart is the gift of God. "He which stablisheth us with you in Christ is God." "The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself." "The God of all grace make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." We need therefore to pray to him to give us the heart established in grace. But there are certain conditions also indicated in this context with which we do well to comply.

WE MUST FEED ON CHRIST. The very denial of the tenth verse proves that there is an altar whereof we have a right to eat. Not the Jews only, but Christians also, lay stress on eating; but Ah, how different the food which forms their diet ! In the case of that ancient system out of which these Hebrew Christians had just emerged, the priests ate a considerable portion of the sacrifices which the people offered on the altar of God. This was the means of their subsistence. In consideration of their being set apart wholly to the divine service, and having no inheritance in the land, "they lived by the altar." But we, who are priests by a viner right, have left behind us the Tabernacle, with its ritual and sacrifices, and cannot feed on these outward meats without betraying the spirituality of the holy religion we profess.

Our altar is the cross. Our sacrifice is the dying Savior. Our food is to eat his flesh. "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." "The bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

Eating consists of three processes: apprehension, mastication, and assimilation; and each of these has its spiritual counterpart in that feeding upon Christ which is the very life of our life. We, too, must apprehend him, by the careful reading of the Word of God. The Word is in the words. His words are spirit and life. We need not be always reading them, any more than we should be always eating. But just as a good meal will go on nourishing us long after we have taken it, and indeed when we have ceased to think about it, so a prolonged prayerful study of the Word of God will nourish our souls for long afterward.

We, too, must fulfill the second process of eating by meditating long and thoughtfully on all that is revealed to us in the Word of the person and work of the Lord Jesus. It is only by allowing our heart and mind to dwell musingly on these sacred themes that they become so real as to nourish us. Better read less and meditate more, than read much and meditate little.

We too must assimilate Christ, until he becomes part of our very being, and we begin to live, yet not we, because Christ lives in us, and has become our very life. Our Lord told his disciples that he lived by the Father; and said that, if they desired to live in the same dependent state on himself, they must "eat him " (John vi. 57). In Christ's own case his being had reached such a pitch of union with his Father's that to see or hear or know him was to see and hear and know God. And if we would only spend more time alone with him in prayerful, loving fellowship, a great change would pass over us also, and we should be transformed into his likeness in successive stages of glory upon glory.

At regular intervals we meet around the table of the Lord to eat the bread and drink the wine. But our feeding on him ought to be as frequent as our daily ordinary meals.

Why should we feed the spiritless than we do the body? Alas! how we pamper the latter, and starve the former, until we get past the sense of desire! We spoil our appetite by feeding it with the cloying sweetmeats and morsels of sense. We are content to live as parasites on the juices of others, instead of acquiring nourishment at first hand for ourselves. What wonder that we are carried about by every wind of doctrine, and lack the established heart? And perhaps there would be nothing better for the whole of us Christian people than a revival of Bible study, a fresh consecration of the morning hour, a regular and systematic maintenance of seasons of prolonged fellowship with our Master and Lord.

IF WE WOULD FEED ON CHRIST, WE MUST GO WITHOUT THE CAMP. In the solemn ritual of the great Day of Atonement it was ordained that the bodies of all the victims which had suffered death as sin-offerings, and of which the blood had been sprinkled before the mercy-seat, should be burned Without the camp (Lev. xvi. 27). And in this mysterious specification, two truths were probably symbolized: first, that in the fullness of time, Jesus, the true sin-offering of the world, would suffer outside the city gate; and secondly, that men must leave the principles and rites of earthly systems behind them, if they Would realize all the blessedness of acceptance with God through the sacrifice of Christ.

If, then, we would have Jesus as our food, our joy, our life, we must not expect to find him in the camps which have been pitched by men of this world. We must go forth from all such; from the camp of the world's religiousness equally as from that of its sensuality; from the tents of its formalism and ritualism, as well as from those of its vanity.

The policy of going forth without the camp is the only safe course for ourselves, as it is the only helpful one for the world itself. There are plenty who argue that the wisest policy is to stop within the camp, seeking to elevate its morals. They do not realize that, if we adopt their advice, we must remain there alone; for our Lord has already gone. It is surely unbefitting that we should find a home where he is expelled. What is there in us which makes us so welcome, when our Master was cast out to the fate of the lowest criminals? Besides, it will not be long before we discover that, instead of our influencing the camp for good, the atmosphere of the camp will infect us with its evil. Instead of our leveling it up, it will level us down.

The only principle of moving the world is to emulate Archimedes in getting a point without it. All the men who have left a mark in the elevation of their times have been compelled to join the pilgrim host which is constantly passing through the city gates, and taking up its stand by the cross on which Jesus died. Looking back on that memorable spot, we seem to see it thronged with the apostles, martyrs, reformers, and prophets of every age, who invite us to join them. It remains with us to say whether we will linger amid the luxury and fascinations which allure us to the camp; or whether we will dare to take up our cross, and follow our Master along the Via Dolorosa, bearing his reproach. Ah, young hearts, secret disciples, halters between two opinions, the issue of such a choice cannot be doubtful! With the cry, Deus vult, you will join this new crusade, and take your stand with Jesus, at the trysting-place of his cross.

IF WE GO OUTSIDE THE CAMP, WE MUST BEAR HIS REPROACH. It is related of the good Charles Simeon, of Cambridge, that, at the commencement of his career as an evangelical clergyman at Cambridge, he encountered such virulent abuse and opposition that his spirit seemed on the point of being crushed. Turning to the Word of God for direction and encouragement, his eye lighted on the following passage: " As they came out they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; him they compelled to bear his cross." The similarity of the name to his own arrested him, and he was moved to new courage with the thought of his oneness with the sufferings of Jesus. So is it with us all. If we are reproached for the name of Jesus, happy are we; and we should rejoice, inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that, when his glory is revealed, we also may be glad with exceeding joy.

How marvelous is it to learn the closeness of the bonds by which we are bound to the saints of the past When we are reproached for being Christians, we know something of what Moses felt when taunted in the royal palace of Egypt with his Hebrew origin; but "he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt, because he had respect unto the recompense of reward."

BUT WHILST BEARING CHRIST'S REPROACH, WE SHALL FIND THE ONLY CONTINUING CITY. It is very remarkable that, as we tear ourselves away from the gate of the city, and say farewell to what had seemed to be a symbol of the most enduring fabrics of earthly permanence, we are really passing out of the transient and unreal to become citizens of the only enduring and continuing City.

The greatest cities of human greatness have not continued. Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes, the mighty cities of Mexico-all have passed. Buried in mounds, on which grass grows luxuriantly; while wild beasts creep through the moldering relics of the past. But, amid all, there is arising from age to age a permanent structure, an enduring City, a confederation which gathers around the unchanging Savior., and has in it no elements of decay. Do we enough live in this City in our habitual experience? It is possible to tread its golden streets as we plod along the thoroughfares of earth's great cities; to mingle in its blessed companies, and share its holy exercises, though apparently we spend our days in dark city offices, and amid money-loving companions. The true pilgrim to the City really lives in the City. It will not be long, and it shall not be only an object for faith and spiritual vision, it shall become manifest. See, it comes! it comes! the holy City out of heaven from God, radiant with his light, vocal with song, the home of saints, the metropolis of a redeemed earth, the Bride of the Lamb, for whom the universe was made.