widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayer; therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity-Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” How intense must have been the Saviour's indignation that impelled him to make this tremendous arraignment. It is God's judgment against hypocrisy in every time that should strike terror unto all our hearts and constrain us to be what we would seem to be.

From this dark picture, though drawn by a master hand, we gladly turn away. Let us look upon another in perfect contrast with it portrayed by the Spirit in the Gospels, Jesus was God's own embodiment of truth -the only perfectly guileless man. Peter, after most intimate fellowship for years, wrote of him-"Who knew no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." Whether in the synagogue or in the solitude of the mountain his prayers were but the natural overflow of his earnest, loving soul. He had no worldly policy and cared not to be a King. He rebuked Peter when he sought to dissuade him from his self-sacrificing course. What but love true, intense, absorbing love plain his humble life of toil and self-denial and beneficence. What a striking illustration of his consuming zeal have we in his driving the money-changers from the temple. His character gave momentum to his words and acts or he could not have done it. No hollow eyeservant could have made the impious and avaricious Jews quail with nothing in his hand but a scourge of small cords.

can ex

When this man was brought before the high priest and

questioned concerning his disciples and his doctrines, what did he say? Did he shrink from the scrutiny of his past life? Did he fear the disclosure of some hidden shame? Did he defiantly bid them hunt him to his lair? In the most candid, straightforward way he answers —“ I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? ask them which heard me what I have said unto them; behold, they know what I said." Noble, inspiring words, worthy to guide the life of any young man or woman who wishes to live so as to be able to look the world in the face and not fear.

Young ladies and gentlemen of the class of 1893. What shall I say to you? Desire for yourself, what God desires for you. God desires truth in the inward parts

therefore be true, be true. Let truth be the law of your mind- of your speech-of your conduct — of your life-work. Sir Frederick Leighton, the President of the Royal Academy of Art in London, recently addressed a body of art-students to whom he gave this advice" I would beg you to keep ever before your eyes the vital truth that sincerity is the well-spring of all lasting achievement and that no good thing ever took root in untruth or in self-deception." Sincerity is the wellspring of achievement in art and in every good enterprise. The soul of art is the soul of the artist. The soul of every good work is the soul of those who project and carry it forward. Put your very soul into whatsoever you undertake and you must succeed.

Let me urge upon you to choose a work worthy of you and then give yourself to it.

First of all, you mean to be a Christian. To the appeal of the Master, "Son, daughter, give thy heart," you have responded "My Lord and my God. I give myself to thee." Be loyal to this first and best of masters

wherever you go. Whatever prosperity you have in other lines let him share it with you. Your whole life will be ennobled by the consciousness of such a partnership.

Then follow him whithersoever he may lead you. It may be unto the thickest of the conflict, where great principles of right and truth contend for the mastery over the powers of darkness. But fear not. The only success worth having will be yours. Some righteous cause will be nearer its triumph by reason of your life. "In all battles," says Carlyle, "if you await the issue each fighter has prospered according to his right. His right and his might, at the close of the account were one and the same." Living thus an earnest life you will please God who desires truth in the inward parts. You will achieve a success that will not disappoint you. When the echoes of men's applause die away you will still have something left. You can cross the threshold of eternity with a pleasing glance backward over a life well spent and a look forward to a land untried, yet full of hope, where the rewards of faithful service beckon to their enjoyment. "Faithful over a few things," says the Master whom we serve, I will make thee ruler over many things."

SERMON IX, 1894

THE CHRISTIAN RACE

I therefore so run not as uncertainty: so fight I not as one that beateth the air.-1 Cor. 9: 26.

GRA

RAMMAR, music and gymnastics were the chief branches of education among the Greeks. Athletics has perhaps a more robust and a wider meaning in our day than gymnastics. It stands for physical culture in its manlier forms and bids fair, as with the Greeks, to absorb a third of the energies of the schools. Is it necessary that we become wildly athletic in order that we may escape the opposite extreme of becoming ascetic? Is it necessary either to despise the body or to enthrone it? To neglect it is to trifle with health and health is an essential condition of mental or even spiritual vigor. On the other hand, to make it supreme is to ignore the divine arrangement by which it is made subservient to the soul which it embodies. Let it be developed and strengthened not that it may lord it over man's nobler but that it may furnish it with a worthier service. If out of our running and jumping, our swinging and vaulting, our contests of skill and strength, there come not only stronger bodies but sturdier manhood, purer, truer, steadier, readier men for the real conflicts of life, athletics will pass the final judgment of good men and be marked approved. But if it runs riot and pays little heed to any code of morals that threatens to interfere with present success, if it develops brutality and boorishness rather than genuine manliness it will pass under just condemnation. There is undoubtedly a great good

nature

here. The only question is whether it shall be swallowed up by a greater evil. I believe that it will not because I have faith that the sober judgment of our young men will ultimately prevail and that in it righteousness will outweigh glory-that what ought to be will seem more important than what can be or must be. Nay, wrong will be the only impossibility and righteousness the only necessity. I look for flowers of virtue as well as of health to grow upon our athletic field.

contests

Paul made use of the Isthmian games, their races and to illustrate the Christian life. With equal aptness we might turn to spiritual account the athletic exercises of the present time.

A race in our age is much the same as when Corinthian racers sped to the goal in Paul's day, or when Herod the Great was an interested witness and patron of the Olympian sports of Jerusalem and Cæsarea. There is the same expectancy at the start, the same intensity at the finish; the same straining of nerve and muscle, the same pride and assurance of friends, the same misery of blunder and defeat, the same joy of victory, the same tumultuous enthusiasm of the crowd that so readily veers to the winning side.

Any contest, physical or intellectual in stadium or forum, is full of interest. It brings every faculty and feeling into play. Competitors and spectators alike run the whole gamut of the soul's emotions anxious, expectant, despondent; disappointed, surprised, elated, fearing, hoping, exulting. Purposes and thoughts chase each other rapidly through the chambers of the soul. He must be stolid indeed who can participate in, or even watch, such a struggle and be a stranger to its tense and varied experiences.

Paul imagines the Christian encompassed by an intensely interested company of beholders heroes of a similar contest of faith in the preceding ages, whose names are on the roll of honor for all time and for all eternity,