creature." Jesus came to seek and save the lost and lost men everywhere and the lost nations of the earth are the field of conquest for his followers. The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil and wherever evil lifts its hideous head it is Christlike to strike it a blow. Who can tell what the 20th century will disclose? We call this a missionary age. Will the Gospel be carried to every land and tribe in this century? We call this a philanthropic age. Will the love of man grow more intense as the years go until no iniquity can withstand its fiery zeal?

What will you and I do in our generation? Will we help or hinder the triumph of Jesus? Will we be mere camp-followers in his army or among the never despairing invincibles who press on toward the final victory? Our hope of victory is sure. The Commander of the host says "Lo, I am with you alway even to the end of the world." It is no mere captain's battle, however valiant the captains may be. The commander-in-chief is ever within hailing distance. When at any point along the line there is loss, it is because we disregard his wise orders. He will make this world beautiful if we will only come to his help. He will by his spirit make the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose whenever the Church is ready to follow him whithersoever he goeth.

There's a fount about to stream,
There's a light about to beam,

There's a warmth about to glow,

There's a flower about to blow.

There's a midnight blackness changing

Into gray:

Men of thought and men of action clear the way!
Once the welcome light has broken

Who shall say,

What the unimagined glories

Of the day?

What the evils that shall perish

In its ray?

Members of the class of 1902, let me urge you to keep your eye on your Master. The emphasis of the text might well be laid on the last word-Follow me. Let Jesus engage your eye and your heart and your willJesus more than any other - Jesus rather than any other. To be subject to the absolute domination of any fellowman is a degradation, though, alas, no uncommon thing in this commonwealth. But to surrender to the will of your rightful Lord and Master is ennobling—is the very acme of freedom. The liberty is perfect in proportion as the surrender is complete. The happy Christian is the thoroughgoing. out-and-out Christian.

May I urge you to unreserved devotion to Him? Some of you will follow his flag to other lands; most of you will accept posts of duty in our own land. But wherever you go and whatever you do, keep floating in front of you the flag of the Kingdom of Christ, whose cause in the world is everywhere paramount to every other. Said one in Jesus' time" I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." Let there be no reserved sections of your life from which Christ is excluded. Get riches, if you will, but not in unclean ways, nor for its sake, nor for your sake alone but for Christ's sake.

Be ambitious, if you will, but for service rather than glory. Pursue literature, music, art, statesmanship-but whatever your attainments or gains, cast them all at Jesus' feet, keep your eye on Him - call no man Master but Him and no pursuit Master at all.

General Sansom, a brave general of the Union forces, was directed to take a certain fort in front of Vicksburg and as the men wavered under the enfilading fire of shot and canister, the fearless Commander seized the colors of a regiment and rushing to the front, waved them over his head and shouted "Forward men! We

must and will go into that fort. Who will follow me?' Inspired by his example, the men pressed on and gained the ditch in front of the fort without delay.

Such a rallying cry comes to the Church of today to you and me. Will we heed it? Yes, there may be a leaden hail where Jesus leads, there may be attack and wounds and anguish of spirit, there may be self-denial and cross-bearing and loss of life. But still he calls Who will follow me? whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospels the same shall save it. And what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul. The victory of personal completeness and final glory will be yours. You will scale the battlements of heaven and be enrolled among the heroes of the great war of all the world the war of the Captain of our salvation against sin and Satan.

When the roll of the faithful is called up yonder, may you and I be there. With the battle scars all healed, with past anguish all forgotten, with palms of victory in our hands, with our eyes still on Jesus, may we everyone participate in that swelling song of praise to our triumphant Commander Thou art worthy for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and hast made us unto our God, kings and priests and we shall reign on earth.

Follow Jesus Christ through your life and I am sure it will be well with you both here and hereafter.

SERMON XVIII, 1903

KNIGHTS OF THE CROSS

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.— Galatians 6: 14.

"THE

HE age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.' To this sentiment we may subscribe and yet claim that the spirit of chivalry abides and is fitted to adorn and ennoble any age.

When the institution was at the zenith of its history, there were chevaliers who lacked the lofty sentiment it was designed to cherish. Yet it was in general as Burke declared, "the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise."

Imagine a young nobleman of twenty-one years, after fourteen years of training and pleasant anticipation, surrounded by a multitude of men and women of rank assembled to do him honor. He stands forth within full view and hearing of them all and declares his vow to "speak the truth, to succor the helpless and oppressed and never to turn back from an enemy," and then is solemnly invested with the symbols and instruments of the order, the belt and spurs of the horseman and the lance of the conquering knight. The long training culminating in such a significant ceremony could not but impress the young novitiate and mould him into the form of the splendid ideal. He would rise from his knees a new man, with the purpose to be true and tender and brave. While some would abide in the shell of the outward form and only glory in the fiery charge and the gleaming lance, others would fulfil the poet's picture of a knight

Who reverenced his conscience as his king,
Whose glory was redressing human wrongs,
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it,
Who loved one only and who clave to her.

The essential elements of chivalry are with us still. The trappings, the joust, the tournament, the lance and spur, the crusade have passed away; but courtesy, greatheartedness, valor and honor abide with us. Paul, the Missionary, was a knight in the first Christian century and through all the Christian centuries since, there have been those who have followed after him, enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. As one has said —“ The modern phenomenon has in him the mediæval phenomenon, a chevalier.' We have in Paul's words the Christian's vows of knightly devotion and service to his Master" God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Christian is a knight of the cross and if the twelfth century gave opportunity for splendid service,

When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight,

the chances of the twentieth century are unparalleled and the call for heroes was never louder nor more impressive than now. Are any of us ready to respond to the call in the words of the Apostle, glorying only in the cross?

Let our theme be- The knights of the cross.

I. The knights of the cross are saved by it. The knights of the cross are sinners of mankind and by nature children of wrath even as others. They differ from many in being conscious of sin. They have realized in some measure their degradation and their doom. Sin has ceased to be with them a peccadillo, an indiscretion, a mistake, a pardonable offense, an unimportant breach of rule.