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Greatness of the Ministry,

wanderer; reclaiming the prodigal; bringing home the outcast; lifting up the down-trodden; visiting the prisoner; substituting smiles for frowns, blessings for curses. It is to purify, elevate, and ennoble society everywhere. There There is not a human being within the sphere of his influence to whom he is not a debtor. St. Peter says: "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." The steward who embezzles for himself money entrusted to his care is no more guilty than the minister who receiving the gifts of grace for all around him fails to bestow these gifts upon those for whom they were destined. You are not to teach men or preach to them because they are desirous of being taught and preached to. You must teach them because God has given you gifts to bestow upon them. He has given you His truth, and sent you to save them. You are never to turn away from any man because he insults, misrepresents, or maltreats you. The worse the man is, the more imperative is your duty to try and save him. The nearer he is to ruin, the more intense should be your effort to rescue him. Christ stooped from Heaven to serve him, and the minister must stoop to rescue the lowest of the low. So, as the good householder, you are to bring out your treasures, things new and old, to offer a wedding garment to every guest who shall sit down at table with the Master.

The Church of God is represented in the figure as a temple. We are the builders. The foundation is composed of prophets and apostles. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the chief corner stone.

Slowly, yet surely, the edifice rises. Member after member is joined into the rising structure. Some of the materials which are placed on the building are as gold, silver, and precious stones, beautiful, polished, and Christlike; but, in our haste and in our indolence, we are liable to introduce others, like wood, hay, and stubble. They will not stand the day of God's examination. The great Architect will reject and cast them away, and our labour is lost. We ourselves have each a part in the building of that grand edifice, which shall be tried as by fire. You are

as seen in its possible Results.

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shepherds, sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to watch over the flock He has purchased by His blood. You are to rescue and bring back every wandering sheep. You are soldiers in the army of Jesus Christ marshalled under the Captain of our salvation. The enemy is around us. The contest thickens. You are commanded to go forward. Where the battle wages hottest, there is the post of honour. Let the arms be ready, that the word of command may be obeyed. And yet how prone are we to lag behind, and to wish for ourselves safety and ease!

Thirdly. The transcendent greatness of the ministry is seen in the results to be achieved. It is a grand work, which reaches from eternity to eternity. It glances over all matter and treats of angels and of God. The professor in college, the lecturer in the university, are well satisfied when they have imparted the truth clearly, and when their students comprehend it. But at that point the teaching of the ministry is but begun. The raw recruit in the army understands the word of command. He knows what is to be done, but fails to perform it correctly and gracefully. The young lady at her piano knows the notes and understands the keys of her instrument, perceives what keys ought to be touched; yet the untrained fingers fail to bring out the music. The minister may teach his audience the doctrine of righteousness; he may explain its nature and mode; but still his work is but begun. He is not only to teach his audience how to repent, but to bring them to repentance. He is not to teach merely the nature of prayer, but to bring his congregation to prayer.

He is not merely to present the cross of Christ, but to lead people to His feet. He is not merely to tell of the forgiveness of sin and the conscious joy of redeeming love, but to bring his sympathizing hearers into the full enjoyment of these glorious blessings. How transcendently glorious, yet how difficult, the work of the preacher! He appeals to an audience of one hundred souls, of every possible grade. Some are Christians of partial maturity; some are babes in Christ; some are thoughtful inquirers; some are unredeemed sinners and hardened sceptics; some professed infidels, yet with pure moral lives; others profane and lawless. To that assembly he presents the

Lord Jesus Christ. He holds up before them the blessed Saviour as though He were present before them. He exhibits Him in His majesty, in His condescension, in His power, in His passion, in His omnipotence, in His boundlessness of love. He cries: "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world! Look unto Him, all ye nations of the earth, and be saved." As he holds this divine Saviour before their eyes, his character bears witness to his power. They see and feel, repent, and believe. The heart which at first says: "Depth of mercy, can there be mercy still reserved for me?" after looking at this. holy vision and feeling its glories, cries out exultingly: "God is love, I know, I feel; Jesus weeps and loves me still"; and then come to him the words of the Master: "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Your work, young gentlemen, is to take this vast assembly of multitudinous characters, circumstances, and habits, and bring them into the image of Christ; to make these weak, imperfect, sinful beings into the likeness of the blessed Saviour. Your work is well expressed in the language of the apostles: "We preach, warning every man and teaching every man, in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

What a sublime picture is here presented of making every man to stand in the stature of Christ! Not faintly nor partially; but in the fullness of Christ. This is the unity of Christianity. The great purpose of gathering together all things in Christ, both in Heaven and on earth, even in Him. The transformation is a glorious one; for we, too, with open face are to behold as in a glass; we, too, are to be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of God. This exhibition of Christ before our eyes, presented so that all men may see and repent, believe and enjoy, is Christian preaching. It is by the Word of God, presented by one divinely commissioned, accompamed by the power of the Holy Spirit, that men are transformed from sinners to saints. Can this be done? It was done by the apostles.

We

Preaching a Perpetual Agency.

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have the same word; we are men of like passions; we have the same accompanying Spirit. Men need the same transformation as the block of marble from which the beautiful image is to be freed by the tool of the sculptor. They are like wild trees, whose useless branches are to be pruned and superfluous twigs cut off. God has given to us an instrument. "The word is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." "For as the rain cometh down and the snow from Heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth." No wonder that the prophet, in exultation at the glories of it, exclaimed: "For we shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

What an exhibition of the renewing power of the Gospel! The thorns and thistles which have cursed the earth shall be removed, the Gospel of truth shall fill the whole earth. Then, indeed, will there be a new Heaven and a new earth. Until that time we must preach on. Nor must we be diverted from our work by any suggestions that society cannot be reformed or that the Lord Jesus will come visibly to cut off the wicked and to reign as temporal king. I have respect for some men that teach the doctrine; but none for the doctrine itself. If analyzed, it is a lack of faith in the power of God's words; it is a spirit of indolence which is unwilling to face the long ages of toil and sacrifice; or it is a spirit of vengeance, that calls for fire to come down from Heaven. They think it easier to kill men than to convert tham.

Fourthly. This preaching is to be a perpetual agency. Other systems may change, other plans may fall; but this never. It is the sovereign decree of Almighty God that by preaching the Gospel of His Son men shall be saved. To the Jew His preaching was a stumbling-block. It took from him all his beloved cere

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Preaching a Divine Agency.

monial. The temple was no longer the exclusively holy place; Jerusalem was no longer to be the central home of God's people; the whole earth was to be a worshipping temple: walls and partitions were to be broken down; all races were to be brought on one common platform, all humanity to become kings and priests under God. It was to him a stumbling-block; but to the Greek, the man devoted to philosophy and to science, it was foolishness. To the Greek the glorious record of his nation had been for centuries its orators, its painters, its historians, its sculptors, and its warriors. To him his nation was the centre of knowledge and civilization; Athens, the concentration of the mental power of the world, ruled by learning more than by arms. The highest talent of humanity was there represented. The pencil of Apelles, the chisel of Praxiteles, the oratory of Demosthenes, the academic teachings of Plato, the practical philosophy of Socrates, the keen logic of Aristotle, the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, the poetry of Euripides and Homer, the statesmanship of Pericles, and the military talent of Miltiades were the glory of the nation. These were the marks of civilization and the indices of their glory.

To be told that all this was insignificant, and that the only way to triumph over passions and impulses was to seek favour with God; that true grandeur was to come by telling the story of a crucified Saviour, a Jew by birth, who said He was the son of man, and yet the Son of God; pure and spotless in His life, yet crucified between thieves; buried and guarded by Roman soldiers, yet arose the third day; lived on earth for a time, and then ascended to glory-when told that by these truths all history was to be changed, and belief in Him made of more importance than the highest culture and civilization, can we wonder that they said, "It is foolishness"?

Men of science say so to-day; yet by that preaching which they called foolishness it is God's eternal and immutable purpose to save them which believe. It has already saved in the past; it is saving still. It has been the light of our civilization; its beams are scattered across the world. Some say that society is changed, that the pulpit has lost its power, and that men are no