manifest danger? Christ meets us, bearing the Cross -the Cross which is at once the token of our redemption and the standard of our lives? Shall we pass by Him, avert our gaze, refuse to recognise Him? Nay; we will be bold, we will accost Him. 'Lord, whither goest Thou? Whither goest Thou, for whither thou goest, I go also.' His word recalls us. 'I go to be crucified afresh. Take thou thy cross also, and follow Mc.'

Or again, the temptation is of another kind, not of faithless misgiving, but of selfish cowardice. The sin has been committed. The Lord has been denieddenied by our silence or denied by our overt act. What next? It is a question of life and death to us. Shall we be tempted to indifference, or to hardness of heart, or to remorseful despair? Any one of these is fatal. Yet some one of these may overtake us, must overtake us, but for His presence. But He is there. His reproachful look rests on us for a moment. We will go out from the scene of our temptation; we will weep bitter tears of repentance; we will turn to God, till God shall turn to us, and the clean heart is made, and the right spirit is renewed within us; and with us, as with S. Peter, the last shall be more than the first. O give me the comfort of Thy help again, and stablish me with Thy free spirit. Then shall I teach Thy ways unto the wicked, and sinners shall be

converted unto Thee.' The charge of the Saviour is the response to this aspiration of the Psalmist. 'When thou hast been converted, when thou hast turned again, strengthen, stablish thy brethren.' Σú ποτε ἐπιστρέψας στήρισον τοὺς ἀδελφούς σου.

The touch of Christ, the voice of Christ, the look of Christ, but above all the prayer of Christ! 'I have prayed for thee.' What else shall we need, if only we realise this! Christ interceding for me, Christ concentrating His prayer on me, Christ individualising His merits for me, Christ pleading for me His atoning blood before the Eternal Throne!

II.

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ......for every man shall bear his own burden.

GALATIANS vi. 2, 5.

[S. Peter's Day, 1884.]

I ONCE heard a famous living writer, when lecturing on art, declare that he was never satisfied until he had contradicted himself two or three times. This paradox, which seemed an untruth, expressed the highest truth. The lecturer desired to imply that the principles of art were complex and manifold; that they crossed and recrossed each other; that human language on the other hand was finite; that it was only possible to express in a given sentence a partial aspect of the question; and that qualifications and counter-qualifications were needed to correct and supplement the idea conveyed by this sentence, before any adequate conception of the whole truth could be arrived at.

If we are constrained to admit the truth of this paradox in the principles and criticisms of art, it is surely much more applicable, when we are speaking of the theology or the ethics of the Gospel. S. Paul at all events seems to have thought so. He has not only no fear of contradicting himself; he seems to delight in such self-contradiction. The close juxtaposition of opposite statements challenges attention to this feature. Thus, writing to the Philippians he bids his converts 'work out their own salvation with fear and trembling;' but he tells them in the very next sentence that they do not and cannot do that which he bids them do-it is God and not themselves, 'God, Who worketh' in them 'both to will and to do.' The 'I' and the 'not I' of his famous antithesis expressed elsewhere is the underlying principle of all true moral and spiritual progress, each negativing the other and yet both necessary for the result. So again in the Epistle to the Romans he declares the commandment to be 'the occasion of sin' and so to have slain him; and yet almost in the same breath he pronounces that the law is 'holy and just and good.'

In like manner here, he enjoins us to bear one another's burdens, and he enforces this injunction by declaring it to be the fulfilment of the law of Christ; but three verses lower down he declares this to be impossible which he has so emphatically urged upon

us. Each man has his own proper burden, and this he must bear for himself.

It is worth observing however that though the same word 'burden' appears in both places in the English Version, this is not the case in the original; ἀλλήλων τὰ βάρη βαστάζετε· ἕκαστος τὸ ἴδιον φορτίον Baoráσe. The difference seems to be a matter of deliberate choice. There are burdens of various kinds -physical, moral, social, spiritual-which befall a man; trials which come and go, troubles which may be shared or removed, a miscellaneous aggregate of anxieties and vexations and oppressions. These are his Bápn. But over and above all these-though not perhaps independent of these-there is one particular load, which he cannot shake off, which he must make up his mind to bear, which he is destined to carry on his own shoulders (it may be) through life to the end. This is To Stov popríίov, his pack (as it were), a welldefined particular load, which is his and not another's, which never can be another's. Let us speak first of this personal burden.

What image may we suppose to have presented itself to the Apostle when he uses these words? May we not regard it as one of those military metaphors in which S. Paul delights? Life is a campaign. It has its exercise ground, its forced marches, its sudden surprises, its pitched battles. Christ is the great