short you must do that for him, which perhaps you would not do for yourself; you must sanctify yourself for his sake.

Do you ask, who are these friends for whom you are required thus to consecrate yourselves? I answer that the range of your friendship will be coextensive, or almost coextensive, with the range of your educational or your pastoral relationships. Christ's friendship is the type and example of your friendship. As those were His friends who gathered about Him, who hung on His lips, who went forth with His commission, so those are especially your friends who look to you for instruction and guidance in their work. To these you owe this self-consecration; for these are they whom God has given you.

And what motive more potent, more imperious, more effective, to influence and mould our whole. lives than this! The human interests and affections consecrated by the Divine obligation, the Divine impulse interpreted and intensified through the human sympathies and associations, the two combined making one rich harmony of the whole manbody and spirit, intellect and affections—rising and swelling in one full glorious song of praise and thanksgiving to the Almighty Giver of all!

But these thoughts are truisms-truisms, if not to men generally, at least to those who have serious

thoughts of God and duty, presumably to all those who have met here to-day. Yes, truisms they are; but is not a man's religious life made up of truisms? Truisms they are; but is it not pardonable to dwell thus long upon them, if by so doing we can impress them more deeply on our minds? A new Academic year has just dawned upon you. A new starting point in the great race of eternity is vouchsafed to you. It is the great privilege of Academic life that it has these great breaks, these annual severances, which prompt a review of the past and suggest a forecast of the future. Whatever other plans and purposes you may have formed for your work in the coming year, at least carry with you this lesson, this resolve, this endeavour-to think over, to pray over, to realise in your heart, to work out in your life— 'For their sakes I consecrate myself, for their sakes whom Thou, O God, hast of Thine unspeakable goodness given me.' Bind it as a sign upon thine hand, and as a frontlet between thine eyes.

And be sure to particularise it. Translate the abstract into the concrete. There is no sounder rule for the building up of the moral and spiritual life.

Particularise it first as regards your own temptations and failings. Does the unholy thought rise up in your heart, an unwelcome and unbidden guest? Confront it with this check, 'I consecrate myself.'

Does the reckless word tremble for utterance on your lips? Silence it with this rebuke, 'I consecrate myself.' Are you tempted to ignoble ease and selfindulgence, when a plain duty claims your presence? Rouse yourself by the trumpet-call, 'I consecrate myself.'

And particularise it also with reference to those with whom you have to deal. Not only for their sakes, but for his sake-his and his—I consecrate myself. For this bright winning young fellow whose very attractions are his temptations, fresh from school and revelling in the social freedom of the place, for him I consecrate myself. For this clever inquisitive student plunged suddenly into the vortex of intellectual speculation, and striking out wildly for his very life, for him I consecrate myself. For this vigorous athlete of rude health and strong passions whose foot is already hovering on the fatal incline, for him I consecrate myself. For all and every of these—each one a potential hero of God, if only he can be moulded and guided aright—and not for these only, but for others, not so attractive or so striking, but each one nevertheless a soul stamped with God's. image, a soul for which Christ died, for their sakes I consecrate myself.

And if for their sakes whom He has given, how much more for His sake Who is the Giver! How

can I refuse to consecrate myself for Him, Who first consecrated Himself for me? Remembering this, shall we not present ourselves this day, a reasonable and living sacrifice on the altar of God's love revealed in Christ; that seeing His glory we may be made perfect in Him; that the love wherewith the Father loved Him may be in us and we in Him?

17

O. A.

IV.

Do nothing of party spirit nor yet of vain glory.

Μηδὲν κατὰ ἐριθείαν μηδὲ κατὰ κενοδοξίαν.
PHILIPPIANS ii. 3.

LET me say a few words first on the criticism and exegesis of the passage.

Two distinct habits of mind are here condemned revodoğíav the

and rejected. In the common text

distinction is more or less obliterated.

By the restoration of the correct reading μηδὲ κατὰ κενοδοξίαν it is brought out and emphasized.

What are these two tempers which the Apostle condemns as influencing action in a perverted way? Briefly we may say that they are the spirit which unduly exalts party, and the spirit which unduly exalts self. The two indeed are not unallied, but their objects are different; and the Apostle therefore, while treating them together, treats them as distinct. They are two species of the same genus.

The one is épileía. I need not remind you that