loved God, but that He loved us. What else is the meaning of the saying, 'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father'-hath seen, not the Omnipotent, not the Avenger, not the King of Kings, but the Father, 'My Father and your Father.'

Once realise this manifestation of God's fatherly love, and all difficulties vanish away-all the anomalies of this present world, the terrible physical catastrophes, the cruel social grievances, the injustice, the want, the suffering, the sorrow, the pain, everything which seems to speak to us of a stern and pitiless ruler of the universe-all these are only as dust in the balance when weighed against this one transcendent act of redeeming love. As we contemplate it, all our questionings are silenced. How can we doubt His love now? We have seen the Father, have seen our Father; for we have seen Christ-seen Him in Bethlehem, seen Him at Gethsemane, seen Him on Calvary.

2. But I pass on to the second point. Not only must the message be correctly delivered, but the messenger himself must be such as to recommend it to acceptance. If there must be 'truth of doctrine,' there must also be 'innocency of life.'

You will be commissioned to-morrow, if it please God, as ambassadors of Christ. But an ambassador must not only be loyal to his King, must not only

adhere strictly to his instructions; he must also be persuasive. The persuasiveness of the Christian ambassador is the consistent tenour of his life, is the innocency of his life. A large number of your people will be incapable of abstract truths; they can only apprehend them when exhibited in concrete forms. The Incarnation and Life of Christ was such an embodiment in the highest sense; your life must be such an embodiment in a lower degree. They will interpret, will judge, your teaching by your actions. There is no logic so convincing as the logic of an upright and truthful life. There is no rhetoric so persuasive as the rhetoric of a sympathetic and innocent heart.

There are two points more especially in the clergyman's character on which I desire to dwell this evening, as being essential to his efficiency as an ambassador of Christ.

1. The first of these is uprightness. By uprightness I mean that straightforward, honorable dealing, that honesty in word and deed, which is looked for between man and man in worldly affairs. Be not deceived. If this is wanting, all else will be vain. Your sermons may be fervid; your organisations may be admirable; your parochial visits may be assiduous. But if your word cannot be trusted, if you are loose in money matters, if you involve yourself in debt, all the rest

goes for nothing. Here is a standard, which the men of this world can appreciate. They look for this uprightness from one another; they look for more from you. Are they wrong in doing so? You tell them that their standard is a low standard; you undertake to lead them to higher things; you yourself are a light set upon an hill. And yet you fail, fail miserably, in the commonest virtues. It is futile, it is a mockery, to preach the heavenly life--the life of prayer, of holiness, of communion with God,—if we show ourselves ignorant of these first rudiments of social morality. If we have not proved ourselves faithful in these least things, who will commit to our trust the greatest?

2. The other point of which I would speak is simplicity-absolute and entire singleness in motive, in aim, in conduct. There is no persuasiveness more effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a sincere life. I need not tell you what stress is laid on this quality in the Gospels and in the apostolic writings, how duplicity in all its forms is denounced -the double tongue, the double heart, the double dealing.

Simplicity is the characteristic of the little child; and it is the child-like spirit alone which storms the gates of the kingdom of heaven. To mean what you say, to be what you seem to be, to be transparent and

to be guileless-this will be your constant study. Your constant study, I say; for do not imagine that simplicity is a purely natural grace; that simplicity cannot be acquired by discipline and by habit. Check every underhand motive; check every unreal word; yes, every unreal word,-and how many unreal words are spoken from the pulpit, are spoken even in the pastoral visitation? In the despised stream of common every-day duties you, like the Syrian of old, may cleanse the leprosy of your soul, and it shall be once again as the soul of a little child. You are God's ambassadors; you are God's diplomatists. With the ambassadors of this world diplomacy has too often been a synonym for duplicity. Singleness, guilelessness, must be the very heart and soul of your diplomacy.

Ambassadors of God. Do not forget this. You will go forth with a commission from Christ. The sense of this commission will give you strength. You will feel that however feeble, helpless, isolated, you may be in your own self, you have the mighty hosts of the Great King Himself at your back, to sustain you against your spiritual foes.

Ambassadors of God. Yes; He lays upon you the burden of a special responsibility, but He grants you the support of a special grace. If He calls you to be His witnesses, as He called the Apostles of old, yet

He promises you, as He promised them, that the Holy Ghost shall come upon you and ye shall receive power, if only you will trust Him. The Pentecostal I gifts have not ceased. To-morrow the earnest of the Spirit is yours. Therefore go forth on your mission, joyfully, hopefully, courageously.

Ambassadors of God. Remember this commission in yourselves, but do not parade it before others. Do not vulgarise it. An assertion of authority by a young clergyman provokes only opposition. Rather approve yourselves to your people as ambassadors of Christ by delivering the message of Christ, by doing the works of Christ, by living the life of Christ.

Ambassadors; yes, even you deacons: but still more ministers, as the very title of your office implies -ministers, servants. And is not this a nobler title after all? Was it not for this that Christ left the glories of the Eternal Throne, and became as one of us, 'not to be ministered unto, but to be a minister' —οὐ διακονηθῆναι ἀλλὰ διακονήσαι—to be a minister, to be a deacon? Is it not this, to which the chiefest promise of the Gospel is attached? He who would be first must be last of all, must be minister of all, deacon of all. To work for others, to think for others, to feel for others, to be a deacon in the truest sense, this is your work. This also will be your crown, your joy and your glory.