tions, the springs of life, are not changed by divine. grace, if Christ does not wind up the clock by bringing his own life and spirit inwardly to bear upon it. And this no other system ever did but the gospel of Christ. This, and this only, is able to make us wise unto salvation. For "what the law could not do," whether uttered by heathen or Jewish teachers, that "God did,” by "sending his own Son" to redeem our nature, and his own Spirit to unite us to this redeemed human nature in him.

See then, my friends, the glorious ideal of character set before us-whatsoever things are true, honorable, righteous, pure, amiable, winning, manly, worthy of praise to be like Christ, to be like God. A Christian man, whom I know, once started up from contemplation and said solemnly, and with intense feeling, “Oh, that I might be like God!" A sublime aim! But not too sublime; it is the very end proposed to us by God himself. Are you yet unreconciled to God? Well, sinners as you are, God has made it possible for you to be restored from your alienation and transgression and to be like him: "Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children." Are you children of God? Then show, in your moral character, a family resemblance to him who gave you life. If we come short of this, it surely is not because the model has not been set before us, nor because there is no help accessible to make us what we ought to be. Let this be a time of new consecration to this high end of our existence. Nothing else is enduring but a character formed after the divine plans and fitted for dwelling and communing with the great God who made us.

XXXIV

PRESENT VALUES1

This is the day which Jehovah hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. (Ps. 118: 24.)

DID Jesus ever sing? Yes, and here we have the hymn. This One Hundred and Eighteenth Psalm is a part of the great Hallel, or song of triumph and thanksgiving, which the later Jews sang at their annual festivals, especially at the Passover. This custom is thought to have existed even in the time of Christ. If so, the words of the text were uttered by our Lord and by his disciples in the upper chamber just before his suffering. "When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives." Jesus fortified himself by the voice and the melody and the companionship of sacred song, just before the prince of this world came with his sorest temptation. It is said by some that the singing of the Passover hymn was not confined to the houses where the sacrificial lamb was eaten, but that, after the family groups had broken up, detached parties still kept up the song as they walked through the darkness of the streets, and so the whole night was made vocal with the words of praise: "Oh, give thanks unto Jehovah; for he is good; for his loving-kindness endureth forever."

1 A sermon preached at the ordination of C. A. McAlpine, in the Bronson Avenue Church, Rochester, N. Y., June 10, 1904.

For the joy that was set before him Jesus endured the cross. It is interesting to read this One Hundred and Eighteenth Psalm, and to think how its several utterances must have encouraged and comforted his soul at the time when the darkness of the skies was but a faint symbol of the approaching darkness of God's forsaking. "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar," the die is cast and there is no retreat; it must needs be that Christ should suffer. "All nations compassed me about," the Greek and Latin and Hebrew inscription over the cross was the sign that the whole earth had conspired to reject and murder its Lord. "Thou didst thrust sore at me that I might fall, but Jehovah helped me. Jehovah is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation." "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of Jehovah." "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner. This is Jehovah's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which Jehovah hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

I suppose that the day originally alluded to in the psalm was the day when Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea and came out an emancipated nation. But many successive generations of Israelites made the psalm their own and counted their day also the day which Jehovah had made. And if Jesus himself could regard the day of his crucifixion as the day of his lifting up and exaltation, and so as the day which the Lord had made, we too have a right to call our day the day which Jehovah has made, and can rejoice and be glad in it. I take this text therefore

as the foundation of a sermon on PRESENT VALUES, or THE VALUE OF THE PRESENT DAY. We are so apt to relegate our good things to the future, that it will be well to think of the things that are ours here and now. I invite you to consider the subject as related, first, to the attributes of God; secondly, to God's methods of evolution; thirdly, to the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ; and, fourthly, to the nature of Christian faith. All these throw light upon our theme.

First, then, consider what the attributes of God imply with regard to the value of the present day. We believe that God is omnipresent. But omnipresence is not the presence of a part of God in every place. God is not a material atmosphere, a part of which may be here and another part there. God is spirit, and spirit transcends all such limitations. Spirit is not confined to space. To arrive here, God does not need to depart there. To manifest himself in Christ he does not need to leave his throne in heaven. If only a part of God were here, it would not be the perfect God with whom we communed in prayer. Difficult as it seems at first, we must maintain that God's omnipresence is the presence of the whole of God in every place. God in all his attributes and powers is with me here and now. In like manner, omniscience is not a dividing up of God's attention, so that each particular thing has a share in his knowledge. Omniscience is rather the concentration of the whole mind of God upon each particular thing. He does not need to withdraw his attention from others in order to perceive me. I am at this very moment the object of a

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scrutiny which nothing escapes. 'Thou, God, seest me," and seest me as perfectly as if there were no other in the universe to be the object of thine attention. Omnipotence too is nothing but infinite power ready to act in our time of need-power unexhausted by previous executions or by manifestations elsewhere, and able here and now to do exceeding abundantly, above all we can ask or think.

Our undervaluing of the present day is the result of our unbelief in God. We disbelieve in God's omnipresence, and so we postpone to the future our communion with him. We disbelieve in his omniscience, and so we postpone to the future our repentance of sin and our surrender to his service. We disbelieve in his omnipotence, and so we postpone to the future the reception of his gifts and the answer to our prayers. Alas, we are too often practical atheists! While we profess to believe in the living God, it is rather in a dead God, or a God far away, that we believe. We limit the Holy One of Israel, as that servant of Elisha did. Would that our eyes might be opened as were the eyes of that young man, so that we might see the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire, the symbols of God's perpetual presence and power with his people! If God be with us, who can be against us? Our God is the God of holiness, whose one aim is to set up the kingdom of truth and righteousness in the earth. And he is the God of love, who makes the humblest his instruments, and takes penitent sinners to be his witnesses. He can use you and me, unfaithful as we have been, even as he used the denying Peter to be his mouthpiece at Pentecost.