Where are the waters not ploughed by its navies? What imperial element is not yoked to its car? Philosophy itself has become a mercenary in its pay; and science, a votary at its shrine, brings all its latest discoveries as offerings to its feet. What part of the globe's surface is not rapidly yielding up its lost stores of hidden treasure to the spirit of gain? Scorning the childish dream of the philosopher's stone, it aspires to turn the globe itself into gold."

LONDON.

DAVID THOMAS, D.D.

The Influence of Christian Hope.

"AND EVERY MAN THAT HATH THIS HOPE IN HIM PURIFIETH HIMSELF, EVEN AS HE IS PURE."-1 John iii. 3.

1. We are children of hope, yet happily ignorant of each other's hope. But this we know, that if we are to realize our hopes we must realize them upon certain inexorable lines.

2. If we would be rich we must value the trifles. We have no mental wings by which we may perch ourselves upon the topmost rundle of the ladder of knowledge. We must begin with, and drudge away from the A B C. exactly marked out.

The way to fame is as

3. To realize the greatest hope we must “purify ourselves, even as He is pure." John puts the purity first, the glorious vision last. This is the order in which it fell from the lips of Christ. "The pure in heart shall see God." Catching the likeness is to

be the toil of personal Christian life. When mammon, or fame, is in quest, a fluke will serve the turn; but purity is the unbending, inexorable line that we must follow to eternity this gladness of St. John.

Here we are led to notice THE PURIFICATION.

(1) Men never have, men, perhaps, never will, in this life, stand upon one common level, morally. Degeneracy and spirituality

are co-existent in ever-varying degree. The Scriptures recognize this. There are the Timothys, nourished from childhood by the Divine word; the Samuels, with a nature all attentive for the voice of God. These have their place and credit. But there is this common ground still, all men are cleansed or need it. Men justly boast that they are not afflicted with this and the other vice, but only those who feel they have been washed in the fountain express themselves with any confidence as to their fitness for the kingdom.

Skulking

(2) Our original self escapes us. The picture of self, upon which we so admiringly look, is only the cartoon of our tailoring, without which society would proclaim us outlaws. Let us go in search of this original self. Where shall we find it? behind common honesty, decent habits, native harmlessness; sheltering under the ægis of church attendance; many prayers and fastings. We betray no eagerness to know where the name or principle of evil dwells in this anatomy; no eagerness to sack the hateful mansion. But this emphatic statement of the apostle drags up that original self from its lurking places that we may see it, a thing to be purged, a thing unfit for the kingdom.

3. The word "Purity" will also help us to the perfect picture. Simplicity, as used by scientific chemists and metallurgists, is the primary meaning of the word "pure." The state of being unmixed, uncompounded. Things are pure or impure as there is absence of, or presence of alloy. Human nature is a strange unhappy amalgam of earth and heaven, of the carnal and the spiritual, of the diabolic and the Divine. This is the perfect picture of self. Earth, hell, and heaven in combination. The word suggests also what is needed, the separation of the base from the precious, the alloy from the gold.

(4) John gives us the degree,-" As He is pure.' The thought of impossibility strikes us.

We feel we shall be for ever outdistanced by this model. Hence it is pretty certain we should never have set up such an exalted type for ourselves. As children of hope we should have poised the reachable. The old Romans and Greeks set up their men of honour, their sages, their heroes, and died unpossessed of the graces they admired. So we should

Like

have set up lesser lights, and, while toiling after their reflection, should have perished, enveloped with their shadows. Him Pure as He is Pure." It is a long way off! It is a blessed possibility. Let there be no toning of it down. Toning down is dangerous. The higher the model the higher we shall rise.

(5) "Purifies himself." This, perhaps, even more than the greatness of the Model, suggests the idea of impossibility. As we think of ourselves, and look upon the Model, we cry-" Woe is me, I am undone!" Who is sufficient for this? The greatest of English Poets only uttered the feelings of the consciously guilty soul when he spoke of "Black and grained spots as would not leave their tinct;" or, when he made another character to say—" Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from mine hand? No; this mine hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red." "Can the leopard change his spots, or the Ethiope change his skin?” No one who has made this attempt which John urges will say it is easy. It is not easy to swim against the flood. Striving after this heavenly ideal is something like the swimmer fighting with the tide and broken water. Those who have begun the trial only know how great a hold sin has upon them. How difficult the serpent sin is to shake off. How difficult to cast out of the heart's home the strong man armed. Difficult, but not impossible ! The force of this "himself" is personal responsibility; implies no more than that we avail ourselves of the means to attain this purity. It is not impossible, because

heaven commands it.

(6) The hope itself has much to do with the compassing of the end, viz., Purity. We rise or sink with our hopes. We are, our lives are, what our hopes are. Mercenary hopes will make us still more mercenary, covetous, carnal. Low, base hopes will assuredly drag us downward. Hope that is pure and holy will lift the soul out of its environment of base things. This hope in its own sweet secret influence will cast down and cast out things alien to itself. "This hope sets the stamp of vanity on all that men have deemed essential since the fall."

(7) "Purifies himself." When does He say this to us? Under the full blaze of Him who lights up the sun. "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." There is no pillar, or corner, or shadow where this sinful flesh can skulk away. This increases our difficulty. Yes, John wants it too. He wants us,

in God's light, to realize our blackest, foulest, damnedst, self. Do you realize this? Now hear him say to you, "The blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth from all sin." We are brought out into the light of God, and to the side of the cleansing fountain to hear this hard saying " Purifies himself, as He is pure." The mercy is larger than the duty; the remedy ampler than our disease. The Fountain has more energy than our sin, "cleanses from all sin."

Have any tried and failed? Try again, brother; "Heaven fights on our side." MORPETH.

Stephen's Faith and its Source.

JOHN HOGG.

"STEPHEN, A MAN FULL OF FAITH AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.” -Acts vi. 5.

INTRODUCTION.-The Grecians were distinguished from the Hebrews chiefly by their use of the Greek language, and the Septuagint as their version of the Scriptures. See Hellenist, in Smith's Bible Dictionary, and Alford on Acts vi. 1-7. Jews of both these classes had been converted to Christianity, and were to be found in the church at Jerusalem. Between the Grecians and the Hebrews no very friendly feeling existed. The Hebrews looked down upon the Grecians as a half-Gentile set, and the Grecians resented their contempt. Even when representatives of the two classes had been united together in the fellowship of Christ's church they did not entirely throw away their jealousies. The first verses of the chapter tell us of an unpleasantness that arose between them, and of the apostle's wise settlement of the dispute by the appointment of the seven (so called) deacons. Of

these the chief was Stephen, who is described as faith and of the Holy Spirit."

a man full of

I.-STEPHEN'S FAITH. Soon after his appointment to the office of deacon, Stephen, having aroused the enmity of certain Jews, was brought up before the Council on a charge of blasphemy. From the speech he made in defence we may gather some of the leading features of his faith.

(a) Stephen believed that God's hand was discernible in history. He gives a rapid survey of the Scripture story from the call of Abraham to the death of Jesus, and shows how all had been overruled by God. The common notion is that kings and statesmen make history. Stephen believed that God made it. To him the value of history was not merely that it told succeeding generations the things that had happened to their fathers, and the deeds their fathers had done, but that it revealed God, made known His character, principles, and relationship to man. A man is as much a man whether he knows or does not know that such and such things have happened in days gone by; but a record of the past is of inestimable value as it makes God known. History, as a mere chronicle of events, is but a valley of dry bones; but when God is seen in it the dry bones become living men, "an exceeding great army," marching forward to that

"One, far off, Divine event,

To which the whole creation moves."

The life and soul of history is God. It is noticeable that Stephen's speech is far from exact in its statements. Dean Stanley points. out no less than twelve differences from the Mosaic history. But mere precision of record was not his aim. He desired to show the purposes of God. You discern God's hand in the seasons of the year; and nations have their spring-tides of freshness and growing power, their summers of luxury, and their winters of seeming death, and God's hand may be seen in these. History without God is like a picture without soul. There may be the most minute exactitude of delineation, and yet no life. The true artist will sacrifice the rectitude of a line that he may express the soul of his subject. The race has been, and is, under God's guidance, marching onward to a bourn of God's determining,