sympathetic contact imparting his own vitality to it, and ultimately raising it to life-figure forth in the most beautiful and suggestive manner the incarnation of God, by which He brought His infinitude within the limitations of human nature and human existence, touching it at every sympathetic point, and so raised it from a death in sin to newness of life in Himself? What does each joyful Christmas morning proclaim? Is it not the wonderful fact that the Eternal God incarnated Himself in the body of a little child; was born in Bethlehem, lay as a helpless babe on a mother's breast, grew in wisdom as in stature, and lived in humble dependence upon and submission to earthly parents in a human home in Nazareth? Does it not tell us that God in Christ was united to us by blood-relationship; knew all the things of a man ;' filled all the moulds of our conduct, and passed along all the lines of our experience? Does it not powerfully proclaim to us the one only method of salvation, to which all other methods, by their weakness and failure, pointed, and for which all other methods prepared the way-the personal method of God assuming the very nature that had sinned and suffered, and in that nature bringing back life and holiness and happiness and all that man had lost? Does it not proclaim that if any other instrument could have been available, God would have spared His own Son,' and not have 'delivered Him up for us all'? Yes! we deeply feel that what no authority human or divine, no terrors or promises or entreaties could do, has been done by the Son of God Himself becoming from the beginning and altogether a man; and thus claiming human nature in its entirety for sonship with God-drawing near to us that we might be enabled to draw near to the Father in heaven. 'What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.'

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And consider the awful cost of this personal method of salvation. It was with much toil and trouble that Elisha raised the dead child to life. That act involved a great expenditure of heart-sympathy, of spiritual power and of physical warmth. It was through loss to himself that he imparted gain to the mother and child. But his effort and trouble and loss cannot be compared for a moment with those of the Saviour in rescuing us from spiritual death. Elisha, though he stretched himself upon the dead body, and put all his members into closest connection with all the corresponding members of the dead body, was still separate from the child. The connection between them was only an outward one. But Jesus became bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. In the first creation God stood aloof at an immeasurable altitude above the creation when He summoned it into existence. But in the new creation He identified Himself with the work of His hands. He assumed the nature which He had made; He dwelt in the world which He had fashioned; He came under the laws and limitations which He had ordained.

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The first act of the new creation was the union of the Divine and human natures in the person of Christ Jesus. God created the world at first by a word costing nothing. But when He came to redeem it after it had fallen, He came Himself under the sentence of toil and sorrow and death which He had pronounced upon it. By dwelling in our world and assuming our nature, He took all its liabilities and evils upon Himself. He Himself shared the lot to which He condemned us; He Himself groaned under the burden which He laid upon us; He Himself trod the wilderness to which He banished us. He became a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;' afflicted in all our afflictions. It was with the sorrow of His soul and the sweat of His face, that He began and carried on upon our earth His new creation. The mighty miracles with which He rolled back the curse were works that came under the same law of toil and care and pain to which all man's labour is subjected. St. Matthew significantly says, after recording several wonderful miracles, that 'Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.' It was by fasting and prayer that He cast out devils; it was with groaning and tears that He raised the dead. He suffered loss that others might reap gain. He came into contact with sin and impurity that others might be cleansed and healed. In the miracle which most nearly approximated a creative act—the restoring the vision of the man blind from his birth-He used not only the dust of the earth out of which the eye and the whole human frame were originally formed, but also His own saliva-a part of Himself; He gave away a portion of His own substance in the clay with which He anointed the blind man's eyes. And this act is significant of the whole of His work, and of every detail of it— which in its self-sacrifice and self-expenditure anticipated and prefigured the final crowning act of oblation upon the Cross. Contrast the first creative fiat, 'Let there be light: and there was light,' with the last cry of our Lord as He was sinking out of life, in the horror of a darkness unexampled in the history of the universe: My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?' and you will form some idea of what the new creation cost the Son of God!

The same remarks that are applicable to the great salvation of Jesus Christ, are applicable to every individual effort we make in the track and in the power of that salvation to redress the evil of the world. Among the many great lessons which the incarnation of the Son of God is designed to teach us, this lesson is assuredly not the least important-that if it was necessary for Christ to take human nature upon Himself in order to redeem it, so it is necessary for us to become incarnate as it were in the nature we wish to benefit. The servant, in this respect, cannot be greater than his Lord. We too must take upon us the nature of the sufferer whom we try to heal and save. We must, like Elisha, take the evil that we would remove to our own room; we must lay it upon our own bed; we must bear it upon our own heart; we must identify ourselves with it as far as we possibly can. We must stretch our own living body upon the dead body

that we would seek to raise to life and blessedness; we must put our whole nature into contact and communion with its whole nature. Each part of as must be brought by a thorough sympathy into the fellowship of love with each corresponding part of the body of suffering and evil. Like a Greater than Elisha, we must touch the bier with the true human touch of fellow-feeling, if we would turn the shadow of death into the morning. We must touch the leper, if we would purify and restore him. We must become poor ourselves; part with our possessions; give what we shall miss, what will cost us much self-denial and self-sacrifice; give our very substance -our vital warmth, our tears, our heart's blood-if we are to make others rich and happy. Virtue must go out of ourselves, if we are to impart virtue to others. What the world needs more than anything else—more than theories and plans of benevolence; more than gifts of money, laws, speeches, sermons, organizations, societies-and the thousand and one panaceas which men in their despair of solving the dreadful problem have adopted for the cure of the world's evil,-is the revival of personal agency; the touch of hearts sore with pity, the look of eyes full of tears, the voice quivering with the pathos of tenderness and hope; the humble, loving, devoted Christian life, in which the teaching of the Master is embodied in a living, breathing human form. This would succeed when all other methods would fail.

Let us never lose sight, then, of the great truth that, in the husbandry of souls, it is necessary that the sower, alone,-solitary, individual, should scatter the seed with his own hand, and the reaper gather each ripe stalk separately into his sheaf as he cuts it down. In the blessed labours of the Cross, it is required that there should be a real crucifixion with Christ; that His servants should even 'fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ....for His body's sake, which is the Church.' Every Christian who has himself been saved by the coming of Jesus into his own nature and taking upon Him his sins and sorrows, should imitate Christ in this-should seek to save others who are still dead in 'trespasses and sins' by bearing, through sympathy and solicitude for their welfare, their sins and sorrows. Every Christian should endeavour, by personal contact with the evil of the world, to remedy it by the influence of personal faith and living love. Every Christian, who is a debtor to all men, should go home with the poor, and the ignorant, and the miserable, and make their trials his own, that thus he may truly relieve and bless them. In the first creation God acted alone; but in the new creation He needs human help, human faith, and human suffering. He is giving to each human being the opportunity and the honour of being a fellowworker with Himself; and enabling all who engage in this blessed work to know, by their own experience, something of the yearning compassion for men which caused Himself to take the form of a servant, and to become 'obedient unto death, even the death of the cross;' and something, too, of the joy in the salvation of men that was set before Himself, for which He

'endured the cross, despising the shame;' the earnest and foretaste of the everlasting rest and blessedness, which they shall share with Him when the work of redemption is completed.

MEMORIAL SKETCH OF MR. THOMAS DAVIS, J.P.,

OF THE HOLLIES, HILL-TOP, WEDNESBURY.

BY THE REV. W. L. WATKINSON.

NATURE has been defined as 'that which is ever growing and ever unfolding itself in new forms'; and much the same definition might be given of Divine grace. If there is any monotony in Christian biography, it is the sublime monotony of highest living and purest philanthropy; but in truth, the Church of God presents the greatest variety and freshness of character, and Christian biography faithfully written never lacks special features of interest and instruction. The singularity of the life we now propose to outline lay in its exemplary devotion to the service of Christ in the service of mankind. So far as a man has lived to himself, he has had his reward, and is of little further interest to us; but disinterested service claims sincerest homage, and a man whose passion it was to seek the highest interest of his generation is specially worthy of our admiration and study. What was this man worth to the world? What did this man for the world? What better is the world for this man's presence? These are the questions we instinctively ask; and when one has wrought as sincerely, zealously and effectively for society as did the subject of this sketch, it may at once be granted that we are in contact with a life peculiarly precious and inspiring.

THOMAS DAVIS was born at Tipton, November the 8th, 1810. His devout parents dedicated their child to God from his birth. The Spirit of God was early at work upon his heart, and in his fifteenth year he was led to decide for Christ, and his name appeared on the Class-book. From that time forth, as the years went on, he steadily grew in grace and influence, becoming a distinguished member of Society, and a pillar in God's Church to go out no more. For fifty years he was a conspicuous member of the Wesleyan-Methodist Society at Hill-Top: the uprightness and purity of his character were recognised through an ever-widening circle; his more abundant labours were blessed to thousands in his immediate neighbourhood; and for many years his influence was known for good throughout the Connexion. Mr. Davis's eminently benign and happy career had its root in his personal consecration to Christ, and was ever accompanied by a living experience of the things of God. He did not leave any diary; but a few scattered notes found among his papers reveal the deep seriousness and spirituality of his nature, and the conscientiousness with which he sought to order his conversation aright.

March 21st, 1837.-My present feelings and desires are to be a true Christian, to profess no more of the form of religion than truly represents what I have in possession. It becomes me to be thankful for what I do enjoy of the love of God; but I feel much of the depravity of a fallen heart, a heart that needs every moment a fresh application of the atoning blood. I often fear that I shall some day yield to temptation, grieve God, and disgrace religion. But why should I fear when God has said, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness;" and is not this enough? O that my faith were stronger! O that I could believe so as to receive into my heart that perfect love which casts out all fear-the faith that hangs simply and singly upon Christ as my Saviour.'

With such solicitudes and aspirations did Mr. Davis commence his career, and in this spirit he built up his character and worked out his life. It was said of an eminent ecclesiastic: 'He is not religious, only good.' If this description meant simply that the person referred to did not obtrude his religiousness, he may have been a very genuine and attractive character, but the whole truth is, that rare goodness is the unfolding of deep religiousness. It was so with him whose virtues we now seek to record. There was about him no affectation of piety, no religious pedantry; as Dr. Punshon observed of him, 'no Pharisee-airs'; but he was intensely religious. He felt his close relation to God; he dealt with himself in the presence of God; his practical life, with its admirable characteristics, was based on an inner life; he lived in the spirit of watchfulness and prayerfulness; he had an experience, and he bore a testimony.

And it was by virtue of this intense religiousness that Mr. Davis triumphed over those weaknesses and perils which are acknowledged in the passage from his papers just quoted. If the best men are not moulded out of their faults, they are made out of native qualities and forces which might very easily become faults. Strong-willed, weighted with passion, with a quick, keen sense of humour, independent, energetic, conscious of power, fond of mastery, susceptible to pleasure, with a lively delight in social life, and a great capacity for business and public affairs, such strong and active natures are not easily subdued to the proportions of granite, they are susceptible of high polish, but there is much to be done before shapeliness and lustre are secured.

grace;

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Mr. Davis realized the actual evil of his nature and the possible evils which this implied, and by much watchfulness and discipline his character was moulded from above. The splendid colours of birds and butterflies disappear under the microscope, and it may be that some characters which impress and dazzle the stranger, lose all their fascination when closely watched and critically examined; but a prominent man like Mr. Davis was jealously watched for years, and those who knew him best, whilst conscious of his limitations and failings, knew him to be a man of great sweetness of disposition, of high character, of blameless life, and of unselfish aims. His merits were great and unquestionable, and thousands glorified God in him. He might truly say, as he often did say, 'By the grace of God I am what I am.' Deep personal spirituality was also the source and secret of Mr. Davis's large and effective service to his generation. Coleridge asked