man's blessedness in Eden-that must seem little when compared with its latter achievements-it had power to stay the wonder-working Hand of Jesus Christ in those who had not faith to be healed. It not only slew the bodies of men, but it could banish from the eternal love of God those who chose to love it rather than God. It not only arrayed the generations of the human race in outward rebellion against their Sovereign, but it fortified each individual heart of those millions with a hard impenetrable obstinacy, which made it inaccessible to the love of God. And the love of God which had gone forth out of Itself to delight Itself in the world It had made, seemed driven back from earth to heaven, from them to God.

But there in heaven, in God, love triumphed again, and found that which should remove even this great barrier. Love in the councils of the Eternal sent forth the Son to be the Saviour of the world. He, sinless, would draw upon Himself the sin of all the world; He, out of His unspotted and inexhaustible holiness, would offer righteousness which should clothe the whole world, and breathe forth once more that Spirit which is Love to enter into the hearts of mankind, and make them desire that righteousness which should make them once more fit for the presence of God. And so Love was enabled to look forth once more, to see, not a flood of waters covering the earth and cleansing it by destroying the unclean, but a flood of righteousness cleansing it, by imputing to it and imparting to it the righteousness of Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit.

Brethren, poets, as you know, have sung that there is a music which they call the music of the spheres -the harmony of all creation even blending through sea and sky, through earth and heaven, the most faultless tones; melody so ravishing that those who heard it once could never rest, must draw ever nearer to it; tones so loud in their mighty vibrations that they fill all space; and yet which we, through our preoccupation, or through our hard chill, indifference, never hear. And so it is with this great theme of the love of God, who loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. We have heard it all our lives; we are unaffected by it; its utterance flows over the days and hours of our life like water over the wellworn pebbles of the brook, and yet, to one who has even heard but one faint note of that wondrous song, it seems no historic incident of the past, but a fact ever true to his consciousness that it is an angel's voice, an angelic chorus, that tells of that peace and goodwill to men and the glory of God in the Highest, which God wrought out by His love for men in the work of Jesus Christ.

God's love, our sins, Christ's propitiation. These are the special subjects for your earnest meditation during the coming Lent. God's love underlies the whole, and shows our sins that we may feel our need, and therefore we take the sins first. Will you not come we do not weary you this Lent with asking you to come often to this house-will you not come next Wednesday morning and evening, to acknowledge your own sinfulness, to fall on your

knees before the footstool of God's grace, and tell Him all: tell Him that you did not know, and never can know here, how much He loves you, but that you do know, though not, alas! as well as He knows, how little you love Him. That is Ash Wednesday's work; and thankful indeed shall I be if any of you make application to me, or to my fellow-workers, to labour with you either in personally examining the needs, the faults, the prospects of your individual souls, or in studying the revelation of God's will towards us in all the great work of redemption. We shall be thankful to help you with all the power God will give us, either in the individual work of the one kind, or in the meeting for classes and instruction in the other. Only make a beginning with a resolute act of self-denial next Wednesday, and say fervently "it is for His sake who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

But to-day there is one part of the text that still remains for consideration. "Beloved," says the Apostle, "if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." You know, I believe, how much I dislike the practice of taking some solemn words of Holy Scripture, some of the deepest thoughts of theology, and bringing them to bear as it were on some particular assailable point of your feelings, till you are moved thereby to a special effort for some special charity. It is not that I would disparage the charity which asks, and I trust will not ask in vain, your aid to-day; but I am desirous that the great and plain principles which we try to bring

before you should take root in your hearts as principles, and bring forth naturally and abundantly the fruit of a holy, a productive, a beneficent life. So to-day-if the thought of the love of God touches your heart-if the thought of God not sparing even His dear Son, but giving Him freely for us in our spiritual poverty, sickness, and degradation, moves any generous impulse in your heart; if love wakes up the return of love, and you feel that there are those around you whom you can benefit by your love, and whom you can love for His sake; then, dear brethren, I feel and know, nay, my experience in this church shows it to me, that you will not on one occasion only-not because your feelings are worked on for a moment but because your life is one feeling of debt, a debt of gratitude, a debt of love burning to acknowledge all it owes, and to own its inability ever to repay it, you will, I say, on these grounds, not now only, but now and ever, do "what you can " for love of Him who loved us. And if you see around you the poor, the sick, the halt, the maimed, and it is in the power of your hand to help; if you see them, and see in them types of the spiritual evils to which we all are subject; if you think then what He did among those evils in the lazar-house, as it were, of this world as it had become by sin, there will be no need then for me to tell you what to do ;-love has failed if it does not find at least the desire to give ; and my prayer is this, that be the offering what it may, love in your hearts may prompt the gift, and Love on High accept it.

XXI.

THE SALT OF THE EARTH.

S. MARK ix. 49.

For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

THE little word “For” at the commencement of this verse is the only part of the text that I purpose taking as a guide to our meditations this morning; and the reason is that the subject of the verse is so vast, and its connection with many thoughts that much concern us so subtle and so frequent, that we shall be fully occupied if we follow where that little particle leads us into the previous teaching of the chapter.

Without going back into the remoter distance where Christ rebukes His disciples in several ways for their want of humility, we look at the six preceding verses. Christ had warned the twelve solemnly against the danger of giving offence or temptation to sin to one of the little ones that believed in Him, and then more solemnly, more sternly, He warned them against those things which should be an offence or cause of sin in themselves. Let us listen to what He says: