lonely and unfriendly world. When that centurion spoke those words of splendid faith it was as if the angel Gabriel stood at His side. It was as if a door opened in Heaven, and a burst of Heaven's sunlight flooded Him, and a gust of Heaven's matchless music filled His sad and lonely soul. He heard the language and tone of Heaven. Not Gabriel at the throne could have paid a more splendid tribute to the essential Godhead and divinity of that Man of Nazareth than did the centurion of Rome It was grand. And the Son of God could not keep back His glad surprise. "I tell you," said Christ, "I have not found so great faith-no, not in Israel."-MCNEILL.

Faith and Conceit.

If we had more faith we should have less conceit of ourselves, and we should be grander, bigger, broaderbrowed and warmer-hearted men, both for God and our fellows, than unfortunately we are. A shriveling, narrowing, withering thing is unbelief. I know that it is

It

mightily praised out yonder in the world. As I said here in our evangelistic meetings more than once, unbelief is mightily praised in excellent prose, and still more excellent poetry; but it never looks well in the Bible. always looks here to be a blear-eyed, dull, stupid kind of thing; and faith in God always looks grand-something more than mortal and more than human. And it is the same still. Do not blush, dear friend, for the sixth of Joshua. If you blush be this your shame, that this faith in God, this sublime faith of these men of old, seems to be so far beyond you. Ah, those were big men. Little men could not have done this. I can imagine a small

breed of Israelites-men far too like ourselves—who on the first day's round would have given vent to what we call "the rationalizing spirit," and they would have said to their fellows: "Now, really, being Israelites has led us along some strange paths, but I will draw the line at this. As intelligent, sensible men, what mortal connection can there be between our walking round the walls with all this horn-blowing and tooting and the downcoming of these walls?" And do not the rationalists seem to have a deal to say for themselves? But when I put it that way, you see how stupid it would have been, judged by the after results. Always let us believe that faith in God is splendidly intelligent. Yes, and I think it was partly to stop the rationalistic spirit that Joshua issued this item of his plan of campaign.—McNeill.

Trust.

Faith has specially to believe in Him who is the sum and substance of all this revelation, even Jesus Christ, who became God in human flesh that He might redeem our fallen nature from all the evils of sin, and raise it to eternal felicity. We believe in Christ, on Christ and upon Christ; accepting Him because of the record which God has given to us concerning His Son-that He is the propitiation for our sins. We accept God's unspeakable gift, and receive Jesus as our all in all.

If I wanted to describe saving faith in one word, I should say that it is trust. It is so believing God and so believing in Christ that we trust ourselves and our eternal destinies in the hands of a reconciled God.-SPURGEON.

Give Faith a New Direction.

Take that faith, that confidence which you are exercising in brother man and sister woman every day-it is the very cement of society; society would tumble into. chaos without it-take that faith of yours and give it a new direction. Give it an operation, which it never had before. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Trust for yourself His precious blood. Put out thy own hand and take in thy own share of His atoning work for thyself. See to that--I do not care how young you be; you have lived too long, if this thing has yet to be done—see that it is done where you sit, and as you sit. Take this faith of thine, and exercise it toward the atoning Savior dying on the Cross to blot out thy sin, and introduce thee to God's favor, which is life, and to His loving kindness, which is better than life. Is it done? Here is the crisis of this meeting. Here it is, old man, aged woman, men and women in mid-life, and you who are just in life's young march. With one hand I lift up before you the slain Lamb; and oh, that God, with overmastering grasp, by means of the other hand would plant you before the Cross, and let you see the situation. Saved, are you? How? How? Where? Only by personal trust in Him who there is dying--the Lamb of God. Oh, let us see to it ! I wish I had the tongue of men and of angels to put it as it ought to be put; but if I am not putting it aright, see to it, my brothers, my sisters, that you do the thing. See that it is done. Whether you are quite sure about it or not, the best way is to take the bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood, and strike it on

lintel and the two side posts. Act thy part. Trust thou. -SPURGEON.

The Open Road.

The road of good works is blocked up by our past sins, and it is sure to be further blocked up by future sins; we ought, therefore, to rejoice that God has commended to us the open road of faith.--SPURGEON.

The Ear of Faith.

I have seen

A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell.—
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences, whereby,
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself

Is to the ear of Faith, and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow and ever-enduring power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.

WORDSWORTH.

The Loss of Faith.

It is at this moment, just as you are awakening to the conviction that you must have a theory and are asking yourselves what it is, that in almost the last words of counsel and friendship which I shall speak to you, I have endeavored to indicate the place which intelligent and earnest Christian faith should hold in your theory of manhood and of action. It would not be strange if, in these days of flippant dogmatism in philosophy and of bohemian conceit in literature, the faith of some of you was unsettled, and the high and fervent enthusiasm of some who believe were lowered. Of one thing be assured— that no calamity can befall a scholar so serious as the loss of personal faith in the living God and the Christ who has inspired all that we most value in the sentiment of modern literature and modern life. If a man must struggle with modern doubt, let him struggle alone and with a manly and earnest spirit, as a drowning man strug gles for a firm standing place. Avoid, as the breath of the pestilence, the sneering or the confident assumption that faith in eternal and sacred verity-nay, rather, in living personal supernatural revelations—must give way before the severer light of modern thinking, and with it must go the cheerful hope of an immortal life. The assertion is false. While modern thinking in narrow fields may shut up some of its devotees to conclusions as positive as they are narrow, it more certainly than ever, when presented in a liberal spirit, opens the mind to vistas of thought in every direction, which lead the soul to a personal God who is personally interested in man.-PRESIDENT PORTEK.