you to understand this, my dear friends. I beg you to understand it, because this is what gives a glorious and triumphant tone to Christian experience. It is the recognition of the life of Jesus Christ as the pattern of the life into which we have to be shaped by our continued obedience to Him.-PHILLIPS BROOKS.

The Test of Christianity.

The final test of any religion is its inherent spiritual dynamic; the force of Christianity is the pledge of its success. It is not a school of morals, nor a system of speculation; it is an enthusiasm. This religion is Spring -Spring in the spiritual world-with the irresistible charm of the quickening wind and the bursting bud. It is a birth, as Jesus would say; a breath of God that makes all things new. Humanity does not need morals; it needs. motives. It is sick of speculation; it longs for action. Men see their duty in every land and age with exasperating clearness. We know not how to do it.-JOHN WATSON [Ian MacLaren].

Christianity and Evolution.

64

The commonest thing that we hear said nowadays by young men is: 'What about evolution? How am I to reconcile my religion, or any religion, with the doctrine of evolution?" That upsets more men than perhaps anything else at the present hour. How would you deal with it? I would say to a man that Christianity is the further evolution. I don't know any better definition than that. It is the further evolution-the higher evo

lution. I don't start with him to attack evolution.

I

I destroy by fulfilling
He says evolution is

don't start with him to defend it. it. I take him at his own terms. that which pushes the man on from the simple to the complex--from the lower to the higher. Very well; that is what Christianity does. It pushes the man farther on. It takes him where nature has left him, and carries him on to heights which on the plan of nature he could never reach. That is evolution. "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." That is evolution. It is the development of the whole man in the highest directions-the drawing out of his spiritual being. Show an evolutionist that, and you have taken the wind out of his sails. "I came not to destroy." Don't destroy his doctrineperhaps you can't-but fulfill it. Put a larger meaning

into it.-HENRY DRUMMOND.

An Inner Kingdom.

Christianity is a fine inoculation, a transfusion of healthy blood into an anæmic or poisoned soul. No fever can attack a perfectly sound body; no fever of unrest can disturb a soul which has breathed the air or learned the ways of Christ. Men sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly away and be at rest. But flying away will not help us. "The Kingdom of God is within you." We aspire to the top to look for rest; it lies at the bottom. Water rests only when it gets to the lowest place. So do men. Hence, be lowly. The man who has no opinion of himself at all can never be hurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, be meek. He who is without expectation can not fret if nothing comes to him

It is self-evident that these things are so. The lowly man and the meek man are really above all other menabove all other things. They dominate the world because they do not care for it. The miser does not pos

sess gold; gold possesses him.

Said Christ:

But the meek possess it.

'The meek inherit the earth." They do not buy it; they do not conquer it; but they inherit it.— HENRY DRUMMOND.

The Real Strength of Christianity.

We ought to discern the real strength of Christianity. and revive the ancient passion for Jesus. It is the distinction of our religion; it is the guaranty of its triumph. Faith may languish; creeds may be changed; churches may be dissolved; society may be shattered. But one can not imagine the time when Jesus will not be the fair image of perfection, or the circumstances wherein He will not be loved. He can never be superseded; He can never be exceeded. Religions will come and go, the passing shapes of an eternal instinct; but Jesus will remain the standard of the conscience and the satisfaction of the heart, whom all men seek, in whom all men will yet meet.-JOHN WATSON [Ian MacLaren].

A Christian Creed.

No church since the early centuries has had the courge to formulate an ethical creed, for even those bodies of Christians which have no written theological creeds, yet have implicit afirmations or denials of doctrine as their basis. Imagine a body of Christians who should

take their stand on the sermon of Jesus, and conceive their creed on His lines. Imagine how it would read: “I believe in the Fatherhood of God; I believe in the words. of Jesus; I believe in the clean heart; I believe in the service of love; I believe in the unworldly life; I believe in the Beatitudes; I promise to trust God and follow Christ, to forgive my enemies and to seek after the righteousness of God." Could any form of words be more elevated, more persuasive, more alluring? Do they not thrill the heart and strengthen the conscience? Liberty of thought is allowed liberty of sinning is alone denied. Who would refuse to sign this creed? They would come from the east and the west, and the north and the south, to its call; and even they who would hesitate to bind themselves to a crusade so arduous would admire it and

long to be worthy. impractical, too Quixotic? and work on such a basis?

Does one say this is too ideal, too
That no church could stand
For three too short years the

Church of Christ had none else; and it was by holy living, and not by any metaphysical subtleties, the Primitive Church lived, and suffered, and conquered. WATSON [Ian MacLaren].

What It Is to Be a Christian.

JOHN

Look at the old saint, whose Christian life is almost over; whose beautiful days are drawing to their beautiful close; who just remembers the far-back time when he first became a disciple of the Master. What has made him what he is? I try to analyze it, and, when I get at the secret of it, it is that back there was a heavenly

vision made manifest to him. It became known to him that there was One who, being his Master by the very right of His birth, had asserted His mastership by the love He had shown him and by the death He had died for him; and as gradually his years slipped by, his life has been shaping itself upon the life of that great Master, till now he says, in the words that old Paul used: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." The perfection of his life, as it has been shaped by obedience upon the life of his Master!-PHILLIPS BROOKS.

The Meaning of Christianity.

A Christian is the highest style of man.-POPE.

Human innocence is not to know evil; Christian saint liness is to know evil and good, and to prefer the good. F. W. ROBERTSON.

It is a very lofty thing to be a Christian, for a Christian is a man who is restoring God's likeness to his character.-F. W. ROBERTSON.

The Scriptures give four names to Christians-saints, for their holiness; believers, for their faith; brethren, for their love; disciples, for their knowledge.-A. Fuller.

As a tree bringeth forth first leaves, then blossoms and then fruit, so a good Christian ought first to bring forth good thoughts, then good speeches and afterward a godly life, to the honor of God and the good of his children.— R. CAWDRAY.