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The Divinity of Christ.

It is a remarkable thing that out of the mouth of Thomas came a testimony to the essential Godhead and divinity of that Man of Nazareth that you find nowhere else in Scripture. Thomas looks poor in the early part of the story. It is easy for us to stand beside him there and say: "I am just like Thomas." Not long ago, on a very tired and spent Monday, I-your minister-flung myself down upon the sofa in weariness and spentness of body and mind, and my little three-year-old girl came and stood beside my shoulder and said: "Oh, I am as big as father!" Yes, because father was down; but when father pulled himself to his feet she only came up to his knee. And we are as big as Thomas when he is lying down prostrate and spent and groaning. When Elijah is lying under the juniper-tree you are another Elijah. But when these mighty saints take to their feet I rather think they come above us. And when Thomas does come to his feet he reveals his splendid proportions. "My Lord and my God." Not Gabriel before the throne ever did, or ever could, utter a more splendid testimony to the essential, eternal, uncreated Godhead and divinity of our Jesus than Thomas did when the Lord shone out upon him.-MCNEILL.

The World When Christ Appeared.

The "golden age" of Augustus ended before the Son of Man appeared. Streaks of the sunset were still upon the sky, but the great day of literature had passed, and night was coming rapidly over the most impressive coun

try and nation which the world ever saw. Only for a moment recall those names so familiar to us all, and as loved as familiar. Julius Cæsar, the writer and warrior, had been slain forty-four years before our era began. Cicero was murdered a few years after the great Cæsar fell. Virgil died nineteen years before Christ came. Horace was in his grave forty years before Christ began to teach mankind. Sallust had been dead thirty-four years before the Child was born in the manger. Christ was only eighteen years old, was still an unknown carpenter when Livy died. Publius Syrius, Catullus, Terence all these gifted children of philosophy and song had gone to sleep long before the music of Bethlehem came to the ears of the shepherds. Except Tacitus and Pliny, no great name ever passed over the line which divided the pagan and Christian periods. Not a single great orator or artist, poet or statesman, was remaining upon the Roman or Greek world when our Lord appeared.SWING.

Christ a Friend.

A rule I have had for years is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend. He is not a creed, a mere empty doctrine, but it is He himself we have. The moment we have received Christ we should receive Him as a friend. When I go away from home I bid my wife and children good-bye; I bid my friends and acquaintances good-bye; but I never heard of a poor backslider going down on his knees and saying: "I have been near You for ten years; Your service has become tedious and monotonous; I have come to bid you farewell. Good-bye,

Lord Jesus Christ." I never heard of one doing this. I will tell you how they go away: They just run away MOODY.

Christ in Our Highest Emotions.

I claim that Jesus Christ has entered deeply into all the lines of emotion and intellect that now so adorn our century. You Christians meet today to commune with Him. It is well. But He communed with your country and your literature and your arts long before you came upon the scene of action. He began to shine into the human heart and to reshape it long ago. He fashioned the holy hymns which our fathers sang. He stood by when the Catholics created the Gregorian chant, and where the Covenanters sang their psalms in the wilderness. He invaded the realm of poetic thought, and turned divine genius away from the adulation of bloody generals to the study of nature and its Creator, the soul and its destiny. He has communed with all the centuries since His advent, and has permeated them with a purer, loftier spirit. Mother and child have knelt in prayer by His example and request; the mightiest intellects have shaped their philosophy in the light of Christ, and the old and the dying have tried to go away from earth with some of this Savior's words upon their trembling, blanching lips. -SWING.

A Super-Human Savior.

If I might comprehend Jesus Christ, I could not be lieve on Him. He would be no greater than myself

Such is my consciousness of sin and inability that I must have a super-human Savior.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

Joy in Christ.

The best enjoyments of Christ on earth are but as the dipping of our finger in water for the cooling of our thirst; but Heaven is bathing in seas of bliss. Even so our love here is but one drop of the same substance as the waters of the ocean, but not comparable for magnitude or depth. Oh, how sweet it will be to be married. to the Lord Jesus, and to enjoy forever, and without any interruption, the heavenly delights of His society! Surely, if a glimpse of Him melteth our soul, the full fruition. of Him will be enough to burn up with affection. It is well that we shall have more noble frames in Heaven than we have here, otherwise we should die of love in the very land of life.- SPURgeon.

Living for Christ.

It is the highest stage of manhood to have no wish, no thought, no desire, but Christ-to feel that to die were bliss, if it were for Christ-that to live in penury, and woe, and scorn, and contempt, and misery, were sweet for Christ-to feel that it matters nothing what becomes of one's self, so that our Master is but exalted-to feel that though, like a sere leaf, we are blown in the blast, we are quite careless whither we are going, so long as we feel that the Master's hand is guiding us according to His will; or, rather, to feel that though, like the diamond, we must be exercised with sharp tools, yet we care not

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