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This item is filmed at tha reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est film* au taux de reduction indiqu* ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X MX 30X J 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X Th« copy fllmad htm Hm b««n raproduead thanks to tha ganaroaity of: Library of Parliamant and the National Library of Canada. L'axamplaira filni4 f ut raproduit grica i la gin^oaiti da: La BibllothkiiM du Parlamant at la BMbliottitqua nationala du Canada. Tha imagaa appaaring hara ara tha boat quality poaalbia conaidaring tha condition and lagibiiity of tha original copy and in kaoping with tha filming contract apocificationa. Laa Imagaa auivamaa ont «ti raproduitaa avac la plua grand aoin, compta tanu da la condition at da la nattat* da I'axampiaira film*, at an eonformitA avac laa conditiona du contrat da flimaga. Original eopiaa in printad papar covara ara fllmad baginning with tha front covar and anding on tha laat paga with a printad or iliuatratad impraa* aion, or tho back covar whan appropriata. 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'-, i\ /'. ;- • ■ ■ ■ % V'.-''f '■ -•" •■-' ■■- • • ■ i-,-.^V. _-, ^.; -.'7; -'',/ -^«,' " ''*^ md the Word •;t:-'^p!^ S; '■''- fc ■■ ii" j | ".."«iia / \ • - - v'- _ •A^-^.-^ii:^, . r-*r ' "3"-* ?^ "i^ """■:-" •*?■ f^<: <-i!''? ' '■ -..'"v'rvt > .'*■^^^■■?■ ■' 1..^?^-^^^ '..V Notes of a^Acidress Deliyered af ttie Sabbath Scbp^ j-^^ Hamifeon, Oclxfei» 1897 ^ ;:-^\ --"S-^^^li^^v^^- ^.,^.-^:.!t-fe, -; / -V It »V r 1 -iy; ■/ . ,.^-^ - /, By HON- S. H* BLAKE, J)*C 3hr which it wa4 proposed in the Hamilton WRih^riat c^ssociatbm to Excommunicate the Speakfrl m^, \ '4 J ''•■ ^^v^^:.-^. ■- r \,!.^/v/-;.',^;i^-<»?;,/c\.;',.Yr ■ ■^^^■^^^^ ■/^•^^■^'f'^>^> ■*^^^.^:^ ..-'^v:K ■A' ^:' ^A^ ,»-^ -^ ^""^•6^ •- > - ^ " '' . , »' s* '1 ■^■" ><■ V '^- -^^ V ^k■^ "^ ■<- ,< * 'Vi" T , . ,'' ^^ ^, '' ' 1 •■' ; *. k 'L Aim "*■ «*^ ./ ^r ^*, V - ''^W. V -.-is^' '*^ rr;^ i)^. yi -»■" f The World and the Word i Notes of an Address Delivered at the Sabbath School G)nvention Hamilton, October, J 897 ^or CTTyiaLt,-ffl»ET..k*«.wiww,,'iup'u ■■•"'fm.,1. u ,, innF^^vwf f 1 i ! i . "THE WORLD AND THE WORD." ^^\ R- CHAIRMAN, with your permission, just before I speak, 1 Y I I want to say a word as to the very great sorrow I feel at "T missing our loved friend, Mr. William Reynolds, this even- ing. He was such a splendid man. I met him in San Francisco, in New Orleans, in New York, in Boston, St. Louis, Louisville, Quebec, Montreal. All over this continent William Reynolds was known as a splendid man, giving up a large business, and devoting himself to the Sabbath School work. I should feel very sorry if he, passing from us, the memory was not kept alive and passed down to our children in the shape of some memorial of William Reynolds. I trust that that may be taken up and carried out. I was very glad to hear from my friend who met me at the station that this had been a very practical convention. What we want are facts in our work ; and I trust that you will bear with me while in a very plain way I deal with the matter that is the subject of my discourse this evening. I feel intensely the honor that is done me in being asked to speak on God's Word, and in being the closing speaker of this grand convention. It was very inspiring on Wednesday last, in the great Massey Hall, when Mr. Moody announced that he had been asked to speak upon *' How to Study the Bible." He said, "I have another suoject, and I will speak therefore upon that ; " and although a large number of the audience had ■ — »,-.. -.^ assembled at half-past six, and therefore at nine o'clock, when he would close his primary address, they had been there two hours and a half, he said, " At nine I will give half an hour to the subject that you have asked me especially to speak upon." It was a matter of great joy to find that that mass of probably five thousand people, almost to a man and woman, remained, and there they were for the thirty-five minutes that he spoke upon the subject of " How to Study the Bible." I thought it was a splendid object-lesson to show the force and the power that there still was in that Word, and how people were hun- gering and thirsting for it, and that it is not necessary for teachers to be introducing the sensational, nor is it necessary for ministers to be telling the congregation that the next Sunday evening they will preach upon "Give the Under Dog a Chance" — (hear, hear) — but that if they take the simple Word and deliver that simple Word, opening it up with expository preaching, there is a force and a lasting power in it that is unknown in any book outside the one upon which I want to speak to you this evening. (Hear, hear.) It is, indeed, truly a most remarkable book, whether you view it with a microscope or view it with a telescope. Take such a verse as is found in the first Psalm as to the blessing of the man that is planted by the rivers ; and take your microscope and sit down by the bank of the river and try to find out why it was that God added that "s" there; try to find out how it was that God was not going to rest satisfied with giving you one river, but that so abundant was to be the blessing that He must put the " s " there to make it rivers, for if one is exhausted there are still many rivers of God to pour down their blessing upon you. And then, if you choose to turn from the Old Testament and come to the New, and take the third chapter of Galatians, and find the " seed " of the woman, not the " seeds," as of many ; take and examine, and then sit down and think over from the third chapter of Genesis down to the book of Revelation why it was that God put that in the singu- lar and put the rivers in the plural ; and how He thereby taught that there should be the one Christ, the one Mediator, the one Lord Jesus. I am not going to give Satan a single letter from my Bible. (Hear, hear.) Then take the telescope and take a sweep of the hundreds of millions of copies in all parts of the world, and the marvellous in- fluence on all peoples and nations where this Word is found. You need not be told where the Bible is, as you go through the lands ) I ... I where the Bible is found. The land itself, and the people, and what you find, will tell you that the Bible is there. You remember the man in the storm that was coming near to the Fiji Islands, an infidel, and they found him getting away up to the top of the mast, and when he came down his friends said, " Why in the world were you trying to climb that mast in the storm 1" and he replied, ''I was trying to see if the island that we are coming to had a church or a chapel in it. He was asked why) and he said, ''Because if there be there a church or a chapel they will receive us kindly, and if not they will eat us." (Laughter). You need not trouble to go any further than that — the testimony of the infidel to the effect of this Word of God. It answers the common need of all mankind, and this Book alone does that. If you will endeavor to acquaint everyone in your classes with this Bible just as I endeavor to give it to you this evening, then you may laugh at infidelity and agnosticism ; for I have no fear of the one that in youth is fully imbued with this Word. Look at the composition : 66 little books or volumes — 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The history recorded covers a period of at least 4,000 years. The first of the forty writers is separated from the last by a period of fifteen centuries, and yet still what a unity ! All circle round the central thought which is presented in the beginning and ends only with Revelation. The heart or essence of it — a long-promised Messiah who conies as Jesus Christ. This Ohrist, that is in all the Scriptures and so interwoven in the one Book with the other, that although the latter contains but a couple of hundred pages, there are 832 quotations or allusions from the Old Testament, which would make an average of four on each page. Of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, thirty-five are referred to in the New Testament. It is, indeed, a book of authority. Look at the attacks made on it — on the Old Testament especially. If the discoveries recently made were known forty years ago, the critics would have been ashamed to make the attacks which they have done. (Hear, hear.) Let me give you two or three illustrations. I remem- ber as a boy that a great attack was made on the Book of Daniel. The attack was made in this way. You remember the apparent divergence that was found in the fifth and sixth chapters of Daniel. One said that Daniel was ! ext to the king. If so, he stood second in the kingdom. And the other chapter said that* he was third in the kingdom. He was the first president, and therefore next to the : 6 king. The other chapter says that he was the third. Said the critics, " How can we place any reliance upon your Bible ? It is unhistorical. Throw your Bible on the shelf; you are misleading people." Itlr. Rawlinson made his investigation, and he finally carried us back to the fact til at at this period in that history there were two kings. There were Nabonidus and Belshazzar, and the father allowed the son to reign along with him ; and so Daniel was the third in the kingdom, and yet still next to the king. (Hear, hear and applause.) Another. The critics said, '' Your Bible is unhistorical and cannot be relied upon." You remember at the time the attack was being made upon Samaria, that there was a wonderful miracle. You re- member how God caused a great body of troops to be terrified. It seemed to them as if a voice came ; and they said '' the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians are upon us ! " *' Oh," they said, ''put your Bible on the shelf again; the Hittites were a feeble little race ; the Hittites never had a king ; the Hittites were a small little company of people, almost unknown ; there h no history of them ; take your Bible away." And it is but recently I had in my own home a man who told me about the inscriptions in the neighborhood of Tarsus, and who told me there were the great figures which since — and I think, to a certain extent, owing to his representation — the people have gone to visit ; and what have they found 1 They have opened up the story of the Hittites. It is said to be the story of a forgotten people. It was the story of a people who for centuries were battling with the Assyrians, battling with the Egyptians ; and finally they discovered one of those inscriptions giving the words of a treaty between " the great king of the Hittites and the great king of Egypt." The Bible always, when they investigate far enough, comes out number one. (Hear, hear.) It was found to be absolutely true. The race was forgotten, and there is now being written with care their history. I say, how good it is of God to take and bury under and keep alive, so that as the critic comes carping against God's Word, with a magic wand he opens up and gives to this earth the absolute verity of this Book. And then we find again fresh verifica- tion in those treasure-cities. In Fithom, the people were amazed as they got to the first tier of bricks and some distance up to find that there was straw used ; and when they got a little farther up found there was only stubble, and then when they got farther up they found there was neither straw nor stubble — representing that wonderful ^.1 story in the Bible of, when the people were incretuiing, Pharaoh said, *' Go make your tale of bricks, and I give you no straw ; " and how they had to go up and down the fields and get the stubble and get the rushes and get whatever they could to try and keep the bricks together, and when that was exhausted they had to make bricks without them. Ma'vellous it is that God should be burying these cities and opening them up now as we stand in need of them. Then it is said there is no mention of the Children of Israel in Egypt; but the last story about that is that they find a tablet with the very word "Israel" there. And then they say, "Your Bible is wrong, because in the fifty-second chapter of Isaiah it is stated, ' My people have gone down into Egypt and the Assyrian has oppressed them.' "The Assyrian was not in Egypt; the Assyrian could not have oppressed them." Yet they have now got the face of that king of the oppression, and they say it is perfectly clear from his lineaments that he was not an Egyptian ; it is the Assyrian mould, and now they are beginning to enter into that history to show that the Assyrians had come and the Assyrians had ruled, and instead of it being an Egyptian that was upon the throne at the time of the oppression it was really an Assyrian, and so that God's Word is true when it says, " My people went down into Egypt, the Assyrian has oppressed them." Then only one further glance for a moment from the Old Testament to the New. You remem- ber how they attacked that statement of St. Luke in the Acts that this ruler was a proconsul. They said, " Your Bible, as usual, is wrong. At this time the Island of Cyprus was under the rule of the Emperor," and I dare say most of you Sunday-school teachers know that there was this difference in the ruler. The ruler that was under the Emperor was a procurator, and he had the power of life and of death ; and as the country was not in a settled state he had far larger power than the proconsul ; but when the Island, or when the Province, or when the city became well controlled, then the Emperor used to hand that place over to the senate, and the senate appointed a procounsel. They said, " Your Bible, as usual, is wrong." This place was under the control of the Emperor, and the governor must therefore have been a procurator, and not a proconsul ; but they have turned up coins that God has kept there with the fact upon them, that at this time the person was a proconsul ; and they have got en the slabs there the fact that he was a proconsul ; and B now they iind that the history of the Bible was right, and that the Emperor had handed these places over to the Senate, and there- fore that the ruler was a proconsul, and not a procurator. You may take for granted — pro'^en, as we say, arguinj^ before the judges — that anything that the higher critic says is wrong, and every- thing that the Bible says is right. (Laughter and applause.) Possibly more remarkable than all is the fact that the Great Teacher himself referred to the principal of these Old Testament events and especially, as it were with emphasis, to those that are now made the subject of question and by some the subject of ridicule. He affirmed them as being absolute truth : not slurring and passing them over. It seems to me to be to-day almost blasphemous the mode in which these matters are dealt with. As if it were possible that He, who was the Light of the World and came to be the Teacher, and of whom it was said that " He taught as one having authority and not as the Scribes," referred so invariably to that *' which is written " that "all Scripture must be fulfilled " ; that " not a jot or tittle of it should fall to the ground," commended those that searched the Scriptures because they testified of Him ; and showed that Christ was in ail the Scriptures, could be misleading us. Never be bothered with higher criticism. Remember that Satan is the father of the higher critics (laughter), and he began at an early date his attack against the Word. He appeared in the Garden of Eden, and, in answer to Eve, quoting the Word of God, replied, seeking to shake her faith in it, " Thou shalt not surely die." In the wilderness he made an attack upon the second Adam, mis-quoting the Word. He is, with one exception, the most skilled and the highest of the higher critics. (Laughter.) Where he can he seeks to contra vert it entirely, and, where he cannot do so, he seeks to misquote and weaken its effect. Yesterday a man said to me in London, " How is it that we have got the critics, and the higher critics, and now the highest ? " " Well," I said, " my friend, I have never thought that out ; the only answer I can give you at the moment is that the more gas a man gets in him the higher he goes up." (Great laughter.) But you know, friends, the higher he goes up, the bigger the fall. (Laughter.) Now, solemnly again, let us take our place reverently at the feet of the hallowed Master and drink in from His lips the teaching of Him that is the Light and the Life as to the absolute truth of this Word. Let us never forget that, if we let go the Old Testament the New i 'I : f Tdstameut must go with it. They are so wrought the one into the other that they must stand or fall together. Have you ever thought that there is no important statement in the Old Testament that is not found in the New? In order to verify this, I recently read through the New Testament, marking in red each passage in the Old Testament. Do this for yourselves, but, meantime, listen and see the result : (1) God in the beginning created the world, forming it out of nothing ; (2) the creation of both Adam and Eve ; (3) the personality of Satan ; (4) the tempta- tion by Satan ; (5) the fall of Eve, she being first in the transgres- sion ; (6) then the fall of Adam ; (7) salvation through the seed of the woman ; (8) the sin of Cain ; (9) the sacrifice of Abel ; (10) Enoch walking with God; (11) the Deluge and drowning of the world ; (12) the Ark and the salvation of it; (13) the salvation of Noah and his family; (14) the call of Abraham; (15) Sarah, his wife, and her position; (16) Lot's choice; (17) Melchizedek and hi» blessing; (18) the sin of Sodom and Gomorrha; (19) Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt ; (20) the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha by fire and brimstone; (21) the wandering through the promised land ; (22) the story of. Isaac, Jacob, Esau ; (23) the sacrifice of Isaac intercepted by the sacrifice found ; (24) Mount Moriah ; (25) Mount Sinai ; (26) the going of the descendants of Abraham into Egypt ; (27) Pharaoh ; (28) Joseph ; (29) the state of slavery; (30) Moses and his choice; (31) the burn- ing bush ; (32) the call of the people out of slavery ; (33) the pass- over ; (34) the wonders in Egypt ; (35) the crossing the Red Sea ; (36) the forty years' wandering in the wilderness ; (37) the manna ; (38) the brazen serpent ; (39) the smitten rock ; (40) the flesh given ; (41) the great law-giver and leader Moses ; (42) the Com- mandments; (43) the Golden Calf; (44) the entering into the promised land ; (45) Jericho and its fallen walls ; (46) the driving out the tribes from before them ; (47) the rule by the Judges ; (48) the actuality of Barak, Samson, Jephthah, Samuel, the Prophets, and what was done by and through them ; (49) the request for a King; (50) the granting it; (51) Solomon, David, etc.; (52) the whole system of sacrifice ; (53) the tabernacle ; (54) the temple ; (55) the Lamb ; (56) the Scapegoat ; (57) the various ofierings ; (58) the candlestick ; (59) the show-bread ; (60) the veil ; (61) the golden pot ; (62) the manna; (63) the tables of the covenant ; (64) the cheru- 10 bira ; (65) the mercy seat ; (66) the shed blood; (67) its sprinkling and its effect ; (68) the various offerings ; (69) the promise of the Messiah ; (70) the Messiah ; (71) Elijah, Elisha, and their miracles; (72) the shutting up of the heavens ; (73) the widow of Sarepta ; the cleansing of Naaman the Syrian ; (74) Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, etc. ; (75) the messenger to be sent and the messenger as he came ; (76) Jonah and the whale ; (77) Nineveh ; (78) the preaching and its results; (79) Tyre, Sidon, and their destruction; and, in fact, no matter of importance that is not mentioned in the New Testament as a real matter and referred to as one, the truth of which is beyond question. The quotations are largely by our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ; largely by Peter in his sermon; largely by Stephen in his marvellous discourse before Jesus took him to walk with Himself in the glories above — men that were beyond any doubt inspired men. After you have gone over these a couple of Sundays with your children I am sure you will be strengthened even in the fact that there was a fish, and that that fish swallowed Jonah. (Laughter). My dear friends, I have no more doubt of that than I have of the fact that my friend Dr. Maclaren is behind me. If I did not think that my God, who made this world and the sun, and who made these millions upon millions of stars — great worlds that He set rolling in this great universe — couldn't make a fish big enough to swallow this church, chairaian and all, I would cease believing in Him. (Laughter and applause.) The nonsense that these people take up with, getting up whales and measuring their throats ! God never said in His Book that He took a whale ; He said He " prepared a great fish." Do you mean to tell me that God, who made this world can't make a fish big enough to take this church in it ? He would cease to be the marvellous Being that we know Him to be if He could not do that. There has been more nonsense talked to me about that ; if my child came and talked to me as often I would spank it and put it in a corner. (Great laughter.) Then I say it is well at once to grasp what is the centre, the heart, of the Bible. It teaches us that the entrance of the Word giveth light, and, also, without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. So Satan attacks the Word and the Blood — the two means intended to give light and life to the world. It must be remembered that this is the Book in which it is now affirmed there is no such a thing as a Messianic prophecy. That the vicarious sufferings of t 11 , Christ are not taught in the Bible. As to the vicarious sufferings of Christ, it might to my mind as well be affirmed that a man could start by boat from Montreal and proceed thence to Liverpool without seeing water, as that a man can travel from Genesis to Revelation without finding the centre round which the whole Book circles. The vicarious sufferings of Christ. They begin in the first book, with the bruised seed from which life is to come, and we have thus the Gospel ■according to the third chapter of Genesis, and it only ends in Bevelation with the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ; and, there- fore, from Genesis to Revelation, this is the scarlet thread that pervades the whole Book and furnishes us the reason for its existence. Those that lived in the days of Christ and were especially inspired and drew their inspiration direct from Him, and are the founda- tion stones, drawing life from the Living Stone, affirm that "all things which are written in the law and the prophets are to be believed" (Acts xxiv. 14), and refer to the message as "the Gospel •of God which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures " (Romans i. 2). If there is one thing with which these men should be acquainted, and, one matter beyond another that they distinctly affirmed it was the doctrine of the vicarious sufferings of Christ, which is now made so little of by many. If there was but the one verse, " Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Peter ii. 24), we could affirm that this is the absolute teaching of the Word ; but, again, " For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust" (1 Peter iii. 18) ; "Christ died for the ungodly " (Romans v. 6) ; " He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all " (Romans viii. 32) ; " The Church purchased with his own blood " (Acts xx. 28) ; " Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. v. 7); "Ye are bought with a price " (1 Cor. vii. 23) ; "For whose sake Christ died" (1 Cor. viii. 11); "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. XV. 3); "One died for all" (2 Cor. v. 14), "Him which died for them" ; "The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me"' (Gal. ii. 20); "Being made a curse for us " (Gal. iii. 13); ** Hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God " (Eph. V. 2); "Redemption through his blood" (Col. i. 14); "This he did once when he offered up himself (Heb. vii. 27); "Should taste death for every man " (Heb. ii. 9) ; " In the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of him- 12 self " (Heb. ix. 26) ; " This man, after he had offered one sacri- fice for sins" (Heb. X. 12); ''The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." The poor Blackmoor from Ethiopia had a better grasp of the Bible- than these higher critics, as, in reading the 53rd of Isaiah, he was- convinced that some wondrous truth was there lodged, and that some- one was referred to, that the Spirit-led Deacon Philip at once told him was Jesus Christ the Son of God. If you have not got the fullest confidence in this Word, and if you have not received this truth, then don't be a Bible-class teacher ;; don't give out your doubts. The devil will give plenty of them.. You need not help him. Stay at home and read and re-read until they are removed. There is nothing to boast of in being an Agnostic. The people of Athens were very much to be pitied because they could erect their altar to " the unknown God." Remember that there are a great many Agnostics who are mere narrow bigots. They do not treat the Bible and religion as they treat other matters with which they deal. The Rationalist will not deal with the Bible as he- deals with other subjects that are before him. A pure Agnostic will visit Patagonia, the ocean depths, the north pole, and exhaust all possible means, taking the smallest animalculse — a grain of sand, £u tiny leaf — and, until most thoroughly exhausted, will not proclaim a fact as being absolute ; but the pseudo- Agnostic, who is the narrow,, carping critic, with more vanity than knowledge, because his reason, which he makes the measure, refuses to accept, concludes without further consideration that all must be rejected. He forgets that God may speak through the Spirit, through the will, through the con- science, and that many men with but little reasoning power have, through the spiritual discernment which God has given, a marvel- lous flood of light in regard to all matters of religion. I was very much struck in reading the life of George Romanes — you- know his father was a professor of Queen's in Kingston, and the son was brought up in the orthodox fold, a good Presby- terian, but he followed out this evolution theory to such an- extent — to a certain extent I think it is legitimate — that with him everything was evolution ; and it is a very wonderful thing to trace^ how he came back, how he found " There is pure agnosticism and there is pseudo-agnosticism," and when people trouble you about the- resurrection — that the reason does not assent to this and that and 13 the other — you can say to them, " Are you quite sure that the only way that God speaks to you is through your reason ? Are you quite sure that God does not teach you and reveal to you, through your conscience and through your will, through your spirit? Are you quite sure that there is not such a thing as spiritual discernment t And do you know that there are people that have large, marvellous, spiritual discernment, who could scarcely reason out anything with you V And so I say, give us pure agnosticism, but be honest with us, and do you exhaust all the means of arriving at the truth before you turn around and attack our Bible. Don't be saying that the only way that God can enter is through the reason, when there are many other doors through which He i^ continually entering. George Romanes lived long enough to find • that his friends, the Agnostics, were making a great mistake, and that there were other doorways whereby this message could enter ; and you remember how the apostle tells us what we are to pray and ask for, this spiritual discernment — that being the great door through which this message comes. And now, friends, what shall we do with the Old Book? Give it up 1 Nay, verily ! Neither the Old nor the New shall we give up. Not a book, not a chapter, not a verse, not a letter. The pure Ag- nostic cannot possibly go further than this — not that our God is the unknown God, but that He is the unfathomable. We cannot fathom the ocean, but we can know a great deal about it ; and if anyone could fathom God then He would cease to be God, because He would be finite as we are, we being able to comprehend Him in all. If you feel inclined to doubt, sit down and read the end of Job — I always call that Job's catechism — and then when you can tell where you were when God laid the foundations of this world and when He wrought those wonders, and you can sit down and discuss that with Him, then you can expect to understand completely God's ways and God's works. Oh, dear friends, how often I have just sat in my chair and been perfectly satisfied, saying, '' Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " (Amen.) Some people seem to be searching vainly for some new inspiration. God has made no promise of any inspiration beyond that which He has given. The Greek philosopher exclaimed that if he had but a fulcrum he could move the world. If , this Book, the great lever to uplift mankind, but touches the indi- vidual or the nation, the world will be moved. It is God's means — we must use it faithfully. What is wanted with each is recreation 14 T or regeneration. From no other source can this be obtained than through this Word. Here alone is to be found the foundation prin- ciples of a lasting character, of a lasting kingdom. Here alone is found the true and real ideal — the splendid life which stands to-day as not only a grand picture, but a splendid force and power to bring into life and to give strength to all those that will accept of His invitation and come to Him for life and light and strength and guidance. The foundation principles of this kingdom are totally opposed to those of the world. Where these principles are intro- duced, by their expulsive power the world is cast out. The great sin of the world to-day seems to be cold selfishness ; a want of sympathy, which gradually leads to enmity and creates a great gulf, with money, capital, pride, show, vainglory, on the one side, and poverty, need and want on the other — Dives clothed in his purple and fine linen, leaving Lazarus in his sores to be looked after by his dogs. The maxims of the world are : Every man for himself ; tit for tat ; an eye for an eye ; a tooth for a tooth ; you struck the first blow — I'll pay you off' ; it's a long lane that knows no turn, I'll get you pretty soon at the turn ; be a man of spirit ; I'll have it out w^th you ; ^u can get on as I did ; I am the architect of my own fortune, go and do as I did ; if you get into trouble or straitened circumstances, I have been there and got out of it, you go and do likewise ; two can play at that game. These principles in the individual beget in the nation a spirit of retaliation, a spirit of com- bines, sweating shops, communism, anarchy, a spirit of hitting back,, and endeavoring to defraud in questions of boundary, arbitration, fiscal arrangements, and the like — history which the future historian will write without pleasure and of which the future nation must be utterly ashamed. Retaliation is a spirit from the devil. I hate to hear the word " retaliation." Our blessed Lord and Master did not know anything about that, and when He was giving us His foundation principles that was omitted. Five or six hundred years from now, when they are writing the history of the United States and talking of the charter of the United States, the people will say, "That charter never belonged to that people, for the people with thafc Declaration of Inde- pendence could never have been guilty of slavery and all the acts that 15 they have been guilty of," as are daily found in their paper. Yon will see what a time the higher critics will have then ! (Laughter.) From all this worship of self in its various forms — gold, mammon, and the glory of this world which passes away — how good it is to be brought into the company of the splendid ideal for the individual and for the aggregate of individuals, the nation. The Christ, the Son of God, born in a stable ; brought up and absolutely satisfied with His poverty ; one who ever breathed a sympathy with all need. It was the stand He took with the deep need, and feeling for the weary and heavy-laden that led Him to the cross ; working and toiling, and going about doing good ; buried in a borrowed tomb, and living that sweet and holy life which alone is the hope of the world. Opposed' to all the narrow vanity and selfishness of the world, how pleasant it is to hear the words coming as from heaven itself, giving us the best and truest standard, and through that an irresistible power, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you " (Matt. vi. 33) ; " Love your enemies" (Luke vi. 27); "Do good to them which hate you"; "It is more blessed to give than to receive " ; ♦' All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them " ; " Recom- pense to no man evil for evil, but overcome evil with good." Do you suppose if we stood firm there and said, " You are wrong, and wrong can never be right, and though it may be for a little time evil for us, we will do what is right, right, right, for we want the righteousness that exalteth a nation," that other people would not be shamed into it and say, " You are right and we are wrong, and we retract what we have done " 'i " Overcome evil with good." The Greek phi- losopher wanted but a place to rest his lever, and he would move the world. This Bible is our lever, and the nation is that which is to be touched by it. The force of its principles and teachings would be irresistible. That nation is the true nation, the life of which is brought into harmony with its teachings. If this is to be wrought into the nation it must be in and through the Christian people — the Church. In reading the life of Dr. Arnold I was very much struck with this. When he went to Rugby he was there to change the whole mode of conducting the great English schools ; and when he had been there but a short while he got his own class together, the Sixth Form, the highest class of boys, and he said, " Boys, I can do little in this work; you can do it for me ; you can go up and down. 16 and pervade the whole school with right principles. It is not neces- sary that Rugby should have 300 or 250 or 200, but it is necessary that we should have a company of good Christian young men, loving what is true, and what is honest, and what is upright." My friends, the world wants to be pervaded ; and it is through you, the Christian men and the Christian women, that this is to be done. It is to be through the Church. The world does not read our Bible ; it reads you, and the worldling says: "If that's the Bible that I read in and through you — short, dishonest, getting the better of me, cheating, thinking of nothing but piling up your money as you can — I don't want your Bible, we have got a better Bible here ; we do a little, any way, to help one another." Thus the pervading thought of the world would be, the thinking right, the speaking right and the doing right. Might would lose its place and right would be enthroned. Whither would this lead us ! Even to the very millennium itself. But, was not that just what God intended 1 This was the guide-book to lead men to the ideal Man, the second Adam, and to Him that gives the force and life to live up to that ideal ; to lead up to the day when Satan shall be disenthroned and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. God lead us to rise to our responsibility. May He give us a living faith in Him and His blessed Word. May He give this convention divine power whereby His Word will be exalted, its teachings lived, and make every page a leaf for the healing of the nations. (Loud and long- continued applause.) Printed by WiiiMAM Brioos, Toronto, Ont.