souls is he who enters the ministerial office with little or no thought about Christ, from worldly and self-exalting motives, but from no desire to exalt Jesus, and the great salvation that is in Him. Christ, in one word, is the grand touchstone of the minister of religion. The man who makes much of Christ is a pastor after God's own heart, whom God delights to honour. The minister who makes little of Christ is one whom God regards as an impostor, — as one who has climbed up to his holy office not by the door, but by " some other way."
The sentence before us is a sorrowful and humbling one. That it condemns the Jewish teachers of our Lord's time all men can see. There was no " door" in their ministry. They taught nothing rightly about Messiah. They rejected Christ Himself when He appeared, — but all men do not see that the sentence condemns thousands of so-called Christian teachers, quite as much as the leaders and teachers of the Jews. Thousands of ordained men in the present day know nothing whatever about Christ, except His name. They have not entered u the door" themselves, and they are unable to show it to others. Well would it be for Christendom if this were more widely known, and more seriously considered ! Unconverted min- isters are the dry-rot of the Church. " When the blind lead the blind " both must fall into the ditch. If we Mould know the value of a man's ministry, we must never fail to ask, Where is the Lamb ? Where is the Door ? Does he bring forward Christ, and gives Him his rightful place ?
We have, for another thing, in these verses, a peculiar •picture of true Christians. Our Lord describes them as sheep who " hear the voice of a true Shepherd, and know His voice ; " and as " sheep who will not follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for the}' know not the voice of strangers."
The thing taught in these words is a very curious one, and may seem " foolishness " to the world. There is a