you are growing old and cunning; you must grow a child again, with my Son this blessed birth-time. Yon are growing old and selfish; you mnst become a child. 'You are growing old and careful; yon must become a child. You are growina old and distrustful ; you must become a child. You are growing old, and petty, and ;eak, and foolish; you must become a child-my child; like the baby there, that strong sunrise of faith and hope and love, lying in his mother's arms in the stable." The character- istics of child-nature which ought to be found, nourished into the fulness of beauty, in Christian hearts and lives are such as these-each will prove suggestive of illustration- (1) receptivity; (2) submissiveness; (3) obedience; (4) trustfulness; (5) absence of self-consciousness; (6) hopefulness; (7) simplicity; (8) forgiveness. "If these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. i. 8). II. \VHAT MANLY CHARACTERISTICS SHOULD WE FIND IN A CHDIS'l'IA:N'? A man differs from a child in this, that what he is he is by force of will, and not as a mere accident of his being. What in a child we properly call innocenr,e, in a man we call virtue. The proper manly characteristics are such as (1) self-control ; (2) cultured intelligence; (3) energy; (4) prudence; (5) charity; (6) generous estimate of motives; (7) self-sacrifice. It is true that the Christian estimate of the manly is not precisely that which the world favours. The world has ever chiefly ex.tolled the active virtues, and associated the pa8sive virtues almost exclusively with womanhood. But in tbe Lord Jesus Christ has been presented to us the perfect type of manhood: we can con- ceivfl or wish nothing higher or more sublime; and we find the passive and active virtues fully represented and harmoniously blended in him. The world's best thought of manhood and womanhood meet in him; and so woman and man can make him their ideal. Nothing can be sublimer for a life-aim than to seek to be a child as Jesus was, and, at the same time, to be a man as noble as Jesus was.-R. T, Ver. 20.-The power of Christianity on intellect. This text directly encourages the cultivation of intellect, and supposes that Christianity will exert a practical an,\ helpful influence on such cultivation. I. CHRISTIANITY WILL HELP TO MAKE us INTELLECTUAL MEN. Christianity recog- nizes no model, idea.I man, save one whose whole circle of faculties bas been duly developed, and certainly that noble part, the mind. It presents to us its ideal man in the person of Jesus Christ; there we see what it proposes to bring all men up to, aud behold, in the very beginnings of Christ's life we read that "he grew in wisdom and in stature," exhibiting a surprising intelligence, which astonished the great doctors in the temple. A willingly ignorant Christian is an anomaly, a strange being, an imperfection, essentially incomplete; be has not felt, or he bas resisted, the full force of the Christly principles and requirements. 1. Christianity comes into tho world to restore man from his fallen condition. Man's self-willed fall involved bis mind as well as his will, and the restorative applies to the fallen mind. The mind suffered sadly, lost its guiding truth, los_t its harmonies, lost its place of rule, which was usurped by the passions of the body. 2. History confirms the relation of Christianity to intellect. Illustrate times of Wickliffe and Luther, etc. 3. 'l'he Christian services and duties help the intellect. Other religions are mostly ceremonial, making only routine demamls. Christian services are essentially spiritual things, applications of mind to God's written \Vord, contemplations of Divine and heavenly realities, ordering of the thoughts so as to fashion them into prayers; these, and many other things, actually, by their own direct influence, storing and training the mind. The public Christian worship is intelligent. Its praises are expressed in tho words of cultivated poets. Our Bible is the utterauce of learning as well as of inspiration. Our preaching is the product of study and thouc:ht, and its appeal is made to the understanding ns well as to the heart. 4. Christianity, with its revP.lations and doctrines, provides the very best food for the mind. It is the highest of sciences. It is the philosophy of the Infinite and the Absolute-it is the science of God. 5. Christianity makes tho cultivation of the intellect o. matter of direct counsel. It bids us "with o.11 our getting get understanding," and assures us that "wisdom is to be chosen rather than riches." And the apostle complains that tho believers do not mentally grow as fast as they should-that he has to feed them with the milk of first principles, when they ought to be able to hko the strong meat J. COlllXTIIIANS. 2 I -lS~ TI-IE FIRST EPISTLE TO 'l'HE t..,JH1NTHIANS. [en. xiv. 1-40.
of the Christian mysteries. If this be the relation of Christianity to mind, then two things are manifest. (1) Those men are utterly wrong who sneer at relicriou as a weak thing, and affirm that there is an antagonism between reason and r'~velation, (2) \Ve are quite in the spirit of the religion which we profess, when we do our utmost to take our stand honourably among the intellectual men of our day. Our very religion helps us "in understanding to be men." II. CHRISTIANITY PREVENTS OUR DECOMING INTELLECTUALLY PROUD MEN. It does 'SO: 1. By announcing mysteries that are at present unfathomable by the human intelligence. 2. By making clear the distinction between speculation aud knowledcre. 3. By setting forth prominently its teaching of man's entire dependence on the Div~e help. If we know anything, we know it only as God's revelation to us. Ill. CHRISTIANITY KEEPS us FROM BEING ONLY INTELLECTUAL MEN. The mind may be cultivated and the morals neglected, so tha~ a man may become dry, and cold, and bard, and unlovely. Men may be mentally vigorous and morally weak; intellectual giants, but slaves to passion. Christianity keeps men from this (1) by proposincr to harmonize man's whole nature by beginning with the regeneration of his heart; ~nd (2) by carefully developing the character and the moral qualities. Askin" the love of the soul for God manilested in Jesus, it quickens and strengthens and noit'rishes every moral good, every moral power, and helps a man to grow healthily on every side of his nature, so as to develop into the" stature of the perfect man."-R. T.