fait~-11, fa!th w~ich says, "I beli~ved, and therefor~ ha·n. I spoken." . There may be a vanable faith, hke that 0f the Vicar of Bray's, which believed anythmg-Romanistic, Rationalistic. or Evangelical-for the sake of position. But the mask soon drops, and men, instead of receiving the truth, despise the false teacher. "We believe and are wre that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God," is the essential baaill of a true ministry. Such a faith will be touched with enthusiasm like unto his who said, "God furbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ Jesus our Lord." lll. WE MUST BELIEVE IN A VITAL BENSE BO AS TO LIVE OUR BELIEF. An unfeigned faith is one that we practise ourselves; one that fills every channel of our being-our ,,. ethical life, our philanthropies, our missionary endeavours, our home joys and sanctities. There is a faith which is merely dogmatic-which holds fast the Christian doctrines, but fails to translate them into life. The atonement itself, so august and awful, must ever stand alone as a Divine sacrifice; but its moral effect is to be lived, "We thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead; and that we who live should not henceforth live unto ourselves, but unto him who died for ua and rose again." Faith is not to be a wax- work fruit-something artificial and unreal-but the living vine, of which Christ ii the root.-W. M. S. Ver. 11.-..A. gospel of gwry. "According to the glorious gospel" Theae are the words of a true enthusiasm. St. Paul gloried in the gospel. We may read it, however, as in the Revised Version, "According to the gospel of the glory of God." Either way the glory of it fills the heart of the apostle with intense rapture. No good work is done without enthusiasm. The great Italian artists-men like Angelico, Fra Bartolomeo, and Michael Angelo---associated heaven with earth in their work, and did it, not for mere pay, but for great ideal results. So also great apostles and reformers, like Paul, Wickliffe. and Luther, were enthusiasts. But all healthy enthusiasm is inspired by reality an~ truth. Some men have made shipwreck of religion because they lost the compass of the Word of God; and others, dependent on feeling alone, have wandered, being led by the ignis-fatuus of imagination alone. [. PAUL SEES IN HIMSELF WHAT THE GOSPEL CAN DO. "Take me," he says; '"l wa.r. h,a •••~ a persecutor, and injurious." What could account for such a change as is embodied in the man who from Saul became Paul? No theory of moral dynamics can stand, that suggests be lifted himself into so great a change. Neither could the Hebrew Church of that age, which was coldly ritual, sterile, and barren. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which shonld hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." No me.n can be so ardent about a cure as he who has tried a physician; no man admires the great artist so much as he who has tested his own feeble powers. And now "what the Law could not do, in that it w&11 weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son," had done, and done in Paul : he ii a proof of the gospel before he becomes a preacher of it. II. PAUL GIVES A NEW SIGNIFICAN0E TO THE WORD "GLORY." On hie lips glory takes a new meaning. He had seen the glories of the Cresars, who raised their thrones on hecatombs of humu.n lives, and filled their courts with unbounded luxuries and lusts. Surrounded by soldiers and courtesans, their glory was in their shame. He had seen the glories of the architects, sculptors, e.nd artists, at Athens, Corinth, and Rome. But the glory of which he spoke was in a life that gave itself-that came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and thl\t on the cross died for the sins of the whole world. II was the glory of goodness, the glory of compassion, the glory of self-sacrifice. III. PAUL REJOIIJEB TO TELL THE GOOD NEWS OF THIS GLOBY. It is the glorious gospel,or the glorious" good news" for all men-Greek and Jew, barbarian and Scythian, bond and free. How simple a thing it seems-" good news" I and yet it is rptJtJCA that move8 the world I Homer is remembered, when the military heroes of Greece lll'8 for- gotten. Songs live longer than thrones. 'fhis good news was of a Christ who had cliec and risen, 1md was working then in the hearts of men. Paul lived long enough to plant Chw-ches, e.nd to show that the cross could tum men "from darkness to ligh', aud &om the power of Satan unto God." He could show them not only the root, but •he tree ; not only the seed, but the fiower. It was good news in relation to QlA1l b.irlurelf-to his 20 THE l<'lHST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. [os. 1. 1-20.
pl'llllent history. and his everl1tsting destiny. The gospel had made life desimble, and checked the false euthanasia of Roman suicide; 1tnd it h11.d sproll.d a great sky of immor- tality above men's hea;is, so th1tt to live was Christ, and to die was gain.-\V. M. S.