ell its picture-teachings; the consolation of apostles, confessors, and martyrs. But Paul links it with the life that now is, because he would not let the doctrine of immortality become basely used, as it was in Persia. There slavery and wrong were unredressed. Persia. said to the oppressed, the poor, the serf, the miserable, "Never mind, Ormuzd will make it right hereafter I" Not so says Paul. Religion has its rectitudes and its rewards here 118 well. The gospel has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which ie to come. I. 'l'HEN LIJ'B 18 CONTINUOUS; THERE 18 lll0 BREAK. Death is not a dividing power, It is a dark arch through which the river flows. If a pure river, then he which is holy shall be holy still If a fcetid river, then he which is filthy shall be filthy still. This isJife eternal-to know Christ; and, having him, we have glory and immortality. The insect does not die when it changes its garment from the grub to the winged being, when it exchanges earth for air. Nor do we die. We are unclothed that we may be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. The body sheds itself often. At seventy we have had ten bodies; but the mind, the heart, the conscience, the memory, have a consciously unbroken continuity. We never shed them 1 The road is seen to-day from the child's first step; the river flows through town and city, but it is the same river. We feel this; it is the mystery of personality; it is the symbol of continuity. Through all the years we have had one being, and through the dark arch of death it flows on into the life that is to come. II. THEN LIFE IS A PB0PHE0Y. There is no difficulty here. As the child is the prophecy of the man, so the man is the prophecy of the immortal. In a mirror, and that mirror himself, man may read the future world. His tastes, desires, pursuits, pleasures, all globe themselves in the microcosm of his heart. He need consult no augurs about , future destiny. Here are the mystic pages: "He that believeth on the Son bath life;" its form, shape, colour, quality. Christ has changed the nature, and made it God-like and Divine. The Christian life may be shady, imperfect, and stained with evil; but it is a God-like thing; its pity, purity, righteousness, holiness, are attested. Perfect it, !I.Ild you have heaven. It were well for men to think, not only of wbat is, but of what is to come. Even bad men hope to alter. Men think a sudden change at last may eome; a tarn of the helm just as the vessel nears the rapids may cause it to glide into the river of life. But life here is a prophecy. It is the earnest of the inheritance of reward or shame-the life that is to come, with its advent hour so quiet, so sure, so solemn; coming but once, but coming to all. We thank God for the great sky of immortality above us, and for the rest that reme.ineth for the people of God.-W. M. S. Ver. 10.-.A.dequate reasons. "For therefore we [both] labour.n To understand a man's history, we must understand his philosophy of life-that is, his motives o.nd hie reasons. For no life has unity without this. It may have spasmodic activities and instinctive virtues, but no completeness or consistency. Here i&- I. THE ARGUMENT OF A TRUE FAITH-" THEREFORE." A man's thought does not always rule his life, even though conscience enforces truth as a duty. A man's conscience does not al we.ye rule his life. It is said that man is a will ; and this is true, for it is ever lhe supreme power. Man is made up of three things-" I can,"" I ought," "I will." Christ had become the Master of Paul's life ; therefore he laboured, because the gospel was a fact, not a fable (ver. 7) spun out of Jewish bra.ins. Men like Strauss have tried to prove it a myth-aomething that grew up in the minds of men. Imagine the Jewish mind that had grown more ritual and legal, developing into the simplicity of Christianity! Imagine philosophy that had grown more and more proud and exclusive, developing a religion for the common people I The gospel was a faithful saying, and St. Paul did not alter and improve hie doctrine and teachings ; he preaches the same gospel in his earlier and later Epistles. He was a man of sober judgment and of intellectual power, and no mere rhapsodist. He says, "It is worthy of all acceptation "-by the scholar and the peasant, the Jew and the Gentile, the bond and the free. The Jew would find it ful- filled his Law, his symbols, his prophecy. The Gentile would find it 1U11Jwered to his inHtinct, hia hidden desire, his deepest intuition. "Therefore n is the argument of a true faith. We are not the disciples of a new sentiment or a mere romantic embauy; for the new temple is built, liko the temple of Jerusalem, upon a rock. ll. Tu TOIL OJ' A 'l'll.'CJE FAITH. "Therefore we labour," not aimply "we tee.oh• DOr 84 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. [oa. IV, 1--16
"formulate opinions." That might be done with ease, like philosophio teachers, in the garden 1md the porch. " We labour I" A word involving pain and tears, 88 well 88 toil. The tendencies of the times are against us. The corrupt taste of a degenerate age is against us. The cross is to the Jew a stumbling-block, and to the Greek foolishnesR. We do not please men, like the rhetoricians. We do not amuse men, like the sophists. We labour in journeyings, in perils, in hunger, in stripes. Think of St. Paul's outcast condition, so far 81! bis own countrymen were concerned. Think of his relation to the Roman power-suspected of sedition; and accusations of his fellow-countrymen, the Jews. At a time when Rome swarmed with spies, he was labouring in. the face of certain danger and death.-W. M. S.