of its progress, and the certainty of its results. By its fruits we shall distincruish faith from credulity. Nor shall we think any the less of it because thoso who h;ve it lack othor elements of lifo which aro valued by the world. Those who come to,,.ether into eo great a cloud of witnesses because they have faith will remain together. "They will be found to ho.vo other qualities giving union. The figure here employed has already had its correspondence in the expression, "Time would fail me to tell." The cloud of witnesses is but another way of saying tbat God's true people, the believin"' host the children of faithful Abraham, are as the stars of the sky for multitude, the s;nd by the sea-shore innumerable. II. THE AGREEMENT 011' THE WITNESSES. They are not like witnesses in a con rt of justice, for there some are on one side and some on the other. All have the same story to tell. Faith came to them with a distinct imperative word. The course they took was not one that could be commended by reasons suited to the common understanding of men. '!'heir life, to a certain extent, bas been separate from men, and not unfre- quently men have opposed them. But always they have the same story to tell as to results. '£he way of the wicked perishes. It begins with self-indulgence and self- confidence, with the fear of man and after man's wisdom, and so it goes on till the hour of exposure comes. But the way of the believer is out of darkness into light, out of the midst of difficulties and toils into a path where he can run with enlarged heart. III. 'l'lIE MATTER OF THEIR TESTIMONY. They have to speak of God's dealings, God's guiding. 'l'heir lives are set before us as giving occasion to manifest the Divine character. Everywhere in Scripture just those thiug~ are recorded which through human lives show Divine working. The testimony of believers is ever valuable, just in proportiQn as they make it clear that it is not they who live, not they who work, but God, Christ, living and working in them. IV. THE MANNER OF THEIR TESTIIIIONY. It i~ given unconsciously. It is given out of the past and as we read it in the page of history. Abel, being dead, yet speaketh. It is Abel, dying because of his faith, who impresses us. Often times in the proceedings of human justice that which helps most to a right decision is some silent witness, in the shape of a paper or a weapon, Qr some such article, the existence and position of which are incompatible with any but a certain conclusion. It has not been sworn, and it cannot be perjured; it says more than a thousand sworn witnesses can say. The great believers of old may be helpers of our faith, simply by our taking the trouble to consider what we know about them in the humble, earnest spirit of the seeker after truth. 1 V. THE CONSEQUENT RESPONSIBILITY. It is a serious matter to he encompassed by this cloud of wituesses. They may rise up in judgment against us, whereas they were not given for this, but to help us into like precious faith. And as the world goes on the matter becomes more serious still. The cloud, large in the days of this writer, is immensely larger now. Luminous then, what a heart of light it now has, radiating forth its truth and encouragement for all who have eyes to see !-Y.
Ver. 1.-The appointed struggle. I. THE FIGURE EMPLOYED. The particular form of it is unfamiliar, but the essence is familiar enough, and likely long to be so. We are led to think of the natural man, ambitious to triumph by virtue of physical or intellectual strength. His motive is self-regarding, yet it leads him to a measure of self-restraint; indeed, he will go extraordinary lengths in checkiug self-indulgence if only he mo.y stand first when the struggle is done. A man may be very low in the scale of humanity and yet have the spirit of emulation in him very strong. Now, by this figure, men thirsting for fame and honour have their thoughts turned away from low aims to the highest aim a man can cherish; from aims that bring envy, waste of human faculties, and ultimate disappointment, to an aim which may bring to every man the richest, the most abiding of gains without the slightest loss to any brother mac. While there is a stimulus in this exhortation for every Christian, it is specially directed to ambitious climbin,,., striving men. It tells them to relinquish purposes that at the very best can bring "them only a corruptible crown, and bend their ene!gies to tho attainment of thnt divinely produced joy which is set before them even as 1t was before Jesus. We who are not engaged in tho struggle set before us here need to ask_what sort of a struggle we o.re engRged in, We arc summoned from the lower to the higher. BEDREWB, 20 386 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. [cH. XII, 1-29.