to be divine, awoke in them all the divineness of love, and became the measure of their devotion. From that day to this, the faith of believers has clustered about the personal Christ, growing cold and effete as it has drawn off from Him towards philosophy, and waxing warm and effective as it has come near to his glorified person. I grant that this love varies in its external features. In these later days, it has the calm of thought, the sobriety of conviction, the breadth that springs from a realization of his work. The semi-erotic aspect it has sometimes been made to wear and that is still weakly cherished in some quarters, has largely passed. The love we now render is the fidelity of our whole nature, the verdict of our intelligence, the assent of our conscience, the allegiance of our will, the loyalty of sympathetic conviction, all permeated with tender gratitude; but it is still personal, loving Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

There are reasons for the assertion just made, that it is only through such a love that we can be delivered from ourselves and our evil. It is no novelty even in the thought of the world. "George Eliot" says: "It is one of the secrets in that change of mental poise which has been fitly named conversion, that to many among us neither heaven nor earth has any revelation till some personality touches theirs with a peculiar influence, subduing them into receptiveness." It only needs to make this assertion universal to have in it a definition of

1 Daniel Deronda, ii. 36.

the process of Christian faith, and almost a vindication of it by its superb insight. How otherwise shall we begin to secure this process of conversion; how uproot the selfishness that makes it necessary? Authority fails; the commandments are in the Old Testament, also in other sacred books it is claimed, but they had not much honor in their fruits. But when they issued from the lips of the living Christ, they fell into men's hearts like fire, and wrought in them as a passion. Will not thought open a path between evil and good? Thought may resolve conduct and character into their elements, but it cannot separate them. Philosophy makes slow progress in saving men; it has eyes to see man's misery, but no hands to lift him out of it. If, upon such a basis, one begins to struggle towards the good, the result is a hard, painful life, sustained by mere will, without warmth or glow or freedom, often overshadowed by doubts and mazed by sophistries, for there are philosophies and philosophies, a life more deficient and less exalted than it seems to itself, because it is not constantly matching itself with a personal standard. The measure of rules and bare ideals has little working efficacy, it is unsubstantial, it does not recognize the complexity of life, for only life can measure life, it guides but imperfectly and lacks the strongest of motive-powers inspiration. There is light enough but no warmth, matter enough but no attraction. Goodness that is enforced or devised has no propagating power. You cannot think, or plan, or legislate it into existence; it is not a prod

uct of syllogism, nor a deduction of knowledge, nor a fruit of experience, but is akin to life and must be begotten. And so character is placed under the lead of personal love. At the threshold of life we are met by affections that check and call us off from inborn selfishness, the love of parents and of brother and sister, and then that fiery passion that ushers in a love that makes of twain one, and then the diviner, downward-flowing love upon children; it is in such ways as these, all personal, that evil is kept or crowded out, and we become tender and generous and pure. But beyond lies the broader sphere of humanity, for which there is but small native passion, and hence but little inspiring force impelling us to its duties. Yet this is the field of our highest duties, for here are our widest relations. And it is here chiefly that Christ becomes an inspiration through the loyalty of love. Christ is humanity to us, He has hardly any other relation; He was not a father or husband, as son and brother his relation is obscured, his citizenship is not emphasized. In a certain sense, it is hardly necessary to have an inspiring and saving Christ in these relations, they enforce themselves, they are still full of their original, divine power. Not so, however, when we get outside of these domestic and neighborly instincts. Our relation to humanity at large is so blurred that it fails to enforce its duties. Hence Christ put himself solely and entirely into this relation, the Son of man, the Brother of all men, the Head of humanity, and there sets in play the divine forces of universal love and pity and

sympathy. When our love meets his in the loy

alty of faith, we find ourselves rightly related to humanity and to God. Faith in Christ has for one of its main ends the proper adjustment of the individual to society. The secret, essential relation of the Christ to humanity, and of humanity to God, flows to us along this channel of obedient, inspiring love, and so we come to love our neighbor as ourselves, and God supremely.

But the truth may be set in even a larger light. The love of Christ not only delivers us from evil and unites us to humanity, but it does the wider work of uniting us to God's eternal order both on earth and in heaven.

The one supreme truth is that God is love. This is the secret of the universe. Creation is the outcome of this fact; the whole order of all things is grounded in it; the harmony of the universe is its realization. There is therefore no possible relation for a human being to stand in to God and to his creation but that of love. Not to love God is to be in confusion, at odds with creation, aside from the order of the universe. The whole creation swims in a sea of eternal love. Every law and process and form, material and spiritual, angelic and human, individual and social; every relation, every method, is established in this love. This makes love the supreme and all-embracing duty; it is thus only that we come into accord with the world, and fall into the current that sweeps through eternity. Thus love, that seems the most voluntary thing, and the thing most to be kept at our

own disposal, to be given or withheld as we see fit, becomes an imperative obligation, for it is the only possible bond by which we can hold our place in God's created order, the one highway between self and all other things and beings. Not to love is, at last, utter and absolute separation from all else

even from self; it is the outer darkness where existence itself becomes bewilderment. To get into this love, which is God, and respond to its mighty harmonies, and know its perfect peace, this is the great and final achievement. Consider this truth until you have mastered it, or, at least, got some glimpse of it, and then put beside it the revelation of this love in the Son of God, and you see at once why you are to love Him. It is simply putting yourself in accord with the ruling principle of the universe, it is falling into line with the eternal order; for the whole universe is wrought into Him; He is the only begotten Son of the Father; in Him the entire order of nature is set forth; in Him the whole of God's will is perfectly obeyed; He is the perfect Righteousness. And in Him the full order and will of eternal Love is brought into humanity, where human love, your love and mine, may lay hold of it and play into it. Nor can there be conceived any other method by which human love can enter into the eternal Love; it must go by the eternally ordained path of personality, and the personality must be a manifestation of all the fullness of God. Hence there is no other name under heaven wherein we must be saved.

The great problem set before the Faith, — nay,