men's hearts to one another, the wellspring, never to be dry, of a new humanity. He is all this, and this is infinitely precious. We may "glorify Him for it, and exalt Him as much as we can; but even yet will

He far exceed." That one and the same Form has

borne the eager scrutiny of each anxious and imperfect age; and each age has recognised with boundless sympathy and devotion what it missed in the world; and has found in Him what is wanted. Each age has caught in those august lineaments what most touched and swayed its heart. And as generations go on and unfold themselves, they still find that Character answering to their best thoughts and hopes; they still find in it what their predecessors had not seen or cared for; they bow down to it as their inimitable pattern, and draw comfort from a model who was plain enough and universal enough to be the Master, as of rich and poor, so of the first century and the last. It has been the root of all that was great and good in our fathers. We look forward with hope to its making our children greater and better still. "Regnum tuum regnum omnium sæculorum; et dominatio tua in omni generatione et generationem." 2

1 Ecclus. xliii. 30.

2 Ps. cxliv. 13.

What is the lesson ? Surely this to remember when we talk of the example of Christ, that the interpretations and readings of it are all short of the thing itself; and that we possess, to see and to learn from, the thing itself. We should be foolish and wrong to think ourselves above learning from all that wise and holy men have seen in it. But the thing itself, the Divine Reality, is apart from, and is ever greater than, what the greatest have thought of it and said of it. There it is in itself, in its authentic record, for us to contemplate and search into, and appropriate, and adore. Let us not be satisfied with seeing it through the eyes of others. Mindful how we ought to look at it— remembering what, after all, have not ceased to be the unalterable conditions of knowing truth,-—purity, humility, honesty, let us seek to know Him directly more and more, as He is in the New Testament; as those saw Him, whose souls took the immediate impression of His presence and His Spirit. So does the Apostle describe the progress of the great transformation, by which men grow to be like their Lord and their God. "But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

SERMON IV

CIVILISATION AND RELIGION

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. . your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. -ST. MATT. v. 13, 14, 16.

Let

ONE of the purposes for which our Lord instituted the Christian Church was that it might exercise a distinct moral influence on the society round it. Separate in idea from the world, and at first separate from it in a great measure in fact, it was to be in the world, to touch the world, and to make great changes in it; to attract, and win, and renew. It was to be a principle of health and freshness, the antagonist of corruption and decay. And it was to work, not at a distance, but by contact, by subtle and insensible forces, which combined with what they acted on and modified. "The kingdom of heaven was to be like unto leaven,

which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." In that great discourse with which the Gospel teaching opens, the first thing is the character of the children of the kingdom, the second their relation to the world around them. After the Beatitudes comes, thus early, long before the disciples were an organised body, or were yet fitted for the greatness of what they were to be, the picture of their office to society, in its two powers of purification and light, and with its attendant responsibility, answering to its greatness. For it was in no partial or temporary sphere that they were to affect mankind. are the salt of the earth," says their Master. then, investing them with one of the most transcendent of His own titles, before He had yet claimed it Himself, "Ye are the light of the world." It is simply a fact of history that Christianity and the Christian Church have exerted on human society a moral influence which justifies the figures by which it was described an influence more profound, more extensive, more enduring, and more eventful than any that the world has seen.

'Ye

And

But there has always been a tendency in society in its higher forms to produce, apparently by its own

H

forces, some degree, at least, of that moral improvement and rise which the religious principle has produced. It is this rise and growth of moral standard and effort, this aim and attempt at higher things in life, and not merely in the instruments and appliances of life, which enters as the essential element into the true notion of civilisation, and alone deserves the name. Civilisation cannot be said to be the same thing as the influence of Christianity, or to be purely a result derived from it; for these tendencies to moral improvement existed before Christianity, and showed themselves by unequivocal signs, however much they were thwarted, neutralised, or at last destroyed. There are certain great virtues which social life loudly calls for, and tends to foster; which as thought grows and purposes widen, are felt more clearly to be the true and imperative conditions of all human action. Civilisation, whether or not it presupposes and assists in keeping in view another life, arranges primarily and directly for this one; and these virtues it produces in increasing force and perfection, as its fruit and test. It is no disparagement to that which we believe to be as infinitely greater than civilisation as the future destiny of man is greater than his present state, to