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humiliation on His part should not have been followed with a corresponding exaltation. mon reason would teach us that.

Nor is it hard to explain why so sublime a Being was once found in a condition so low-why One by nature participant in the nature and attributes of Deity was so dreadfully humiliated and so shamefully crucified. The facts are as blessed as they are notorious. It was not by compulsion,

of any kind, from any source. It was all voluntary, moved by nothing but His own compassionate love for our fallen, condemned, and perishing race. By the impulse of His own immeasurable goodness and His zeal to redeem a lost world He thus emptied Himself, became man, suffered, and died. The Jews were instrumental in bringing about His crucifixion; but it was part of His gracious plan meekly to submit to it that a way of forgiveness and salvation for them, and for all guilty souls, might be opened. No power of earth or hell wrested, or could wrest, His life from Him. He freely laid it down of Himself. He had power to lay it down, and He had power to take it again, and He did both. And what an eternal monument of glory, for the everlasting admiration of men and angels, did this adorable Jesus erect, by His willing consent to suffer these things, that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in His name unto all nations!

Here, then, is the climax of the Apostle's bold address: "God hath made that same Jesus, who was crucified, both Lord and Christ." His mer

ciful mission on earth having been fulfilled, atonement made, death vanquished, the way of salvation opened, He is received up into glory, and seated at the right hand of God, henceforth expecting till all His enemies are subdued under Him. Most marvellous condescension! Most momentous exaltation! Well might His murderers be filled with consternation when made to realize the tremendous facts! And with that crucified One alive, and lifted to the head of all power, where could His crucifiers or rejectors look for shelter? Alas, alas, for the guilty and impenitent!

But a different story does this enthronement of Jesus tell for those who believe. Has this Crucified One been received up into glory? Then our nature already has place in heaven! Then humanity is capable of wondrous exaltation! Then we who are here subject to decay and death may yet rise to immortal kingship and association with the Divine! Then naught can measure the sublimity of what awaits those whose life is hid with Christ in God!

Jesus upon the throne! Then His Church is safe. He has command of the Spirit, which is its life. Then His cause will live and triumph. Defections may come. Troubles, failures, and disappointments may come. The faith may be assailed, the love of many wax cold, and the hopes of the most confident be brought low. But there can be no failure of His promises, for there can be no vanquishing of omnipotence.

Unbelief may vaunt and threaten to engulf the Church, but the ship of Zion, which has weathered so many storms, shall outlive and outride the lightnings and the gales.

Jesus upon the throne! And He the same Jesus that was crucified! How surely then may we trust and hope in Him! Having endured the cross and experienced all of human life and death, in Him is a brother's heart, joined with an almighty arm. Once tempted in all points as we, He is able to succor them that are tempted. Having suffered, He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Having bought us with His blood, He will not forsake us now. "For, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

Ah yes, a great day for us, dear friends, was the day this Jesus was born. A great day for us was the day He voluntarily died for our sins. A great day for us was the day of His victorious resurrection from the dead. But the day of His ascension and enthronement in heaven was the flower and crown of the whole.

God be thanked for such a Saviour, and for the assured hopes we have through faith in Him!

The True Saintly Attitude.

Looking unto Jesus.-HEBREWS 12: 2.

Y first remark upon this text is that We all need something to look to.

M

Whatever man may have been at the beginning, he is now a weak and dependent creature. We are in a world full of darkness, doubt, perplexities, sorrows, fears, and dangers. Left to our own resources, we are but hapless wanderers, struggling with weaknesses and difficulties, distracted with uncertainties, threatened with calamities, often misled to our hurt, and doomed to sink at last into the still deeper darkness of the grave. Although endowed with many and great powers—powers which lift us high above all surrounding creatures, powers which seem to assert kinship with higher worlds-yet the beasts of the field are really better equipped for their spheres than we by nature are for ours. And when it comes to the important questions-whence and what we are; what is the supreme goal of life; what is to become of us when this life ends-no mere human wisdom can tell us, while a thousand conflicting theories come to intensify the oppressive mystery. With all the boasted progress of

the race, the advances of scientific knowledge, great and marvellous as they are, and all the remarkable achievements of human genius, if left to the unaided powers of nature, we are still but helpless voyagers on a dark and stormy sea, dashed by the baffling waves, without a course or compass, and without a blessed haven in the distance for which to steer. With all that natural reason can determine, this life of ours is but a transient gleam amid abounding mystery and darkness. Infinitudes of space and time surround us, only to emphasize our utter littleness. And the more we search and contemplate, the more manifest becomes our ignorance, and the greater our distress. In spite of all our pride and self-confidence, there comes the intensifying cry for light-for some hand to help and guide amid the abysses of gloom and doubt-for some favoring power competent to give us confidence and hope.

And still more oppressive is the situation in the presence of conscious depravity and guilt. Sin is a terrible reality. This is what most disturbs the world. This necessitates penal devices to preserve peace and order, which are only half efficacious at best, and very disappointing in their efficiency. Evil is more offensive and outbreaking in some than in others; but in all it lives, and works with disastrous power, for which man's reason knows no remedy. To what multitudinous and costly expedients, sacrifices, selfinflictions, and sorrowful mortifications has awak