while ye are yet speaking I will hear." Therefore, while praying “ Thy kingdom come," we may join the Church triumphant in the song, "We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which wert and art and art to come, because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned."

Such praise to God is the best expression and aid of union amongst the worshippers. Christians who differ in opinion may agree in praise. As at a political meeting of loyal citizens who sincerely and zealously advocate differing methods of promoting the common weal, there may be many voices so uplifted together in debate that no coherent utterance may be distinguishable, yet when the national anthem is sung, all those discordant voices blend in the harmony; so is it in the songs of the Church. Controversy is hushed when we "praise God from whom all blessings flow." This also links earth with heaven. Departed saints have ceased to need many of the prayers we offer, but they still praise as we do, if not for the same gifts, the same Giver. And angels unite in this Liturgy. They have no higher employ, or purer joy. "I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."

·FOR EVER."

"Thine is the kingdom for ever!" We rejoice that it must so remain. "Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." "Thine is the power for ever!" Not a reservoir which may be emptied, but an ocean to which every outflowing stream returns; not a force which may be spent, but an infinite energy. "Thine is the glory for ever!" Not like earthly glory, whose emblems are the fading flower, the passing wind, the transient meteor. As it was in the beginning, so is it now, and so ever shall be. The glory of God is His love, and "His mercy endureth for ever.” Jesus, the brightest manifestation of the Divine Glory, is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

Is it unreasonable to hope that they who praise a God who liveth "for ever," will share in that "for ever"? Will beings so endowed perish? The Old Testament says little of immortality in direct terms; but its records tell of those who worshipped God as the Everlasting. Must not they whose faith and love thus rose up to the eternal throne, have cherished some hope of immortality themselves? Our Lord showed that life eternal was thus revealed to them. They worshipped Jehovah, the Self-existent, the "for ever" God. He proclaimed Himself as "the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob." He was not ashamed to give Himself this title. "I am the God of those who worshipped, trusted, served, and praised me.”

If dead and extinct, God, who could have continued them in being for His service and love, allowed them to perish; He had permitted and enabled them to adore His everlastingness, and yet allowed them to sink into nothingness. Would He boast of being their God? Nay! "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." "He has prepared for them a city;" an endless life with Himself; "wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God." Their praise of a "God for ever" lifted them into the region of an endless life, and made them partakers of the nature they adored. "Life and immortality" are clearly “brought to light" by the Gospel. 'We know that we have eternal life;" "Our life is hid with Christ in God;' ""Because He lives, we live also." We exult in a kingdom, a power, a glory, which can never cease. We rapturously repeat the Hallelujah Chorus, "For ever! For ever! For ever!" Cau we who are privileged by God to render such worship, be allowed by the same God to perish? Can we conceive of Him looking with complacency on such worshippers, listening to their ascriptions, and then allowing one after another, thousands after thousands of them, millions after millions, with this word "For ever" on their lips, to drop into the grave and be themselves dead" for ever"?

No! We are ourselves for ever if we really worship a "for-ever God." All our interests are thus lifted up into the great future. It is not for the present merely that we pray. The Kingdom we seek

to promote is for ever; the Will we wish to be done is for ever; the bread we ask in the strength it imparts for promoting that kingdom and doing that will, has a bearing on the "for ever;" the forgiveness is pardon for ever; the trials in which we ask succour are a discipline for the for-ever life, and the deliverance from all evil is a deliverance for ever. Thus all things about which we now pray are linked with the life that is for ever. It is "God our Father for ever who provides our bread, orders our steps, appoints our trials, for our good and His glory for ever. Thus, nothing that happens to us is trivial when we bring it in prayer to the region of the "for ever." When the writer was in Jerusalem, he visited the ancient quarries beneath the city, where are seen heaps of chippings, and marks on the rock showing the size and form of the stones which had been excavated for building the temple. These were laid in their courses without sound of hammer, axe, or chisel. Here, in these dark caverns, were prepared the goodly stones which were to form parts of that majestic structure on Mount Moriah, where the sacred feasts were celebrated, and the sacrifices were offered, and the anthems of Hallelujah resounded, and the Shekinah of God was revealed. How mean in itself the condition of any one stone, hewn and chipped in that dark cave; but when its purpose was contemplated, what dignity invested every touch of the shaping tool, and every minutest part of the process that was preparing it for taking its place in the temple of God! And so with all the circum

stances of our earthly life. Our daily joys, sorrows, trials, and cares are no longer insignificant when overruled by God, the great Master Builder, to constitute us temples of the Holy Ghost now, and to prepare us for a place in the heavenly Jerusalem, the house not made with hands, where God reveals His unveiled glory, and every stone of the structure is resplendent with the reflection of Himself; not insignificant when we consider that these little things of our earthly existence are fashioning us as living stones for the temple of God, by establishing His kingdom in our hearts, by moulding our will to His, by giving us victory over temptation, by purifying our hearts from sin, by enabling us to appeal to Him as "Our Father who art in heaven," and to ascribe to Him "the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, FOR EVER.”

AMEN.

Amen is the echo of earth to heaven: it is man's

response to God. This very word was uttered three thousand five hundred years ago, when the Israelites worshipped in the wilderness, and afterwards when they responded to the priests in the temple. Our Lord often uttered it, and the apostles and early Church habitually employed it; martyrs have died with it on their lips, and at the present day it is used throughout the world by "all who profess and call themselves Christians." For it has been transferred without translation into every language, so that China