he be just while yet he is the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.

In this marvelous provision of infinite wisdom and love, holy intelligences, as the Scriptures teach, feel deep sympathy. There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, for he is thus brought to the cross of Christ, and to divine forgiveness through the atoning merit of him who was "delivered for our offenses." These things the angels delight to look into. The theme, the sight, the joy are new and mysterious.

The atonement must have been something more than compensation for merited punishment; for, if that were all, how could the principle have challenged the profound study of angels? Nor were the sufferings due to sinful men transferred to Christ; but he made an offering of himself and a propitiation for men; and thereby a new covenant in the blood of Christ, shed for many for the remission of sins, in some sense deeper than we can understand, became the basis of the atonement. The great Sacrifice was not offered by men to God, but was made by God for men. It was the plan of redemption found out by infinite wisdom and love, and was accomplished through the incarnation and death of the adorable Redeemer.

"How great the wisdom, power, and grace,

Which in redemption shine!

The heavenly host with joy confess

The work is all divine."

III. The salvation of man for which the atonement provided consists of something more than a means of pardon. It is the means of a new creation as well. The soul must be regenerated and born anew before it can dwell with God. The affections and tendencies of the heart must be turned toward God and goodness. The law that thundered in the words, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," has not been repealed. The sacrifice on Calvary aimed, therefore, a destructive blow at sin and its consequence, death. It seems divinely designed to break the heart, hard and sinful though it be, and to kindle therein the supreme love and constant choice of purity, truth, and goodness. The springs of action and motive in the soul are thereby changed, cleansed, and purified, so that thenceforth

a new principle of spiritual life takes the place of sin and disobedience.

What can accomplish so strange a work but the Divine Spirit in a heart attracted by the cross? We thus see that reconciliation to God must come through the acceptance of the gospel-disclosed condition-faith in the Crucified One--and through the resulting obedience of a holy life. In the man who has acted wrongfully, and devised evil, there must be an entire change of mind, of purpose, and of conduct. He cannot truly come to Christ for pardon, because Christ has died; but he must abandon his wrong doing, choose the right, and then, by faith, rely on the only sacrifice for sin. A new principle must thus actuate his life.

There is, then, in the work of redemption, at least a twofold feature a plan for the pardon of guilt, and a means for the recovery of the sinner from his lost condition, so that he may escape from sin and death. The Saviour himself declared, before his departure from earth for his throne above, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance [change of mind and conduct] and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Luke xxiv, 46, 47.

The incarnation, humiliation, suffering, and death of the Son of God were the method of man's salvation. Divine wisdom and love found this means, and this only, as necessary for the recovery of man, for the extirpation of his sin, the regeneration of his soul, his reconciliation with God, and his restoration to divine favor. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners (enemies to him), Christ died for us." Rom. v, 8. He died that his enemies might become his friends.

Thus our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ; and the way of this wonderful reunion is through unfeigned repentance and sincere faith in the atone. ment of the Redeemer. Not now must man be eternally separated from his loving Father, but sin is to be slain and cast forth forever; so that the saved are they who are arrayed in fine linen, even those "who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." They have been

restored to a new life through faith and the constraining force of love and gratitude.

Our Daysman with God showed to the world a gentleness, a patience, a meekness, an overflowing pity, a condescending love, such as had never been exhibited on earth. He said, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Thus it was that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. What a symbol of infinite love, wisdom, and compassion is the cross on which Jesus died! And what a wondrous means it is for the elevation of man from his lost estate to a glorious destiny! The highest utterance of divine love was the sacrifice of Christ. What God-like compassion for fallen man was here made known!

IV. But the redemptive work of Christ was not a mere expedient to meet an emergency occasioned by the fall. Thereby, indeed, a process is displayed by which the guilty can be pardoned, while justice is maintained; and thereby, also, a provision is set forth by faith in which, beyond the sphere of justice, sin can be destroyed, the human soul regenerated, the moral image of its Creator restored, and affinity with the pure nature of God regained. This is a recovery of what was lost by Adam's transgression. But is that the extent of the great redemption by Christ, and of heaven's wondrous love in that redemptory work? Nay: the incarnation and atonement of the Son of God lift our thought upward to another glorious conception.

Had Adam retained his integrity his race could never have been more than co-equal with him. But now-O now Christ has taken our nature into union with his own, and we are made joint heirs with him to an immortal inheritance! Our future glory and destiny soar far above the Adamic, and are lost in the incomparable light of the glory of Christ! His promise is, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.... Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. . . . For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." These words speak of a higher heaven than Eden. They are symbolic representations of the blessed in Christ's eternal kingdom.

What had been the glory and the destiny of our race had Adam never sinned has no charm of conjecture now; for who can doubt that man's higher glory and destiny have been enriched by reason of the incarnation and atonement of the blessed Redeemer, through which the infinite measure of God's eternal love to the world finds wondrous expansion? What must be that glorious life immortal of soul conscious and. divinely-chosen union with Christ! The human soul, a divinespark from the uncreated fire, breathed forth from the oneSource of all life and light, will be unspeakably glorious in eternity through its relation to Christ! Stars of transcendent. glory, unseen in this dim and cloudy night of time, will glow and glisten in the firmament of the new heaven!

From all eternity the most glorious object of time must have been the cross of Christ; and to all eternity will its radi-ance be reflected in the souls of those who have been redeemed and have washed their robes, and thus gained right to the tree: of life, and entrance through the gates into the city. Christ will not be ashamed to call them brethren. Heb. ii, 11. And these are they who, by the Almighty Father, were fore-ordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Rom. viii, 29. We need not look back to Adam, and think of a lost hope for his pristine grandeur. We look for inconceivably more. Having Christ for our elder brother suggests a higher grandeur than Adam ever knew. The grace of the redemption by Christ Jesusconfers on his followers the glory that he wears—a glory immeasurably above what Adam enjoyed in Eden! To gain that glory for us our blessed Redeemer consented to go through the scenes and sorrows of his humiliation, the grief and suffering of Gethsemane, the taunts and buffetings of the judgmenthall of Pilate, and to endure the shame and agony of the cross! But what he thus gained for us, and what are the blessed results of the redemption, the human mind cannot in these limitations of time depict or comprehend. It is a theme for eternity. Then it will fill the universe with joy.

54-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. III.

ART. IV. THE ALLEGED DECAY OF THE FAMILY.

THAT the family institution in the United States of America is passing through a process of disintegration, if not of decomposition, and that the social and political welfare of the republic is menaced with great danger by this assumed fact, is the firm belief of many patriotic citizens. What conclusions have been reached in the course of long and patient investigation of this subject by the writer will be apparent in the following article.

The literature of the family is abundant. Two recent writers, to whom we are much indebted for facts and sug gestions, give a list of seventy volumes in different languages consulted by them in the prosecution of their work. The Rev. Samuel W. Dike, Corresponding Secretary of the National Divorce Reform League, also points out the vast body of published materials available to students of this problem. But, with the exception of Anderson On the Domestic Constitution, there has been no valuable treatise thereupon accessible to the English-speaking public. The appearance of The Family-An Historical and Social Study,* by Charles Franklin Thwing and Carrie E. Butler Thwing, is a timely and excellent contribution to a deeply felt need, and will doubtless be followed by others of more or less worth.

The importance of the normal family institution to Church and State can scarcely be overestimated. It is necessarily the social unit. Were men and women to persist in pure celibacy, the human race in little more than a century would be as extinct as the enormous palæozoic fauna.

The ideal family is yet to be embodied. Adam and Eve, unfallen, were perfect as a social unit; fallen, they were imperfect. But even when perfect they, as a family related to the possible commonwealth, were only inchoate. When sons and daughters were born to them the first family was fully developed. Yet this was not an embodiment of the ideal, as the religion and morals of the parents and the irreligion and wickedness of one of their children amply attest. Perhaps that of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth approximated to the *Boston: Lee & Shepard, pp. 213.