if they had been really identified with it, if they really cared for it, looked forward with deep curiosity, with earnest anxiety, to see what would become of the country when the new administration had taken up the work. It was not simply an administration, or a national life, that had rested upon St. Paul, but Christianity. And he was

hoping to the very end, and thinking of this Christianity. In his last words he had been telling his disciples how to carry on the work he had been doing. It reminds us of John the Baptist giving his work to Jesus and saying, "He must increase, but I must decrease". We can see at once the secret of such depth and richness as that. The man cared for the work itself, in its own intrinsic character, and not simply his own identification with it. Or, if any of us are identified with any good and great work, let us be sure that we are unselfishly identified with it, that we really care for the things themselves! And if the message should come that we are to lay down our work, let us forget what is going to happen to us. It is the noblest death a man can die. When the soldier is stricken down, the question leaps from his heart to his lips how the battle fares. Let him hear of victory, that all is going well, before he breathes his last, and the noble soldier-soul is content. Read through the second Epistle of Timothy, and you will feel the noble spirit of a man who cares for the things of Christ outside of

their identification with himself. How ready he is to give up his own life, and to forget the giving up of his own life, in order that, when he is gone, the work of Christ may live and grow!

Then comes the last great chapter, full of personal' anticipation. He is always going back and forward in his writings, as one might when writing to his dearest friend in a desultory fashion; sometimes dwelling upon things belonging to Timothy and the church, sometimes upon things belonging to himself. In the epistles to the Thessalonians, the first of all his writings, St. Paul seems to picture the coming of the last days and the immediate return, or the speedy return, of Christ to this world. The kingdom of heaven was to be established here. That was near the beginning of his ministry. He has ripened since then. It is shown in the broadness and simplicity of his later writing. He no longer lays down special doctrines. with regard to the last things-telling just how the heavens are to open and Christ is to appear; who is to be raised first; how all things are to be arranged-as in his first Epistle. It is not that his thought of them has changed, but he speaks of them differently now. Everything has become more spiritual. Whether the crown of glory is to be given him in the world beyond the skies or in this old familiar world, that question has all gone out of the Apostle's thought. There is great simplicity in his conception of the future life, of

the way in which Christ will bring forward the things belonging to Him from this dispensation to the other. We are taken up with minute definitions and details; we are almost ready to fight with any one who thinks Christ will come in a different way from our way. By-and-by, if we are really ripening into the Spirit of Christ, we shall be satisfied with the one great truth that Christ will bring together our soul and His soul, and that we must always belong to Him. We shall cease to think, almost cease to care, how this is to be accomplished.

Often this growth comes as a revelation by the death of our dearest beloved. We have speculated this way and that way-of the first and second coming, of the millennial reign, of the first and final resurrection. Some day our dearest friend lies dying, and at last we see him die. And our soul leaps to the one certainty, fastens itself upon the indisputable truth, that the soul belongs to God, and that, if we can live with God in the few years in which we are left behind, we shall not be spiritually separated when the time comes for us to follow the one who has gone before. We shall be in God. In God, somewhere our soul will find that soul which is in God also.

Do not be afraid when the things that you used to feel made the substance of faith now seem to be but its fringes. It is a certain truth that in Christ is your redemption, and that to be with

Him will be everlasting life, wherever in the universe the soul may dwell. When we stand strong in this assurance, our little notions may drop away, and we shall be secure in the great certainties of God, and the soul, and everlasting life.

The last recorded teachings of St. Paul may be summed up in these four things:-1. All doctrine exists only with reference to the increasing holiness of man. 2. The institutions of the Christian church are always precious; the church must have them; but only for the purposes of the spiritual life; and they are always to be flexible, changing with the changes of the spiritual life which they are intended to promote and sustain. 3. A man who is identified with a work, in a deep spiritual sense, when he is called upon to give it up to another, will keep his interest in the work to the very end. Let me know that I am to die tomorrow morning, and I want to have such an interest in the church, the country, the world, in everything I care for now, as I have never begun to have in my life. I want to see if there is any last thing I can do. 4. The certainty that Christian truth is simple. God's love, Christ's redemption, the Holy Spirit's perpetual presence, the certain happiness of the soul that trusts in Jesus Christ-we want to have hearts in which all these great simple things shall be held as certainties.

EXPOSITION OF THE NINETEENTH

PSALM.

"The heavens declare the glory of God," etc.-Psalm xix.

ONE reason for the dislike which is often felt for religious doctrine is, that it has been made to occupy a place for which it is neither intended nor fitted. If you take a man and put him in a place that is unfitted for him, you degrade him, not only for that office but for every other office. It has been a great mistake to take doctrine, which is simply the teaching of truth in its true shape, and try to make it fill the place of the whole of Christian life. Doctrine cannot bring the entrance into Christian character itself. Beyond the learning of the richest truth must come life-the entrance of the Divine Spirit to make life in my soul. Because it has been given a place it cannot fill, doctrine has been depreciated again and again in that great system in which it must always lie as a corner-stone.

Another and more superficial reason why many of us tend to depreciate doctrine is, that it seems to be somewhat dry. There is exultation in an appeal to the feelings. We are disposed to listen more willingly to one who says, O Come into this