members, instead of suffering with one another, and caring one for another, are foolishly and wickedly disputing one another's claims to be members of the body at all.

It was surely in wise and affectionate foresight of this sad tendency to disunion that the Master instituted one ordinance by which the essential oneness of the Church should ever be shown forth. At the first celebration of this supper, there was most probably but one "loaf" and one cup. It was thus, in the truest sense, a communion of the body and blood of Christ-a joint participation of the merits and virtues of His sacrifice and spirit. And such it was designed ever to be for the whole band of disciples. The act of a joint participation in one symbol is designed to keep in clearest possible distinctness the fact of oneness in Christ. The relationship of believers one to another is not a fancy or a theory-it is a fact. Acknowledged or ignored, there is the oneness-one Lord, one faith, and one baptism; and, therefore, that oneness must be realized-it must be felt and shown. The Lord's Supper will ever serve to prevent its being altogether overlooked. But one purpose contemplated in the institution of that ordinance will be frustrated, if the exhibition of Christian unity at the Lord's table and in the sanctuary do not lead to a more constant exhibition of that unity at every table, and wherever Christians can assemble. It would be strange if the consciousness of relationship among the different members of a family were allowed to show itself only on stated. occasions, and in certain formal acts. The adhesive force of a common affection ought certainly to overpower all influences tending to separation. And so the consciousness that we are by faith the sons of God, and joint heirs with Christ, ought to reveal itself under other circumstances than those

which necessitate its temporary manifestation. Hearts that burn with one affection ought often to beat within the sound of one another's pulsations. Hands that clutch the same Cross ought often to grasp one another. Eyes that gaze on the same Saviour ought not to have cold glances for one another. All relationship involves obligation, and the highest and nearest relationship involves the most sacred and lasting obligation. Know you any nobler, truer bond of kinship than that which makes us brethren in Christ Jesus? If not, then I beg you to remember that there is a duty belonging to our kinship-a duty from which there is no escape -a duty which Christ has made more imperative by the new command given to us, that we should love one another as He has loved us -a duty which involves, therefore, not words, but acts of sympathynot professions, but proofs of brotherliness-not the cherishing of love, but the expression of love by deeds of self-sacrifice, kindred in spirit to those of Christ.

III. The Lord's Supper as an Anticipation: its Meaning in Relation to the Future.

"Ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come."

The Lord's Supper points not only to the past, but to the future also. It has not only a commemorative, but also a prophetic meaning. It leads us back to the dying and departing Lord; it leads us forward to the living and returning Lord. It carries us within the mournful precincts of Gethsemane, and into the darkness that enwrapped Calvary. It carries us also within the walls of the NewJerusalem, and into the brightness and splendour of the marriage supper of the Lamb. You will call to mind the prophecy which our Lord added, when He gave the cup to His dis

ciples, "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom."

Now, whatever the immediate reference of that language may be, it is certainly allowable to regard it as the Saviour's solemn pledge and prediction of a renewal in heaven of the communion He was then enjoying with His disciples on earth. It is the prediction of a renewal in heaven of the communion of earth, and of the enjoyment of a communion in heaven richer and more perfect than that of earth.

1. The Lord's Supper is the pledge of a renewal in heaven of the communion of earth.

But

The Saviour knew, when He uttered the words just quoted, that at the next communion of the disciples He at least should be absent. He says, Do not grieve for that absence as if it were to be eternal. Look onward; I shall come again unto you. "I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." He promises that the act of fellowship which was just then being concluded, should be repeated-that the time should come when they all who had eaten of that bread and drunk of that cup should again gather around their Lord in the Father's kingdom. His giving and their taking that symbol of His body and that symbol of His blood was the pledge of reunion in person, as it was the sign of their abiding union in spirit.

And the Lord's Supper is to us the pledge of a renewal in heaven of our earthly communion. As we come together from time to time, we silently mark that one and another of our beloved ones are absent. We remember how they once sat by our side, and took the

bread and the cup from our hands. We think of the last time when they sat with us at the table of the Lord; and it seems, as we look back to that thrice sacred hour, that we hear them saying, "Let not your heart be troubled; I go away from you, but we shall meet yonder!"

For as we think of any act of communion with the departed children of God, we know that the outward and visible act was only the token of a deep and sacred fellowship of spirit. That fellowship, we know, death cannot destroy. If death cannot separate us from Christ, it cannot separate us from one another. And so we look forward and upward, in most blessed confidence and hope that the time will come when we shall drink the fruit of the vine new with all those who have at any time united with us to show forth the Lord's death.

2. But the communion of heaven will be not merely a renewal of that of earth-it will be a richer and more perfect communion.

Whatever the joy that filled the hearts of those who sat with Christ at His first supper, some feelings of sadness must have mingled with their gladness. They hardly knew the real character of the events that were about to transpire. They had vague apprehensions of a coming trial for each and all, and of a terrible trial for their Lord. They felt that sorrow and death hovered very near that upper room. But what awaited them they did not know,--what failures,-what disappointments,— what hardships and persecutions should be theirs,-what storms they should brave when this hallowed hour of calm and peace was gone, they did not know. And so that communion was not all joy; it was not a perfect fellowship. But it was the promise of a perfect communion: "I will drink it new with you in

my Father's kingdom." Not here, but there, in the kingdom of my Father; not this fruit of the vine, but a new and richer cup, we shall share there. Now, were these words spoken only to the eleven? Nay, I think they are spoken to us all. Christ says to us, as we meet together in obedience to His command," Ye shall meet me

in my Father's kingdom. Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb!"

Feast after feast thus comes and passes by; Yet, passing, points to the glad feast above,

Giving sweet foretaste of the festal joyThe Lamb's great bridal feast of bliss and love.

GOD has made everything beautiful. The mere inert world of matter is arranged into forms intended to awaken admiration. Its hills and valleys, mountains and plains, lakes and rivers, sunny nooks and sheltered dingles, present a thousand features on which the eye rests with a sense of joy and rapture. Nor is the old earth ever left without a suit of apparel more or less gay and lovely. Robed in ever-varying herbage, plumed with trees, crowned with flowers, she is the delight of all her children, many of whom are never tired of admiring her beauties. Animal forms and colours present charms of a still higher order. Numberless insects, birds, fishes, beasts, and reptiles, exhibit graces of mould, line, and motion, on which none can look without pleasure and wonder. Have you ever looked into the eye of a gnat through a microscope? If so, you have discovered a world of beauty in that little globule. Or have you examined the plumage on a butterfly's wing through the same medium? Can He be indifferent to the beautiful who has lavished so much of it on this tiny and frail creature, and on the untold millions

of its race, and of other races? Nay, when there seem to be exceptions to this great law in the animal world, those exceptions will be found, on closer inspection, to be more apparent than real. In the forms which offend or even disgust the prejudiced and uninitiated, the naturalist does not fail to perceive much to detain and fascinate him. But of all animals, MAN was intended to be the most perfect and the most beautiful. Good indeed the creation was, and was felt and pronounced to be by the Creator, without him; but with him it awoke a deeper satisfaction, and received a richer and grander benediction, as very good." Our first parents, as they came from their Maker's hands, were perfect in constitution, structure, and symmetery. Milton portrays them in language which none will accuse of exaggeration :

66

"In their looks divine, The image of their glorious Maker shoneTruth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and purc.

For contemplation he and valour formed;
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him:
His fair large front and cyc sublime de-
clared

Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks 9.

Round from his parted forclock manly hung

Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.

She, as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets waved, As the vine curls her tendrils."

"Paradise Lost," b. iv.

And again, for the great poet is never tired of painting this primitive beauty

"Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture dignity and love."
Ibid, b. viii.

Of all the beauties of the human form, those assembled on the countenance were no doubt originally the most perfect. His brow, where holy thought was ever to have sat majestic; his eye, formed to drink in and reflect the light of heaven; his mouth, speaking words of grace and wisdom, inviting and returning love; the whole ensemble of his features proclaimed this last child of dust as the most complete and wonderful of all God's works on earth. Nor are we even yet left without some faint reminiscences of his pristine state. In a few rare instances we have beauties as if they came fresh from Paradise still. The "human face. divine" has occasionally some touches of its old grandeur and of its old loveliness in it; while memories of the early creation, consciously or unconsciously, continue to visit the human heart in that warm love of the beautiful which seems to be an innate principle of our nature, and which a little cultivation seldom fails to evoke.

It was sin that spoiled the world, but chiefly the world of men. Every defect in the human form has its counterpart and its cause in the human spirit. We were all bruised, injured, and marred in Adam when he fell. The human face especially

has never ceased to exhibit the degradation and the anguish of that hour. The body is little more than a casket; it is the man within that gives it the character it bears. Satan, envious of a beauty which he himself had lost, struck to the ground this handiwork of God, and it rose up the poor impotent maimed thing we see it now. Every defect in man's frame, whether seen in others or felt in ourselves, should raise our resentment against the author of the fall. And let the man, with his crushed heart, go up to God in cries of pain and sorrow for that healing balm which, by bringing him inward restoration, can build up his broken form strong and fair, perfect and beautiful, even as it was at the beginning.

For RELIGION is intended to make mankind beautiful again. Its office is to restore and renovate from its foundations this ruined temple of the Divinity. The counterwork of infernal malice, it is destined to undo all the mischief which that malice has inflicted on our nature. Beginning with the spiritual, it goes on to involve the psychical, and ends with the physical, parts of our constitution. And although each part of this great work may have its own moment of commencement and completion, yet the whole process goes on simultaneously, and the new expression and the altered countenance not seldom bear witness to the renewed heart. Nor should this work be retarded even in its external manifestations. People need not be afraid of being too good-looking. Let others see the Christ in their faces and in their characters, and they will not fail to see something to love. It is too bad to expect love without trying to merit it; and yet those who merit it least are often the first to grumble that so little of it falls to their share. There are faces, it must be confessed, which make

unconscionable demands on human charity. The wonder is, that they have power to move it at all. It is most true that the eye sees in an object what it brings with it the power to see; and this must account for it that superlatively kind natures see something to love in all. In many cases, however, it can only be the love of pity; admiration must be altogether out of the question. Do you want to be commiserated? Then make your face very sour and very long, and your object is gained, so far as your pious friends are concerned. But if you want something more than commiseration, get sufficient alkali to neutralise the vinegar, and a little gratitude and cheerfulness, or sometimes even a good hearty laugh, to diminish the dreary distance between your forehead and your chin.

Good Christians should improve their faces-there can be no doubt about that. Many of them have at first (indeed, some of them all through) little more than the rudiments the mere raw material, as one may say-of a good face.

things! Some of their number not only remind you of the old pleasantry about grace grafted on a crabtree, but make you suspect that crabs and verjuice must enter largely into their diet every day. Far for ever be it from us to regard with anything but tenderness the countenance which has been disfigured by hardship or marred by grief. It is the expression of discontentment, bad temper, low passions, and hardness of heart, against which our feelings rise in rebellion; and we feel it almost like a wrong when we are expected to pay the homage of admiration to faces marked by any of these. The only way of improvement in such cases is to improve the character, when all the rest will follow as a matter of course. Extract

the acid from the heart and the wormwood from the temper, then neither of them will be seen in the eye or on the lips.

Whatever may be their peculiarities, there are some things that are always beautiful in men. Intelligence is one of them. Not the fancied wisdom which makes them pert and conceited-this is always repulsive, and is very much in the line of being puppyish; but real intelligence,-the waking up of the intellectual life of the man, revealing itself more or less in every expression of his face. The plainest countenance is beautiful in the light thus given to it; and this is a method of improvement open to us all. It requires neither great learning nor elaborate culture; what it does require is a mind open to attract and prompt to reflect whatever light may visit its sphere. Dulness and stupidity are forms of repulsion for which little excuse can be pleaded, and on account of which, at any rate in our day, few would be entitled to appeal to our sympathy. Persistent ignorance, where there are so many inducements to seek information, will be found in most cases to be a fault of the individual rather than a misfortune incident to his position in life.

Another step in the same direction will be found in the proper government of the passions, and the due control of the heart. Few things revolt us more in the countenances of men than pride, resentment, anger, and sensuality. These, or either of them, may be in never so small a degree, and yet they will betray themselves; and they are real deformities to whatever extent they may exist. All infants are beautiful, and that chiefly because they have no bad passions to express. Unsoured by contact with the world, they find ready admission to almost every heart. Yet it must be con