who was for a moment the witness to the glory of Christ on the throne of heaven teach us what a Risen and Ascended Christ can be to us, my brethren. From the moment in which He thus saw Christ, this same man accounted himself to be the slave of this Jesus. He writes letters beginning, "Paul, the slave of Jesus Christ." He calls himself the servant or slave of Jesus Christ, just as he might be the servant or slave of God. He calls this Christ, the "Lord of the dead and living." He writes letters, does this St. Paul, to Christians living in all parts of the world, some of them thousands of miles from one another, and assumes that in some wonderful and mysterious way all of them can be IN this Christ just as they can be IN God. And he means, by thus saying that they are all "in Christ," something far beyond what the Psalmist means when he says to God, "Lord, thou hast been our refuge," or "dwelling-place;" for he means that all Christians are, or can be, in this Risen and Ascended Man, as a vine branch is in a vine, or as one of our limbs or members is in our body; so that this Man, whilst seated in glory at God's right hand, should communicate grace, and strength, and goodness, in some secret but real way to men in all parts of the world; and that Christians, though they may have seas and oceans rolling between them, should yet have a hidden life in this same Ascended Christ.

Again, in the first words of all his letters, this once blind and blinded persecutor invokes grace upon his converts from this ascended Jesus, as if He were, conjointly with God His Father, the fountain of grace. "Grace be to you," his letters almost always begin. "Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ."

Again, He along with God is assumed by this Apostle to establish the Christian. Again, if a man, no matter where, awakes from the sleep of sin and rises from the death of sin, then the Apostle promises that "Christ shall give that man light.”

Again, all Christians are supposed by St. Paul to have received forgiveness at the hands of this once Crucified and now Ascended Christ, and on that account are to forgive one another. His words are: "forbearing one another and forgiving one another; if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."

Again, this Apostle glories in his very infirmities, because they were the means of bringing out, in stronger contrast, this Risen and Ascended Christ as the true and only source of the power he wielded over his fellows. "I take pleasure," he says, "in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong;" meaning by this that the

weaker he was in the eyes of the world, and in the felt impotency of his own flesh, the more implicitly was he compelled to rely on this Risen and Ascended Christ; and Christ will never fail those who rely upon Him, but will assuredly glorify His power and grace in them.

Again, St. Paul, after he had seen Jesus on his way to Damascus, speaks of this Ascended Jesus as if He would not always remain on that throne on which he had seen Him for a moment or two, but that on some particular day this Jesus would rise up from this throne, and come down and shew Himself to all men in that inexpressibly awful brightness in which he (St. Paul) had once seen Him.

On this account, the Apostle made it the business of his life to make men believe in this Jesus, and come to Him in prayer and faith, and continue with Him by humbly relying on Him inwardly, and taking outwardly bread and wine, over which solemn blessing had been said in His name and in His words; and he said that they who did so, showed forth the death of this Ascended Jesus till He should come again.

He speaks in a most astonishing way of all Christians, who form the Church of Christ, being destined to be the wife or bride of Christ. Now this was the very way in which Jehovah spake of Himself and of the Jewish Church. The Lord says, in the book of the prophet Isaiah,

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"Thy Maker is thy husband, the Lord of Hosts is His name;" and St. Paul takes up this extraordinary language and applies it to Christ and to the Church of Christ. He says, for instance, "Christ gave Himself for the church, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church;" and speaking to a particular Church, the Apostle uses the same language: “I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."

Such expressions are either the grossest exaggeration, or they teach us that this once Crucified, but now Ascended Jesus, is God. God to us, just as Jehovah was God to the Jewish people; and not a God afar of-a God taking no interest or pleasure in His people-but a God Who comes so near to us, and takes us so lovingly to Himself, that the only way of describing His personal interest in, and true love to us is that He is the bridegroom, and we, His Church, are the bride.

And St. Paul in using such language was no enthusiast, no fanatic. He spake in this, as in all other things, the words of truth and

soberness.

And we are indifferent to it all. We are cool and unconcerned about it all, simply because we do not believe it, as St. Paul did.

We have need to pray for faith in this matter of Christ's Ascension.

For if it be true, then, He who was born in a manger; He who was subject to His parents; He who worked as a carpenter at Nazareth; He who was baptized by His own creature; He who was tempted as we are, and by the same evil one; He who preached the Sermon on the mount, and then declared by the authority of the Lawgiver Himself that the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers are blessed; He. who gave such promises to those who pray sincerely and in His name; He who said such very strong things about almsgiving, about not being covetous, about giving of our substance; He who uttered such fearful things against the unmerciful, the unforgiving, the implacable; He who said such mysterious things about eating His flesh, and drinking His blood, even though He were to take His flesh visibly up with Him into Heaven; He who was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, deserted by all, rejected for Barabbas, and at last crucified-He Who was all this, or did all this, if the Ascension be true, is now at the head of all things at the right hand of God. And He is there in order that He may make all His sayings good.

But is not this a fearful truth for us who have not kept His sayings? Undoubtedly it is; and we have but one hope, and even that is in His Exaltation, that He is exalted to God's right hand to "give repentance and remission