individual at his own threshold is better in the sight of God than the finest and most transcendental scheme for the conversion of the world that ever entered into the brain of Christian philanthropist. I repeat it, if we be Christians it will be our desire to Christianize; if we be lights we shall shine, and it will not be only instinctively so, but designedly and voluntarily so.

Let me ask, what is there in our creed, or in the Christian character, that we ought or would wish to conceal? Is there any one truth in the Bible that any would wish to place under a veil? any one ray shining from its gleaming page that you would like to quench? Is there any one trait amid whatsoever things are pure, and just, and lovely, and of good report, that you would wish to hide? Not one. I know nothing in the Bible that we should seek to hide; I know nothing in the Bible that we should not wish to be known among all men. And, therefore, if we are Christians, if we appreciate our Christianity, if we feel it precious, if we believe the testimony of this book, it will be our desire and our delight to make it known; and we shall find that, when it is best and most generally known, it will give the greatest happiness and do the greatest good.

Let me add, as a reason for this, that it is only by living, personal, visible Christianity that we can do real and lasting good. In other words, there are thousands who do not read the Bible, but read with a most keen and searching eye those that profess to believe in the Bible. Many a man on the Exchange, in the Parliament, in the ordinary walks of life, who will not open the epistles of St. Paul, will scan the living epistle that every man's life presents in the

world; and he will judge what religion is, not by going to the epistles of St. Paul, which it would be his duty to do, but by looking on the living exemplifications of it, or epistles that profess to be written from it, copies in the world of the great original in glory. And therefore it becomes us often to ponder this, whether we are embodying and presenting before the world that true Christian character, as quiet and consistent, as it is remote from ostentation, parade, and pretence, or from reticence, secrecy, and cowardice. It is a question with us, are we so embodying the religion we profess, that the living epistle in the warehouse, in the shop, in the market, will lead people back to the written epistles in the New Testament for yet greater light and yet richer knowledge? We should try to make ourselves as epistles sent through the post office of every profession, street, and lane, and trade, and place, so plainly written, so unmistakeably defined, so obviously from God, so clearly and unmistakeably going to God, that it shall be seen whose we are, whence we came, what superscription we bear, and what destination we are rapidly approaching. We should be so completely copies of Christ, the great original, that we should be seen to be not epistles written with pen and ink, but written by the Holy Ghost on the fleshly tables of the heart.

Here is one of the ways of converting the infidel. He will not probably read the Bible, or he will only read it to scoff at it; but if we are exemplifications of its spirit-living transcripts from its page; if men that will not read the beatitudes on the mount see in us peacemakers, the merciful, the pure in heart, the hungry and the thirsting after righteousness; we believe that, reading these things in living men,

they will fall back upon the original of which these are the copies, and learn themselves to say, like the woman of Samaria, "Now we believe, not because of your reflection of what religion is, but because we ourselves have drunk at the stream, gazed on the original, and learned what Christ and Christianity are. In the very same manner, in passing through the world, let the Romanist, the victim of superstition, see what Protestant Christianity can make you, and he will then learn it is not a system of nega tion; he now thinks it is merely the denial of all that is in his creed; but if he can see in us the living personations of righteousness, and peace, and joy— if he can see us united to Christ and to each other -living in holy and happy harmony, he will infer that your religion is not a cold negation, but a life, a sanctified force, a plastic and powerful influence, that makes men holy and happy below, and must therefore introduce them to holiness and happiness hereafter. Thus your character, if you be a living epistle, seen and read of all men, will also influence the unconverted; those who know the truth, but hold it as a dry dogma, a dead creed, a mere name to live by, as the apostle calls it—a form of godliness without its power-will see that there are instances where religion has ceased to be a conviction only, or rather more than a conviction, has become conversion; they will see that true religion is not a mere creed, but a character, a conduct; they will witness in you not merely the cold phosphorescence of an intellectual faith, but the power, and force, and warmth of a life that overflows the whole character, and represents on earth the nearest likeness to him who has left us an example

that we should follow his footsteps. They will see that the new birth is not a dogma only, but a character; that justification by faith is not a mere belief, but a life and a power. And this character, this exemplification of the living epistle, will also be useful, and avail when any of you are called upon to go to distant lands, to emigrate to far distant shores. You may carry your Bible with you, and no doubt you will do so; but if in addition to the Bible you can carry with you the grandest commentary that can be written upon it—the life that embodies in itself the precepts of the Bible, then people will see in Australia, or in Canada, or India, or on the shores of far distant lands, the Bible sculptured in living men who live as Christ lived, and as that book prescribes, and whose whole character is the creation of God. Man can write books; God can make us Christian men. Man can write dead letters; God can make us living epistles. The printer can throw off endless sheets of printed Bibles; but it needs the Holy Spirit to inscribe upon our hearts those precious truths that will enable the minister to say to the people, "Ye are our witnesses, written in our hearts, known and read of all men, because you cannot be hid; you are manifestly declared to be the epistles written by us, written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, which may be broken like those that Moses brought down from the burning mount, but on the tables of hearts that shall beat whilst there is a recollection of blessings tasted upon earth, and a God enthroned in heaven to be worshipped and praised."

May God make us such epistles; and to his name be praise and glory! Amen.

CHAPTER IV.

PAUL'S CONFIDENCE-OUR BLINDNESS-WE PREACH NOT OURSELVES-SERVANTS OF CHRIST AND HIS PEOPLE-TREASURE IN EARTHEN VESSELS-APOSTOLIC SUFFERING- INWARD GROWTH FROM OUTWARD SUFFERING.

IN the previous chapter Paul had shown that his ministry was characterised primarily as the ministry of the spirit, in contradistinction to that selfish and literal ministry of the letter the issue of which in those that preached and heard it was unto death. And he begins this chapter by saying, "Therefore seeing we have received so dignified, so precious, in itself so efficient a ministry, as we have received mercy, and are sure that it will be in every case the savour of life or the savour of death, we do not faint or despond, as if our enterprise were sure to issue in failure. On the contrary, we have laid aside all dishonesty, all craft, all attempts to captivate and to persuade with the wisdom of man's words; and we rely upon the truth alone, preached by us, and blessed by the Spirit, as able to make wise the worst and oldest unto everlasting life."

And then he says, "As this gospel is so plain, so simple, how comes it that it is occasionally hid?" The answer is, "If it be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. And why hid to them? not because of its darkness or its obscurity, but because the prince of this world hath blinded their minds;" they have given him welcome