The Gospel of Hope.-A lord for the New Year.

THE New Testament shows that life is to be interpreted by the principle of hope. It crowns hope, with faith and love, as unfailing and immortal. As love is to be the supreme principle in our conduct; as childlike trust is to be our feeling toward the unseen Father; so joyful expectation is to be our attitude toward the future. The whole tone of the New Testament is triumphant. Everywhere there is an inspiring sense of victory—a deep, fervent anticipation of a future whose glory cannot be measured.

This element of joy and hope is very remarkable in a book which so fully recognises the evil elements in life. Nowhere is there a deeper sense of the misery and degradation out of which the race is struggling. The weakness of the flesh that drags down the spirit has never been so described as by the Apostle Paul. The actual sins of the race, the animalism and cruelty and selfishness that reign among men, are nowhere else brought out so vividly as by the New Testament writers. We feel in Christ Himself an unspeakable sorrow for the woes and sins of men.

So, again, this book has the most impressive teaching of personal responsibility. No other words so rouse the listener to put forth all his energies. The power of the soul in shaping its own destiny is the basis of endless appeal, warning, encouragement. There is no hint that the Divine government is a system which bears men on to happiness independently of their own will or effort. The human will is addressed in terms as vigorous as if on it alone depended everything.

Taking into full view all the elements of evil in the world, keeping constantly present the freedom of human nature and its power of self

B