knowledge of a SAVIOUR! It is rather death than life. It is a life which violates the first principles of our creation! We were created for the glory of GOD, and only in seeking that glory can any one of us possibly find lasting joy! A life of sacrifice is a life of true reason, for therein the reason of man becomes conformed to the reason of GOD. By the Word of GOD we were created, and in the Word of GOD we have our strength. To realize His Word as supplying the law of our action, and the strength of our effort, His Word Incarnate as the manifest example for our ministration, and the communicated substantial basis of our sanctification, is the true apprehension of faith. There can be no spiritual service rendered to GOD according to any other law than that of the Cross, nor in any other strength than that of the Crucified. I beeseech you, therefore brethren, by the mercies of GOD, that you present your bodies a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable unto GOD, a service which the eternal Word of GOD requires, which the incarnate Word of GOD empowers, the only true, the only reasonable service.

In the strength therefore of your adoption in CHRIST, be no longer "conformed to this world

but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of GOD." As partakers of the life of the Incarnate Word, take up the law of His self-oblation. "I come to do Thy will, O my GOD. I am content to do it. Yea! Thy law is within my heart."*

*Psalm xl., 10.

THE GOOD SHEPH

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EAST

"I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Sh Life for the sheep."

HE instinctive poetry of nati

has ever delighted to regard a people under the image of a she sheep. But it was reserved for CHRIST to infuse a new dignity a character into that relation.

Well

Shepherd take a prominent plac thoughts in connexion with the r for the old idea of earthly care ris newness of living energy in the "the Shepherd of Israel that sit Cherubims," Him "Whom Go

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feed His people and to be their Shepherd," according to His promise, "I the LORD will be their GOD, and My servant David a prince among them. Thus shall they know that I the LORD their GOD am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the LORD GOD. And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your GOD, saith the LORD GOD."*

JESUS is the Good Shepherd, not merely in the exercise of tender watchfulness, but in the truth of Divine power. He is the Good Shepherd, to whom there is no parallel, none that can be likened. All others are but hirelings. He is the LORD of Life. Others may express in faint shadows His loving care. None can show His living power. But for Him must "Israel be scattered on the hills, as sheep having no shepherd."† He is the Shepherd, Who gathers them together in the participation of His own life. Other shepherds must give way as the devouring enemy comes on. He is come not merely to save from death, but to communicate a life which no touch of death can harm. "He that eateth of the Bread, which I give to him, shall live for ever."

"I am

* Ezek. xxxiv., 23, 31. +1 Kings xxii., 17. S. John vi., 58

come that they might have life, might have it more abundantly." Probably we lose much of the name, "the Good Shepherd," from of its natural beauty of associati associate with it primarily the i tenderness and sympathy and love. parable of the shepherd seeking h was lost, fills the mind with so templation of one portion of the w that we are the slower to perceive ness of CHRIST, as our Shepherd really transcends all parallel in it while it dignifies those features of some accidental likeness of outer moment appear. The Good Shep is Good, not only in tenderness, All goodness is summed up in Hin LORD our GOD, exceeding gloriou majesty and honour." It is the si due unto His name," which ma the Good Shepherd, the Shepher And that honour consists in the of His own life to those he feeds