Or it may be the cry of the man who is overwhelmed with the sense of his own personal insignificance in the great sum of things, and who cries, "Show me the Father, and it sufficeth me." You realise the infinite multitude of men, and it seems altogether unthinkable that God can care for each one. So you might argue that it would be impossible that one sun could lighten every man that cometh into the world; and yet it is done, and every day there are millions of eyes that rejoice in the same sunbeams. Because God is the Father, this sense of personal insignificance is destroyed for me. I am no longer a mere atom of life driven and drifted along the great vortex of time and death. I am an individual with a birthright and with a destiny. The father cannot help knowing his child, and the child the father. We move in the cognisance of the Father's eye, and the embrace of heaven is upon us. To mere power we might be mere atoms, unconsidered dust-motes, floating in the cold light of eternity; but to love we are individuals to be loved with discriminating tenderness, and in the love of God we are sufficed and satisfied. Oh the sense of infinite peace that falls upon us when we realise for the first time that we are brought into personal relation as sons with the blessed Father! And that you may realise now and here. This is the Gospel I preach to you, my brothers, that you may know the Father. That is the Gospel that Jesus Christ preached. There is no other gospel; it is the Gospel that sufficeth men.

In the life of Henry Ward Beecher there is a very

striking passage. A young man wrote to the great preacher and said to him: "I am sinking down into the depths of shame: preach the terrors of hell to me-anything to me--I shall be at the church next Sabbath anything that will save me." The preacher said, "That night I preached about the Fatherhood of God: I felt, if that would not save him, nothing would." That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you, my brother. Is it clear? Do we now understand what it was that Christ wanted us to know about God? Have we now grasped the great conception of God that Jesus Christ would flash home upon our spiritual intelligence? If you are not quite clear about it, listen! Listen to the words of Jesus Christ Himself; and they shall close my sermon for me. This is His word about a wayward and disobedient child: "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry." There is the complete picture of Fatherhood, both in its severity and goodness. Behold the severity which will not allow men to fall without being hurt, and

ordains for prodigals who spend their substance in riotous living, the bitter pains and penalties of disobedience. Behold the goodness, which has compassion on them when they are yet a great way off, because they are still children dear to the parent's heart. They began to be merry, and the universe resounds with that Divine merriment, with that infinite and unspeakable joy still, when son and father meet. Do you wish to know what Christ wanted you to know about God? Turn to the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, and read the parable of the prodigal, and see there the conception of God that Jesus Christ carried in His own heart, and expressed in His own life, and preached to all who heard Him, and preaches to the world to-day, if we will but listen, if we will put aside the fears and darkness of a distorted theology, if we will but accept Him and find rest and satisfaction in Him. May we say: "Lord, it sufficeth us." "I will arise, and go to my Father."

ت

XIV.

THE USE OF MYSTERY.

"And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God."— MARK Xi. 22.

THE

HE incident of the cursing of the fig-tree is one of the most remarkable and mysterious in the career of Jesus. The impression which the occurrence produced on the minds of the disciples we can readily understand. There was something in this display of power over nature which awed them more than the healing of the sick or the cleansing of the leper. Alone among the miracles this is a miracle of cursing; but it is a curse upon inanimate nature, and for a reason which seems sufficient. When Christ would show the retributive aspect of His power, the bolt falls not on a man, but on a tree; not on an enemy, but on that which cannot feel loss, and yet may teach the unspeakable lessons of what such loss means. For the first thing we have to recollect about the miracles of Christ is that they were never purposeless, and never appealed to the mere terror or admiration of men. Let there pass before the mind's eye the long array of miracles, the great crowd of lame who leap, of dumb

who speak, of lepers who are cleansed, the mighty pageant of stormy seas hushed into silence, and the forces of a hitherto unfettered nature bound into obedience, and then ask, Did Christ work these signs and marvels only to excite the curious wonder of men? It is because men have risen no higher in their conception of what a miracle is than this, that they have found it difficult to believe in miracles. But the true signification of a miracle is that there was a new, a supernatural, power in Christ to undo the results of evil, to restore lost good, to set up a more beneficent order among men, and at the same time to judge and condemn men. The miracle is always more than a marvel, it is a sign.

You will notice that Christ does not make the figtree barren; He simply seals its barrenness with the curse of death. As it rises before the tired eyes of the traveller, with its tender green and promise of fruit, it is a living deceit, and its punishment is a judgment on deceit. In fact the only possible signification of such a miracle as this, is that it is an object-lesson and index of certain aspects of Christ's power which are generally overlooked. The tree is stricken because its profession is false, because it stands like a bold hypocrite challenging the praise of men, but mocking their expectations. Its true use was to bear fruit, and the life that has no fruit is a life on which the door of death must fall, and ought to fall. Thus, then, the cursing of the fig-tree is the exposition of the retributive power of Jesus Christ, the Divine vision which discerns deceit,