the thought of the writer is, that Christ was carried outside of the walls of the city with the same or worse feelings. It is the Christ of reproach whom Dore, Munkacsy and others have had most success in placing upon canvass, not the Christ exalted, not the Christ risen and ascending, not Him at God's right hand, not the man of joy, but the man of sorrow. Doubtless the artist shares the feeling of humanity, that it is impossible to approach a satisfactory portrait of the Lord in any mood. We would have more charity for the artist if we remember that he seeks to give us Christ under the hastening climax of death, disgrace and rejection. Where is the soul who is under the weight of scandal and ostracism? Who is she whom her best friends have forsaken? Where is the member of the shut-in-door-society whose time is all taken in caring for a feeble minded child, who laughs and gibbers from morning till night? Where is the thrice sober one who wrestles with poverty and drunkenness beneath his or her own roof? Can you not find in Christ's life, lines parallel to yours? Can you not find comfort and help with Him? The great test is not what are we willing to enjoy but what are we willing to suffer for Christ? I like to hear a grand old organ render mighty welling waves of music under a master's touch. It is pleasant to hear one of the three or four silver tongued orators of the world speak the glories of the cross. But the force, the every day power that tells, is the power of tears, of lacerated hearts, of sacrifice. These show love. They exhibit generosity. When every inch of Christ's head was bruised with thorns, shall we avoid thorns? What is a thorn? If nine tenths of this congregation should double their pledges for the support of the Gospel at home and abroad, would that be a thorn? We need Sunday school teachers who will call on their scholars at least once a year. Is that a thorn? We need men who can not be bought, tax-payers, who would rather lose all their property than be bribed by license fees to manufacture drunkards and wreck homes. We need more good men who will run for office and consider defeat in a good cause an honor. Christ would never have allowed the high priest to strike Him if He had not considered it an honor to be struck. Did He cast pearls before swine in putting Himself in their power? No, unless his body was a pearl. They turned to rend it, but not him. When He was thwarted and hindered, shall we cringe at obstacles? When He bore burdens shall we throw them off? The bright and popular may meet us. They met Christ. But shall we debase ourselves by dodging here and there to escape our cross? If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him." If we constantly avoid suffering, we have not yet caught the spirit of Him who was met with "Hosanna” on one day, and with "Crusify Him" on the next! Who is willing to accept overthrow for Christ? He who sees that the best things of life are those we generally mourn over. He who sees in pain a step upward if rightly used. He who rejoices to suffer with Christ. Christ did not taste sorrow for its own sake. It was a step to character a step to growth for the race. Behold Him exalted to-day, after all this obloquy. Music, oratory, joyful hearts vie with each other to do Him honor everywhere that church bells ring. The half has not been told. The genius poetry and science of the world praise Him. In his life of Christ, Geike has collected some testimonies of great value. Shakspeare the greatest intellect honors him. Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, Newton, Milton put his name over all. Jean Paul Richter says "The life of Christ conserns Him, who being the holiest among the mighty and the mightiest among the holy lifted with His pierced hands empires off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel and still governs the ages." "I esteem the Gospel," says Goethe, "to be throughly genuine, for there shines forth from them the reflected splendor of a sublimity proceeding from the person of Jesus Christ, of so Divine a kind, that only the Divine could ever have manifested upon earth." "How petty are the books of the philosophers, says Russean, with all their pomp compared with the Gospels! Where is the man who knows how to act, to suffer and to die without weakness and display? My friend men do not invent like this." The intellect of the world acknowledges the glory which shines through the humiliation of Jesus. The cross precedes the crown. It is for us all in our place, in the cloud of witnesses, to go foward, "Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith;" and "for the joy that is set before " us, to " endure the cross," despise "the shame” and to sit “down at the right hand of the throne of God.” * * * "The petitions of the Lord's Prayer are so few, because they are so comprehensive, and because by this comprehensiveness they lead us through a thousand secondary desires that might bewilder and mislead us and plant us at the centre of hope. But let this sense of a kingdom be with us, and how rapidly it spreads over the entire social field, with a sharp decisive discrimination between actions. * * * The spirit really open to this impulse is indifferent to nothing, is put in possession of the entire world for constructive, spiritual purposes."- John Bascom. A Greylock Pulpit. The Victorious Kingdom. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom comc. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Matt. 6: 9, 10. This is not a fixed form of words given by Jesus to His followers. Christ had His disciples in an unconscious kindergarten. They saw that prayer to Him was more than sport to a child. In reply to their desire for instruction, it was not His aim to furnish a form of words, finding at last a perfect style in only the English tongue. He used the opportunity of the moment to crystalize their best thoughts, in their natural order. What He gave them was exceedingly brief, since in His own boyhood, He must have seen how the elaborate ritual of the synogogue became a formal compromise between true devotion and worldliness. The preaching and practice of Jesus, justify the following paraphrase. "I have no ritual for you, but I would feed your aspirations toward God. After this general manner, you have grown enough to intelligently pray," "Our Father which art in heaven." Our Father," not my Father; we can not go to heaven alone. "Our Father," not our King; Jesus came with a spirit which transforms each soul into a sovereign, and in time every state into a republic. "Which art in heaven." That is, all that an earthly father is to you is infinite in the Heavenly Father. "Hallowed be thy name." You revere your earthly father, your Heavenly Father is hallowed beyond comparison. "Thy kingdom come." The kingdom of whom? Of the Father. Whose will be done? The will of the Father. The supremacy of God, God's will and heaven, is not of the earth, dynastic, despotic, but it is that filial supremacy which common men like John and James wished were true, and had not dared to put in words. The kingdom was within them. They attended the synagogue, as we attend the church, but the synagogue was not the kingdom. The kingdom was in them, seminal and germinant, not in the temple or in the sacrifice. As they gathered in groups, from house to house, after Pentecost, as later they were known as the "called together," the kingdom was still within each soul. The" called together" or the church, was a varying phase of a part of the great kingdom. The church was too visible, too partial to have frequent mention or chief regard by our Lord. It is the kingdom of which He constantly speaks, which the church, whatever its success, must serve. After individuals had vainly |