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ranted the attainment of no more fame than this, and no more permanent position in the annals of the world and the souls of men. Then how does this Christ come to have indisputably a name that is above every name? We have seen that to have attained to such celebrity in His simply human capacity was utterly impossible; hence the inference is direct that He must have had recourse to means ultra-human. The most radical principles of good and evil must be inverted before it can be assumed that this ultra-human power was sinister. Consequently Christ was divine.

This is the real and the only solution of the problem. This is the reason why, while the names of the conquerors, the diplomatists, and the sages of the past, are only known to the historical student, the name of Jesus is with millions a sacred and awful name in every rank and grade between the peasant's hovel and the imperial throne. Contemporary names are only heard of in the halls of learning, or obliterated from the records of the living. Surely the finger of God is here. Alexander is merely a memory, Aristotle a learned word, and Mahomet an astutely charlatanic voluptuary; but in the name of Jesus the hearts of the nations rejoice; it is mingling with ten thousand prayers that are for ever ascending from earth to the sleepless ear of God; it is a name which millions of mothers teach the children upon their knees to pronounce with the most sacred reverence; it is the name which, in the hour of trial or disease, millions lose sight of the world and cling to with a faith overmastering death. Foxes had holes, the birds of the air had nests, the Son of man had not where to lay His head; He died a felon's death, and the bloody shroud wrapt His remains in a stranger's grave. Suffering, poor, humble, almost despicable, such was the Son of

Mary. A claimant, indeed, for immortal renown! But through the spell-word of that humble name the siege machinery has thundered against the embattled rampart; the blood of the nations has soaked a thousand battlefields. At that name the diademed heads of the civilised world have bowed, out of reverence to Him whom the rabble mocked and spat upon; and for Him men ennobled by brave hearts and powerful minds have poured their life-blood upon the scaffold, have endured heroically the rack and torture, or shrunk into a cinder in the devouring fire. Men are in earnest when they make such sacrifices. In earnest about what in this case? A child born in a stable? a poor suffering man who during His whole life occasionally experienced want and hunger? a wretch dying a death of torture and ignominy? Precisely so. party, through the far vista of over eighteen hundred years, is a living motive and spirit-force in the world of to-day.

This

Mankind are gullible. The world has had its impostors. But did ever an imposture amount to this? Christianity broadened and strengthened through many centuries of confusion and darkness in the days of the learned monk and the reckless and unlettered warrior. Well, admit that an imposture might take root and flourish in such a period. But this same Christianity has now come down to us through several ages of light and freedom, broad intelligence and fearless thought. And does it accordingly bid fair to die out and be swept into oblivion with the multitude of the world's antiquated and cast-off ideas, and exploded theories, and creeds? Nay, verily. True intellectual intelligence and light go to nourish the celestial amarynth. Science and philosophy bear the torch before the triumphal march of Christ, as He goes forward to claim

all the nations of the earth for the kingdom of His Father. We may be wiser, we may be better, we at all events stand upon vantage ground to that our fathers occupied ; but about this Christ at least we agree with them. For this Christ, should occasion require, we are willing to do all that they have done. How is this-for the babe born in a stable many centuries ago? Yes, we do not profess to understand all this; we are human, this is not all human; my brethren, can you fail to see in it the finger of God! W. STEWART Ross.

SILENT PRAYERS.

O, the multitude of silent prayers. God alone can count their infinite number. They tremble upon each ray of light, and go out alone in the darkness, and are borne quivering upon each breath of air up to the great white throne of the Almighty One above. Not the prayers

that are offered up by eloquent lips from the crimson and purple cushions of the popular pulpit, but the silent prayers that fill the earth and flutter through the vastness of heaven; the prayers that escape from the smothered sobs of a broken heart, and are told by the glistening tear-drops as they steal the bloom from the fading cheek; the prayers that are sent away to heaven by the low, unheard moan, and the prayers that are unchained by the glancing of the tearful eye up to the blue, star-gemmed vault above; the prayers that are prayed in the secret chambers of the heart, with no echoes except those that are answered back by the weary footfall of the lone watcher; the prayers that are unceasingly escaping from

the heart of the never-tiring mother for a child whose feet are wandering in the paths of sin; and the prayers which are for ever breathed, from the purest and most sacred chambers of the mystic soul of the gentle maiden, for the loved one far away upon the battle-ground, or suffering in the stifling rooms of a distant hospital. Yes, these are the prayers of to-day. These are the prayers that are constantly ascending heavenward, and return to earth again -return with the blest assurance that souls shall be redeemed from sin and wickedness, and that the loved ones shall be saved to return again, and shall be preserved from the wasting pestilence and the swift death-arrows of the battle-field. And, praise be to Him who heareth prayer, our earth is being brought from its painful ordeal, purified and refined by the secret yet mighty influence of silent prayer.

PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST.

(From the Book of Isaiah.)

WHO hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from Him He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our

peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken. And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

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