of men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. i. 18). Therefore we read, "The wrath of God abideth on him that obeys not the Son" (John iii. 36). Hence reconciliation does not take away wrath, it takes away enmities. Faith takes away wrath. After the cross there is no occasion for enmity, real or apparent, but the occasions of wrath may be infinitely increased by it. The great day of wrath lies in the future. In it is the wrath of the Lamb slain for human redemption, and it is displayed in connection with a rejected salvation. By sin, which is the cause of this separation, whether original or repeated, God is wronged in his love, in his truth, in his righteousness, all of which are saving attributes, in which men should have had, and always should have, boundless trust.

Now, what is the reconciliation? It is evident that though the heart of God may not change in its fatherly relations towards his sinful children, the relations cannot remain the same after the breach, and that the love cannot show itself in the same way after as before sin. It may be a love of pity, but cannot be a love of approval. God may be gracious, but cannot sacrifice the rights of his righteousness and Fatherhood to human willfulness. To indicate these rights, to establish and satisfy his love, and to win back the love and confidence of his children, God sends the Son of his love. He gives Him to and identifies Him with men, by a sacrifice which only God can measure. By perfect obedience to the fatherly will, by perfect submission to such suffering as is the just and proper element of a life in which sin bears its fruit as an estranged life, He both satisfies those rights and proves that love to be essentially a reconciliation. In his person He actually reconciles God to man, for with the Son of Man, in whom men are reckoned, God is well pleased. There, then, on the cross, the original relation between God and men, which during the ages had been obscured, buried, as it were, under the mass of human enmity, sin, and all its just results, comes again into the light; and the cross itself is the proclamation, as it is the proof, that the love of God abides, and is an effective adjusting force in restoring men to the rights and privileges of childhood. But this is only one side of the reconciliation. To make it effective in men, they must as truly be reconciled to this reconciled God; and a minister of the gospel must make this especially clear and enforce it, as an ambassador for Christ. The reconciliation of God needs the reconciliation of man, not to make it true, but to complete it. The failure of response does not, indeed, make the

reconciliation ineffective in him who proposes it. If I have been at variance with a friend, and have become reconciled to him, his continued enmity cannot rob me of the fruits of reconciliation within myself. The sorrow and pain which he may thus give me is apart from the experience of reconciliation. Even righteous indignation at the failure of the full effect of reconciliation cannot destroy the effect in me. This is true. Yet reconciliation must of necessity strive after its full effect, for it is of the essence of love. Although, therefore, it were conceivable that all sinners should refuse to be won, and the reconciliation be effective in God only, yet God being reconciled cannot but desire the mutual removal of all distances and seek to bring men nigh. Hence the gospel demand, Be ye reconciled, which, as the apostle rightly says, takes the form of beseeching and entreaty. God takes the attitude of a suppliant, as the Scriptures so often say, stretching out his hands as one that implores, pleading tenderly, and mourning over men as one mourneth over an only son. This is because of the original relation. If God were merely a governor, a judge, a king, and had in that character provided the atonement, He would not do so. He would then publish a proclamation of pardon for as many rebels as pleased to avail themselves of it, and leave it to them, as mainly interested in it, what use they would make of his favor. But being a Father, God is as much interested in the reconciliation of men as they are, and more so; and as much interested in their reconciliation as in his own. No one understands the gospel who leaves out that paternal element, or forgets the parable of the Prodigal Son. God cannot be indifferent to the result of his love. That is impossible to a Father. Why? Because rebellious, callous children deserve so much tenderness and interest? Oh, no. But because to be a Father is to have so much love and deep concern. gospel, that its tone and urgency. Therefore it abounds so in arguments of love, in words of tenderness. Therefore there is in it so large a place for the cross and a slain Son of God. The Lord Jesus has taught us, in the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, that reconciliation is as fully a need of God as it is a need of men. Hence this entreaty: Be ye reconciled. To be a true ambassador for Christ is to feel and appreciate this divine argu

ment.

That is the essence of the

This also explains why there is in the gospel so much of the hardship of sin, the danger into which it brings men. That gives room for this peculiar argument of pleading, mingled with author

ity to make the beseeching effective, just such pleading as a parent uses with a child in danger, as when a child is in the upper part of a burning building: its only chance of escape is in bravely jumping down that it may be caught, but it dares not, and refuses. Who can untwist in that father's tones the entreaty, the anxiety, the command, the threatening, the indignation, the love, which blend in the demand to overcome distrust and fear, and do as it is bidden? So complex is the gospel, that by any means men might be touched and won to the complete power of the reconciliation. The real basis of that pleading is the bond between the father and the child. Men sometimes speak slightingly of the gospel as a mere appeal to fear. They do not understand it, then; and the preacher greatly wrongs the gospel who gives occasion for such an understanding of its motives and appeals. It is an appeal based upon real relationships between God and men. No man ever really responds to the gospel, until he gets a perception of that. Men who only get their own consent to flee to God because it is a choice between hell and God, and they fear hell most, are not likely to find much in God. The present misery of sin, as it robs them of home, must teach them the truth and blessedness of the Father reconciled and waiting for them, with the doors of home and heart wide open. The divinely taught response to the demand of the gospel is this: "I will arise and go to my father, and say to him, I have sinned.” The preached gospel must fit that confession of faith.

It needs to be emphasized to-day as the calling of the ministry. The most prevalent objection which the gospel has to sustain is always that against its fullness and freeness. One can always be allowed to say almost anything in the pulpit, so long as he will keep up and strengthen the bars which separate God from man. One can get adherents to almost any notion and speculation sooner than to that of the unconditional freedom of salvation. One can get the consent of men to any terms more easily than to the free grace of God. The offense of the cross has not yet ceased. That is what makes it a hard task to preach the gospel in its simplicity and purity, and not yield to the demand to modify it by the considerations suggested by human fear and unbelief. But it is imperative upon the ambassador for Christ to do this, and, by a constant communion with Christ in the study of the gospel, to come to the assured consciousness which enables him to say with Paul: We have the mind of Christ, the temper, the feeling, of the blessed Lord, who was willingly nailed to

the cruel cross, because He had faith in the love of the Father as an infinite saving power. All one needs to do, then, is to let the gospel speak for itself, and trust its efficacy to that mighty Spirit who is perfecting the work of God unto the great day of God. Chr. Van Der Veen.

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

SHOP-GIRLS AND THEIR WAGES.

IN discussing the question of "Shop-Girls and their Wages," I may take for granted that the general nature of the problem is sufficiently understood. Popular agitation has made most people familiar with it to an extent that enables me to dispense with a minute account of it. But I cannot rely upon general knowledge to fill out the special features of the question which deserve attention, and which must be taken up in the sequel of our discussion. The first point, therefore, to be remarked is the force of usage in fixing the business habits against which the sympathy for woman revolts.

Custom, which has always been a powerful factor in determining wages, independently of all considerations of justice, has placed the reward for woman's labor below that of man for the same work or for the same time. In some cases, at least, there may have been valid reasons for this. But whether there were or not, the effect of the custom upon economical adjustment is such that it is difficult to change it abruptly at the bidding of abstract justice. I do not say impossible, but difficult, because at any given moment the state of business in a particular firm may, for all that the public knows, be hanging on the conditions which this custom presents, and so, in that case, the attempt to demand or enforce abstract justice may take away by insolvency even that which the laborer actually has. In circumstances where woman was not selfdependent, the custom would work less injustice, and the ordinary formula of justice, namely, that there should be an equivalent exchange of services in determining wages, would be modified by the law of competition and individual freedom of action. But not to dwell upon the abstruse side of this question at present, there are numerous factors in modern life, such as the density of population and its relation to natural resources, the concentration

of property, increased facilities for monopolizing the availability of one's producing powers, due, on the one hand, to mechanical improvements, and, on the other, to social and economic solidarity of large areas of territory, and affiliating influences, which have thrown a large class of women upon their own resources, and their condition compels them to face a custom, and if not a custom, certain forces of competition, which the merchant, however he may feel about their injustice, is equally compelled to act upon; and the consequence is a great deal of friction and difficulty in finding a practical solution for a problem which seems and is, theoretically, simple enough. The problem is sufficiently defined by common opinion. This will have it that the wages of shopgirls, sewing-women, etc., are not just, or at least are subject to contingencies which are a perpetual menace to good morals. How can this difficulty be remedied? What possibility is there that woman shall receive the just remuneration for her labor that will prevent her from being placed between alternatives which make the love of life stronger than the love of virtue? This is the plainest way in which the problem can be stated, and the simple answer is: Give her just wages. But this answer is likely to ignore a whole nest of problems more serious than the one we are considering. A rational and practical solution of it, therefore, must be sought in methods which do not conflict with the forces that have hitherto made so many efforts ineffectual.

The methods which have been employed naturally divide themselves into two classes. First, those which represent an organized effort to see that shop-girls, sewing-women, and defenseless female labor in general, shall receive the wages which have been promised to them by employers, and which they have actually earned in pursuance of orders. Second, those which represent an organized effort to advance existing wages, or to prevent their reduction, and the injurious effects of competition, and, in a measure at least, to check the arbitrary power of the employer. These methods are entirely distinct in their nature, purpose, and mode of working, although professing and aiming to effect the common object of justice to a certain class of laborers. But the different degrees of success with which they have met prompts us to consider them separately, both for the sake of the interest which their history and work excite, and more especially for the light which the greater success of the first throws upon the problems of the second method.

The first class of organized efforts to see that justice is done in