leaning on his own right arm;" man fulfilling himself in God. And yet nothing is so necessary for our life in the world. What the age needs, what we all need, is to stand in our place and put our hands to our work with a high, concentrated motive. Only in the persistent thrust of such a motive, will our life find coherency and momentum. Christ alone can give us this motive, and with it, that peace which comes to a life that has found its meaning and fulfils its purpose. IX. THE FULL STATURE OF Α ΜΑΝ. And He said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. And the spirit entered into me when He spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard Him that spake unto me. EZEKIEL ii. 1, 2. WHEN God speaks to a man, He com WHE mands him to stand upon his feet, and the Spirit of God, when it touches a man, sets him upon his feet. Let us, as far as we can in a swift glance, get the bearings of these facts. Men oftentimes speak, and more frequently act, as if the religion of Christ paralyzed manhood and cut the sinews of life. They seem to have a vague fear that if they accept the Christian faith, somehow or other an iron fetter will be slipped over their nature, and the 8 sunshine fade from the sky. This is the reason, I believe, why so many turn a deaf ear, or give a reluctant ear, to the religion of Christ; why, at the best, they approach Him so timorously, hesitate to yield Him their hearts, and refuse to allow Him any large room to work His purpose in their lives. Now I concede the premise that determines this attitude to Christ; the premise that a man is entitled to the rounded fulfilment and the highest reach of the nature which God has given him. Our nature is a parchment on which God has written His will concerning us. The difficulty is that the original writing of God is so blotted and interlined with the writing of the devil, that men misread their nature, and take it at the devil's interpretation instead of God's interpretation. It were bad business to minimize and ignore the forces of evil lodged in our being. No metaphysical juggling will explain these forces away. No æsthetical rose-water will heal the wound and shame and misery which these forces are working in our life. Surely God's image in us is obscured by rust and dirt; but |