It has

anointed can never be repaganized. caught glimpses of God which have taught it horror of sin. It cannot sin laughingly. However it may deliver itself to sin, from the depths of its illumined and quickened conscience shapes arise, which fill it with scorn of self, and, despite itself, it stretches out pleading hands to the Eternal Righteousness, the vision of which, once given, forever remains to torture or to heal.

The laurelled poet, who set to such high, clear notes the problems and challenges of our modern life, who sang to the last generation, and has bequeathed to this an unfilled throne, in his "Palace of Art," has painted the world of to-day in its eager quest of knowledge and beauty:

"I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.

I said, 'O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear Soul, for all is well.'

"To which my Soul made answer readily:
'Trust me, in bliss I shall abide

In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal-rich and wide.’

"Full oft the riddle of the painful earth

Flashed through her as she sat alone,
But not the less held she her solemn mirth
And intellectual throne

"Of full-sphered contemplation. So three years
She throve, but on the fourth she fell
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears,
Struck through with pangs of hell.

"She howled aloud, 'I am on fire within.
There comes no murmur of reply.
What is it that will take away my sin,

And save me lest I die?'"

In this modern music do you not catch an echo of that old Hebrew psalm? "Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord." And in the life about you and within you, do you not hear the moan of the deep? It surges more restlessly than ever in the heart of man. Do you not hear the cry? It may not be as simple and direct; but it is more piteous, more strenuous than the cry of those olden days.

The mystery of life, the mystery of sin; they have not changed; they have only deepened. They are real to us; they are close to us; but more real and closer still is the mystery of God.

II.

The Struggle for Existence.

II.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE.

On earth peace.

- ST. LUKE ii. 14.

THIS

It

HIS note from the cradle-hymn of Christ gives the key-note of His mission. suggests moreover a fundamental question in regard to human life. Let me state it. It is not only fundamental, it is practical. The answer we give to it affects our habitual thought, our ideas of right and wrong, our daily conduct, the whole structure and purpose of our social organization.

What is the natural state of man? In other words, what is the force that has pushed him upward in the evolution of life? What is the process by which he has acquired his faculties, and trained his powers, and built up his sciences, and matured his civilizations? Peace, or war? The philosophy of life which this age has formulated, with which the books,