which make religion too often present only an ungraceful caricature of the world. And thus mankind reiterate themselves from age to age, from country to country; the heart goes through the same narrow circle of follies in a thousand spheres ; each generation is the poor echo of its predecessor. Alas! the dear-bought experience of the Church of Christ has not brought its members wisdom; the story of trial and victory written in the blood of martyrs has not taught us prudence. With whole libraries of records that tell us how the chosen few among our fathers fought and won the heavenly conflict, we begin as infants,—-inexperienced, feeble, irresolute,—the easy prey of every common-place illusion, vanquished by the novelty of seductions which were old in the days of Peter, and John, and Paul.

Thus temptations may vary outwardly; but while the human nature on which they operate remains unchanged, they must be found in substance much the same. But of all the equalizations of evil in successive ages, of all the repetitions of trial from generation to generation, of all the instances evincing that, in the Church as in the world, "the thing that has been will be,"-unquestionably that expressed in the text is the most startling and fearful. The CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST, in its literal reality, stands alone in the history of man. It was the last and darkest depth of human criminality. The original fall, and the rejection of the Redeemer, are the two saddest pages in the story of our race. But mournful as is the former, it has never, probably, left the impression upon the heart which is at once produced by all those dread accompaniments that prepared and embittered the last sufferings of the meek and merciful friend of man. He had been only known as the dispenser of unpurchasable blessings, as a man patient of suffering beyond the experience of living men, prompt to sacrifice every guiltless comfort to the slightest wish of those around Him, rejoicing with every innocent joy, and weeping with all who wept. His unbounded powers had ever been at the service of humble affliction. No one had ever dared to breathe calumny against the profound purity of His life. None like Him had ever united abhorrence of the sin with love and pardon for

you

the returning sinner. In claiming to be the Messiah of prophecy He disturbed no temporal throne; in claiming to be the Messiah of the heart He but asked, one would think, what no generous spirit could refuse. Such a Being as this was among us to die a death of violence; men framed like and me destroyed Him. As if to mark the event as the uttermost point of human crime, Providence seems to have permitted it to gather to itself a tribute from almost every evil passion of our miserable nature. Designed to atone for all guilt, almost all guilt was called out to accomplish it. Injustice, cruelty, false shame, unworthy indolence, covetousness, ambition, hypocrisy, envy,-all were in different ways exhibited in this tremendous tragedy; all contributed in different ways to fix the catastrophe. No, never, surely, is man, in all the possibilities of futurity, destined again to consummate a wickedness like this. It must be for ever solitary in the world, an event placed beyond anticipation, repetition, or parallel; a lonely and terrible monument of unapproachable guilt.

Not thus, however, speaks the voice of inspiration. Heaven has not spared us this trial. When Christ was about to die He instituted a memorial sacrament of his passion, to show forth His death until He come. It would seem that there is, as it were, a fearful and Satanic sacrament too, of that same dread hour, by which it is still in man's power to reiterate and prolong His death until He come to judge the long succession of His crucifiers. St. Paul delivers to us the tremendous truth, that there is in man a continued capacity of" crucifying afresh the Son of God;" a power to act over again all the scene of his torture, to league with the malignant priests and the scoffing soldiers, to buffet the unresisting cheek, to bind the crown of thorns.

You will be mistaken if you think this matter can be dismissed under the cold and vague criticism which pronounces it a merely figurative illustration intended to heighten the colouring of a vivid description. It is not thus that the deep sayings of the Holy Ghost are to be treated. Believe me the Apostles do not descend to the artifices of popular rhetoric. The proposition before us is of too momentous import to have been

ever intended for the secondary or accidental purpose here imagined. Such a declaration as this, if it were not in some sense literally true, would have been misplaced and exaggerated to a degree not to be admitted by any reverential interpreter of the word of God.

It must, indeed, be conceded, that the crime to which St. Paul specially ascribes this fearful character is a peculiar one, and, in its full extent, not ordinarily exemplified. He speaks of deliberate apostacy from the faith of Jesus. But there is no one characteristic of direct and utter apostacy which does not, in its own degree, belong to those daily desertions of the cause of Jesus which ally the miserable votaries of the God of this world with the avowed enemies of Christ in every age. There are the apostacies of the social table, of the fire-side and the market-place, the refined apostacies of our own modern and daily life, as real as the imperial treachery of a Julian, or the coldblooded abandonment of a Demas. To every one of these the same impress belongs; it may be branded more or less deeply, but it is branded on all; they are all alike rife with the spirit of Caiaphas's council-chamber, they are all echoes of the voice that cried aloud, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!"

Do you doubt this, my brethren? Is it too severe a charge, too oppressive a thought to entertain? You are not pleased with the ruthless allegation, so needlesly, unjustly, intemperately stern. It is scarely fair that a Christian minister should seize the advantage of his position to load his fellow-servants with so heavy a denunciation. Far from the possibility of such unspeakable disloyalty, you have often thought, as you mused over the mournful narrative that precedes the triumphant close of the Gospels, that you would gladly resign the whole world to have had but the opportunity of standing beside that cross with the Virgin Mother and St. John; of raising your voices boldly against the murderers; of avowing with all the energy of indignant justice, that you would be no partners in their wickedness; of dying, if necessary, under their blows in behalf of the suffering innocence that writhed and bled before them. "What! crucify Jesus, my Lord and my God! The rightful Sovereign of my heart, the meek and majestic sufferer

whom no man need have been commanded to adore, for no single-hearted man could ever have heard or seen Him without the instinctive adoration of devoted love! Crucify Him? No; bring me to the trial, place me in the judgment-hall of Pilate, or in front of the accursed tree; let me look but once upon my Saviour's face, and I will tear that wreath of thorns from his dishonoured brow, and bend in worship of my insulted Lord before them all!"

Alas! we cannot do this for you. The test, perhaps in mercy, is impracticable. But there is a test we can apply. Will you honestly abide it? Pass from imaginary suppositions to attainable facts, from what you might do if you but were as you never can be, to what you are doing in the position where God has placed you. Reflect on the frame and temper of mind, on the weakness and the wickedness, that made the chosen people of God the murderers of His Son, and try if you cannot catch some faint image of that treachery in your own hearts. But be true to yourselves if you would indeed detect the lurking evil, and think not that even among the best of us, in a world of oft-recurring temptation, it is useless to prosecute the scrutiny. Doubtless the accuracy of the image will vary in degree: here, through progressive sanctification, all but obliterated; here, through remaining worldliness, vivid and undeniable; here, through total rejection of Christ, all but complete. To those whom God has taught and guided by His own deep Spirit, these reasonings may be little applicable; they may be enabled to feel themselves truly one with Christ in His humiliation and His sufferings; they may be given to know, by the blessed experience of an "overcome world," that their faith is indeed competent to stand a fiery trial. Yet, even they-if any such rare and blessed spirits be before me-can find it a cause of holy vigilance to be thus urged to examine themselves yet more and more, and a cause of delighted gratitude to feel that, if there be cowardice, and indifference, and treason, all around them, their God has reserved them from the miseries and condemnation of such a state.

Erect then the cross of Christ in the centre of His baptized

Church, even as it stood of old on Calvary! The Son of God. has borne it, He stands beside it, as on that dark day. A word may save Him the coming ignominy, but will the people speak it? They gather around him with eager eyes. No topic engages their thoughts or inquiries but Him and His fate. His name is on every lip. While they thus congregate to this new crucifixion, we may stand aside and contemplate the throng.

To estimate the resemblance we must turn to the original. When Christ was, in that day of mingled horror and glory, sacrificed on Calvary, few things were more remarkable in the accessories of the event than the feelings and motives of the people. Christ was unquestionably a favourite with the mass of the people; the great obstacle to the schemes of the priests was always that "they feared the people." His gracious bearing, and the mysterious anticipation that surrounded and dignified His singular life, had evidently caught and conciliated the popular mind. Nor was it unqualified malignity that made them His persecutors. Christ himself had found a palliation for this crime in their ignorance, He besought forgiveness for them because "they knew not what they did." Yet, however it came to pass, this people, thus disposed, are found the unanimous destroyers of their Prophet, the tumultuous petitioners for His crucifixion, the fierce invokers of His blood on them and on their children!

Strange as this appears, is there indeed nothing that resembles it in our own experience? Is no parallel to be found for it in the Christian world around us? Can we not, when we go abroad into the highways of daily life, find something in the general mind that reminds us of a people honouring Christ as long as He offers easy blessings, flocking round His standard with enthusiasm so long as He is made the standard-bearer of a party, professing boundless admiration, devotion, and love; yet when the true hour of trial comes, and the question can no longer be escaped,-shall we surrender our pleasures or our Redeemer?-give up the favour of earthly superiors or the favour of the King of Heaven?-abandon our cherished sins, or with our sins nail Jesus to the cross once more?-then, relin