The Law of Laws.

"LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU."-John xiii. 34.

It is not new,

THIS was called the "New Commandment." however, in essence; it is older than the universe, old as the mind of God. But in its form and motive it is new; it never came embodied in a human life until Christ came eighteen hundred years ago. Had the words been, "love others as they love you," so complex and simple are the emotions of men in relation to each other that a correct idea of the law could scarcely have been obtained; or had they been, "as God hath loved you," there would still have been a difficulty in the way of reaching an accurate idea, "For," says Rev. C. A. Row, Prebendary of St. Paul's, "history proves that this danger is no visionary one. When men have measured their obligations by their own imperfect views of the attributes of the Deity, they have taken their sterner, rather than their benevolent aspects for their rule. The gods of the ancient world were no subjects fit for human imitation. Nor is the Deity of the modern philosopher more suited when he presents the embodied aspect of inexorable fate. Providence permits a ship to sink to the bottom of the ocean, and no aiding hand is near, but all is stern and terrible. Its undeviating laws bend not. Are these dark and mysterious aspects of Deity to be the subjects of human imitation? The Evangelists have responded to the question by presenting to us Jesus." In relation to this law we make the following observations:

I-It is EASILY UNDERSTOOD. Who, with the Gospel in his hand, can fail to understand the kind of love with which Christ loved the world? First: His love was essentially disinterested. There was not a particle of selfishness in it. He had nothing to gain by it. There was nothing that could enhance His bliss or brighten His glory. Secondly: His love was practically forgiving. His love was not the love for friends, but the love for enemies, the most malignant. Forgiving love, is love in its highest strength and grandest aspect. Thirdly: His love was self-sacrificing.

Another observation

"He loved us and gave Himself for us." which we make concerning this love is that— II. It is UNIVERSALLY BINDING. It embraces every man in whatever land he lives, whatever the colour of his skin, under whatever government he may live, in whatever position he sustains; rich or poor, educated or ignorant, ruler or ruled, it reaches the most distant. Not one can extricate himself from its binding obligations; it speaks in the same voice, in the same imperative tone to the prince and the peasant, the millionaire and the pauper, the trader and the warrior, the judge and the criminal, the doctor and his patient, the lawyer and his client. To each and all it carries the same Divine mandate. Fools say that such Divine commands are not practicable until the world gets better: they do not recognise the indubitable fact that Christianity is a law not for man as a saint, but for man as a sinner; not for man as he is to be, but for man as he is. Another observation we offer concerning this law is that—

III. It is SOUL-REACHING. It goes through all externalisms, penetrates the depths of the soul, and touches the central springs of action. All human conduct springs from love of some kind or other, the love of the good or the bad. "Love one another." Christianity legislates for our affections, and thus obtains an authority over the very springs of our being, and the actions of our lives. Verily, the law of the Lord is broad: it embraces the entire man and the entire of every man. Another observation

we offer concerning this law is

IV. It is wORLD-REFORMING. Let this law be universally obeyed, and the whole race will be changed;—no more tyrannies from despots, chicanery from rogues, murder from assassins, butcheries from soldiers, imposture from priests, monopoly from misers, deception from liars. All evils will be swept away, the world's night will be turned into day, its desert into Paradise, its tumults into music. The whole social heavens will pass away, and there will come a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness; and joy like morning dew will be distilled on all hearts. Another observation we offer concerning this law

is

V. It is BEYOND IMPROVEMENT. Human legislators are constantly altering their laws. The precious time of the nation, as well as the money of the people, is expended in the constant modification of laws which foolish, ill-educated, and ill-informed men, under the character of statesmen, have enacted and enforced; and such men, in the character of statesmen, are constantly making laws that will have in the future to be modified or abolished. But this law is incapable of modification; it is more unalterable than the settled heavens above us; it is like the grain of corn, you can add nothing to it, take nothing from it, it is perfect in itself. If men could repeal or modify this law, they would, but they cannot, they can no more do so than alter any of the laws of nature. Another observation we offer concerning this law isVI. It is REVEALED IN A LIFE. It does not come to us in propositions, but in a person, and that person a man, and that man the greatest that ever lived-the "Man Christ Jesus." This makes this law the easiest to understand, the mightiest to influence. A code containing ten thousand volumes would, as compared with the code written in this one life, be as night to day-as impotence to might. Christ is not merely the Law-giver, but Himself the Law. The whole obligation of man is reduced to two words-" Follow Me."

LONDON.

DAVID THOMAS, D.D.

Work.

'MAN GOETH FORTH UNTO HIS WORK AND TO HIS LABOUR UNTIL THE EVENING."-Psalm civ. 23.

We need to beware of imperfect views of religion that narrow it down to one side of life. The cry that the pulpit should confine itself to preaching the Gospel, often ignores the fact that the Gospel bears on life in all its aspects. It makes all life sacred, making the Divine law bear on it all. It has a message

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for the man who idles away life, for the master who grinds down his workpeople, and for the man who does not honestly give the service he is paid for.

I-WORK IS A DUTY. "Six days shalt thou labour," is as much a Divine ordinance as is the command to do no work on the seventh. He who is idle seven days is as out of harmony with God's law as is he who toils without a break. Paul's command, "That if any man would not work neither should he eat," represents the ideal to which society, as it grows perfect, will tend. For the idea that work is a disgrace, and that the idle man, because he is idle, can look down upon the toiler as an inferior, is a notion so foolish that surely, with advancing intelligence, it must go. Certainly it cannot be held by the man who accepts Bible teaching, and it is, further, against the teaching of nature. The idle man is neither happy nor healthy. Thus nature has written on idleness its condemnation, and testifies to us that work is a duty.

And let no man think it a disgrace, or try to hide it, when Christ Himself sanctified toil and stamps it with His approval. Surely, one day, men will learn that to do nothing is disgraceful, and that God sends every man into this world to find his work and to do it. Says Carlyle, “To make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuller, happier,more blessed, less accursed! It is work for a God."

II.-WORK IS A RIGHT. While some will not work, many who would cannot get it to do. And men and women are in poverty, and near to starvation, who would gladly toil had they the chance. The state of the labour-market is certainly not satisfactory. There is a feverish competition in which, too often, workmen are treated only as chattels, to be used when needed and thrown out of work when not required. Now it is not enough to quote Political Economy in defence of this. The science may rightly be based on the principles of selfishness, but the practice of men who profess to honour God must be based on Christian law. We need to have the teaching of Christ applied more broadly to this than it has ever yet been. No employer

surely has a right to think simply of getting all he can out of his men, and then to discharge them when trade is slack, while he himself is living luxuriously on the fruit of their toil. God has made land enough for all to live on, and the earth is capable of producing far more than men require, yet crowds are driven from the country into the towns, and round the dock-gates in London numbers of men assemble, hours before they open, in the hope of earning enough to maintain a bare existence, while many in this land of wealth who earnestly seek for work can get none to do. Here we have a constant element of danger to the State. Indeed it is said that if the disaffected and desperate in London could but combine, the city would be pillaged. Beyond doubt there is a most terrible evil existing, which employers and statesmen will have to face, and which can never be remedied until it is treated according to the law of God.

III.-WORK HAS, OR OUGHT TO HAVE, A LIMIT. "Until the evening." Yet how many work at such a rate of wages that they have to toil night and day to maintain existence, with no limit to their toil save that imposed by the necessity of sleep. There comes to them no evening of rest and recreation. Life is but the dull monotony of a hand-to-hand fight with the starvation that is always near.

Surely the match-box makers and sempstresses of our large cities, toiling in the vile places that are all they know of home, are a standing witness against those who live in the plenty purchased with their lives. No rich employer has a right to plead that he gives the current rate and does as others do. That plea would stand for all crimes. The man who makes work for others a ceaseless drudgery is verily guilty before God.

There is another direction in which the truth holds. Here is a man who gets engrossed in business. He loves it until he gives his whole life to it. Surely there is need to remind him that to labour there is a limit, that health and mind and soul and God have claims to which he should respond.

And there are those to whom business is ever a burden and a worry. Things do not go well, and the man cannot get invoices and prices and competitors out of his mind. Surely he should