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diseased, &c. (2) Its care for the individual and not for the mass. We must not be led away by endeavours for "the masses," for "the working classes," and so on. One by one, just as is essential in the care of the sick, the individual conscience is to be reached, the individual heart converted. Not more absurd would be the endeavour of a physician to heal in the mass a multitude of sufferers than is the endeavour to save men

in the mass. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, and the leaven works from atom to atom. We are to obey this command because the effect of such obedience is

III.-A REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. All Christ's miracles, and, perhaps, preeminently those of healing, are translucent with the moral element. Their mercy is more than their might. The early disciples were to go forth to reveal their Lord to men, just as His Life revealed the Life of the Eternal God. He is not simply a Founder of a kingdom, or a Teacher of the Truth, but Healer of men. Hence His representatives must be healers also. Yes, they and we alike have no lower mission, and can have no higher dignity, than to repeat the message of that Life of all lives, to carry fragrance, to reflect its light, to

a

its

echo its music. We are to obey this command because it is

IV. AN UNDOUBTED MODE OF SERVING THE CHRIST HIMSELF. As we realise that He is the Head of Humanity, and dwell on all that Headship involves, we feel that there are strange and sacred depths of meaning in His words, "I was sick and ye visited Me." EDITOR.

Mark viii. 1-9.

(Seventh Sunday after Trinity.)

"IN THOSE DAYS THE MULTITUDE BEING VERY GREAT, AND HAVING NOTHING TO EAT, JESUS CALLED HIS DISCIPLES UNTO HIM, AND SAITH UNTO THEM, I HAVE COMPASSION ON THE MULTITUDE, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOW BEEN

WITH ME THREE DAYS, AND HAVE NOTHING TO EAT AND IF I SEND THEM AWAY FASTING TO THEIR OWN HOUSES, THEY WILL FAINT BY THE WAY FOR DIVERS OF THEM

CAME FROM FAR. AND HIS DISCIPLES ANSWERED HIM, FROM

WHENCE CAN A MAN SATISFY THESE
MEN WITH BREAD HERE IN THE

WILDERNESS ? AND HE ASKED
THEM, HOW MANY LOAVES HAVE
YE?
AND THEY SAID, SEVEN.
AND HE COMMANDED THE PEOPLE
TO SIT DOWN ON THE GROUND:
AND HE TOOK THE SEVEN LOAVES,
AND GAVE THANKS, AND BRAKE,
AND GAVE TO HIS DISCIPLES TO
SET BEFORE THEM; AND THEY
DID SET THEM BEFORE THE PEOPLE
AND THEY HAD A FEW SMALL
FISHES: AND HE BLESSED, AND

COMMANDED TO SET THEM ALSO

BEFORE THEM," &c.

A SIMILAR subject occurs as the Gospel for the fourth Sunday in Lent and the last Sunday in Trinity. This miracle has special features. Describe the scene, &c. Point out the chief differences between this and other miracles

very similar to it. Compare Isaac Williams on "Epistles and Gospels," Vol. II. Consider this as giving an illustration of—

I-MAN'S SPIRITUAL NECESSITY. The multitude "having nothing to eat." No creature altogether independent. Life must be drawn from exterior sources. Constant supplies necessary. The law of all finite existence is absorb and assimilate. Man experiences a complexity of desires. Man composed of body, soul, and spirit. In each part of his nature he hungers. Natural hunger a type of the hunger of the soul. Man needs (a) Satisfaction. The multitude now around our Lord needed their physical natures satisfied. False attempts made to satisfy the mind and soul. The intellect, conscience, and will are restless. (b) Invigoration. Multitude faint from want. Power needed for suffering, work, duty.

II.-GOD'S SPIRITUAL PROVISION. Note how wisely benevolent, compassionate, and considerate our Lord was towards the fainting multitude. Their wants were supplied. Freely, sufficiently, and

suitably provided for. So God deals with us. It is so temporally. Look at the approaching harvest. But more so in reference to our higher natures. God's compassion, benevolence, and power seen in the (a) quantity and (b) quality of His spiritual provision. Enough for each individual, whatever his situation and needs. Enough for the world at large. Here the true "Bread." Here the realization of

the words "6. never hunger."

III.-GOD'S SPIRITUAL PROCEDURE. Note here (1) Great results from small means. The few loaves and the few fishes. The multitude fed. Illustrations of this crowd upon our minds from every part of God's dealing. No wise man would overlook the value of the smallest means employed for good. God ever uses and blesses the smallest and most despised agency. (2) Wise economy of means. No waste. No loud display. Frugality employed. (3) Human agency dispensing Divine gifts. The food came first from Christ's hands, but was distributed by human hands. So still in all spiritual work. Christ the food, but we break it, &c. Christ the seed, &c. All we enjoy and dis

tribute is from the "Author of all good things."

JAMES FOSTER, B.A. AUTHORPE RECTORY,

LINCOLNSHIRE.

Breviaries.

A Door of Hope.

"THE VALLEY OF ACHOR FOR A DOOR OF HOPE."-Hosea ii. 15.

I.—Achor, in the natural bountifulness of the valley, a symbol of the joys of life, OUR JOYS MAY BE OCCASIONS OF HOPE.

The valley was a hint of

Canaan, became an open door through which eyes weary of the desert could catch a promise of a goodly land-a land of milk and honey, &c. So it may be with us. (1) In the joys of natural scenery there is an inspiration of hope to poet spirits-Wordsworth, Keble, &c. (2) In temporal mercies there is an inspiration of hope to grateful hearts. God who has given so much can and will give more. (3) In religious privileges there is a door of hope to desert souls. The earthly means of grace are a pledge and an antepast of better. II.-Achor, in its great historic event, a symbol of the sorrows of life,-OUR SORROWS MAY BE OCCASIONS OF HOPE. The Septuagint renders the name "door of understanding." So it was to Israel. They came to know the evil and penalty of the sin of Achan there. The valley of trouble may become to all of us a door of hope whenever the trouble is (1) The trouble of 'true penitence; (2) The trouble of sanctified adversity or bereavement; (3) The trouble of agonising prayer; (4) The trouble of spiritual conflict; (5) The trouble of sacrificial compassion for others; (6) The trouble of the article of our own death. Such may be doors of a hope that maketh not ashamed. EDITOR.

A Door in Heaven.

"I SAW, AND BEHOLD, A DOOR OPENED IN HEAVEN."-Revelation iv. 1.

THIS figure suggests to me I.-THE NEARNESS OF THE HEAVENLY WORLD. We are at its "door." Our conceptions of a remote place rather than of a state of being that is realised by those who are no further from us than that they are within the veil, is very erroneous and depressing. Heaven is simply that which is heaved up. An uplifted life. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy." And so it ever does. We are always on the threshold of the pure, the noble, the blessed. II. THE POSSIBLE REVELATION OF HEAVEN. It is not merely uear and closed against us. It is near and may be known. A door into it may be opened. (1) The Bible is such a door. (2) The death of good men is such a door. (3) The life of Christ is such a door. (4) Our own best experience is such a door. EDITOR.

Pulpit Handmaids.

COMMUNION WITH CHRIST.*

THERE is a record in the gospels of a busy Sabbath day which our Lord spent at Capernaum. The day was spent in teaching in the synagogue and healing the sick; and Christ did not give to men, either in teaching or in healing, that which cost Him nothing. He might well be weary when the day was done. But then, when the sun was set, the demands upon Him became the heaviest. The people were afraid to come to Him before, afraid of breaking the law and getting into trouble. But when the sun had sunk beneath the horizon they came. They came in crowds. They brought unto Him all that were sick, and them that were possessed with devils, and all the city was gathered together at the doors. All the sick of Capernaum are there, besieging Him with innumerable requests. And not in vain. He healed many that were sick with divers diseases, and cast out many devils-and, at last, they are gone, and all is still. And what then? "In the morning, a great while before day, He rose up and went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed."

And shall we not, who accept Him as our Exemplar and Guide, follow Him there also? Is it enough for us to be with Him in the crowd? and is there no need for us to be with Him in the solitary place? Are we like Him if a life of active service suffices for us, and is it a matter of little account if we are unlike Him in this respect?

I.—I will venture to say that, if the need for such Divine communion as His example suggests to us could be urged on no other grounds, it might be urged on the ground that He Himself, as apart from what we often call His cause or His kingdom, desires and claims our attention, our thought, our confidences, our fellowship. He left the society of men that He might be alone with His Father. To us He is Himself the interpretation of the Father. Through Him we come to the Father. In Him God is manifest to our minds, shines into our hearts. For us, therefore, to be in communion with the Father is to be in communion with the Son. Our language may not always be theologically exact; but, when we speak of communing with God, we think of Him as we behold Him, and can understand Him in Christ; and when we speak of communing with Christ, Address delivered to the Congregational Union of England and Wales, in London, May, 1884.

we think of Him as the Image of the invisible God, and the brightness of His glory. We meet with God in Christ. To be alone with the Father is to be in communion with the Son. And I venture to say that we do not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, when we believe that Christ Himself, not only asks for, but desires and values such communion. He seeks not ours only, not ours chiefly, but us. He would hear what we have to say. He would know from our own lips what we feel, what we fear, what we wish. He would see our faces uplifted to His own in trust and affection. We are not hands in a mill, but children in a home. He would have our service, indeed, but He can more easily dispense with our service than with ourselves.

I say, I venture to speak in this strain. One has to summon all one's courage and all one's faith to be able so to speak. It is almost beyond believing that it should be of any account to Christ whether we seek His presence or not. It may be that men do not rate very highly what we have to say or to give. If they do not see us from one end of the year to the other, it will not greatly trouble them. If some day they were to hear we were dead, and that they would see us no more for ever, they would soon recover their composure. They can do without us, and do not want us. Nor do we, perhaps, think much of our own value and importance. We almost despise ourselves at times. We see that men can do without us, and we do not wonder at it. We should wonder if it were otherwise. And so we shrink from saying that Christ desires that we should seek Him and abide in His presence. But such humility, if it be truly humility, is not of faith. What does the life of Christ mean if we may not believe that we are of value in His eyes, and that, not by virtue only of the service we may be able to render to His cause, but simply because of what we are, or may become. What does His life mean, if we may not believe this, and what does His death mean? Why, this is the Gospel! "He loved me," says St. Paul, and the apostle would have been the last to say that that love, that personal distinguishing love, was for himself alone. He would rather have said it was made evident that it had been bestowed upon him, the most unworthy, the blasphemer, the persecutor, in order that every man, the lowest, the most sinful, most despairing, might be able to believe in it. He did say something very much like that. But love does not think chiefly of the gains it may make out of those who are the objects of it. That is not like human love as we have known it in its purity and its power, and who will say that it is like the Divine love. Love hungers for the presence of those whom it cherishes.

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