all things, that they might find Him enough alone. They had received the fire which falls from heaven, and, as it kindled, their hearts pleaded with them in secret and piercing words, "He wholly gave Himself for me; shall I give less to Him? I am altogether His in body, soul, and spirit. Shall I keep back what is His own? Shall I profess to serve Him with all I am, and keep back a part of the price, my heart being privy to it? My fearful, shrinking, delicate, ungenerous spirit makes me draw back from loneliness, danger, hardship, and peril of death. Yet I desire to live for Him, and to die for Him. If He would but give me the grace and the will to die to myself, and fear nothing; the love to kindle my whole soul for Him, as He was consumed by love for me; even I should dare To me to live is Christ, and to die is

to say, gain.""

But there is still one more effect of this divine motive. It is the only principle of an enduring perseverance. We know how any personal affection grows upon us, and becomes a part of our very life. All our consciousness is so pervaded by it, that we cannot distinguish it from a direct instinct of the soul. It grows stronger as it acts: by acting it is made perfect. Long trials of Christ's love in joy and sorrow, in storm and sun

1 Phil. i. 21.

shine, reveal its divine tenderness and depth. And this quickens the activity of our own hearts with a living, thirsting desire to love Him with a greater love again. All the powers of our spiritual life are drawn to this point. They meet as in a focus, and kindle each other by uniting. Steadfast love is perseverance: it supports through all weariness and disappointment, all allurement and alarm. A true love to Christ moves in its path year by year, from strength to strength, without haste but without tarrying, calm, bright, and onward as the light of heaven. Take any example you will. Out of this one motive arise all motives. See what solace it has for every trial. Sometimes it brings persevering obedience, sometimes persevering patience. In a burdened life of worldly cares, what support it is to know, "This is His appointment; He gives it me because He loves me. Shall I not bear this for Him who bore all for me?" Or if it be weariness in the religious life, as of communicants who at the altar find no sweetness, only emptiness and reluctance, let them say, "How long did He love me much, and I loved Him little! How long did He wait for my love, and I would not! Now I must wait for Him; justly chastened by His love; slighted but not estranged." Take, again, those on whom the cloud of sorrow has fallen. Their happiness was stately

and full, spreading abroad as the cedar. In one hour it withered away. Why? He loved you

too well to lose you. In His love He smote you. He breathed upon your aspiring happiness, and it dried up from the very root. He cleared all away between Himself and you, that you might be

conscious of His personal love, and choose it as your portion for ever.

Or perhaps you have been reaching out for a happiness you have never attained: the hope of your heart was dashed upon the threshold. When it seemed all your own, a sudden change came, and it was not. And why? Because the love of Christ had some better thing in store for you. Can you not trust Him? Is He not wise as loving? Are not your treasures in His hand? Do you love them as He loves? Are they not safer with Him than with you?

Or it may be that you have to bear long lingering sickness, with memories of sorrow and pain. The cross lay early upon you, and has never departed from your soul. Be sure that the love of Christ has in store for you some greater things hereafter. It may be the right hand or the left in His kingdom. God knoweth; but if so, the cup and the baptism must come first. And the cup which His love hath given you, shall you not drink it?

And as in patience, so in hard and enduring service. What but the consciousness of this love could hold up a pastor's heart, wearied out by contradictions, wasted away with toiling for "souls that will not be redeemed?" It is His work, and that is enough. He will not disown it. Though men believe not, He abideth faithful. Let me labour alone and without fruit unto the last, so He love me still. Let me please Him and faint not; let me offend all the world, so I be accepted as His servant.

Above all, what other spring, and what other stay of perseverance is there to His hardier and bolder servants, who, choosing for their portion the full burden of His cross, go out into far lands, without father, without mother, without home or kindred, alone with Him Who is their love, to gather souls into His kingdom? What is there to sustain the craving and weakness of humanity, in the weariness of solitude, and under the burden of their own isolated hearts? There is but the love of Christ beneath them and around. The outer hardships of sky and shore, rude natures and savage wills, are nothing to the lonely world within. But their Master's love is enough. They know by intuitions of the heart, and by perceptions of their whole inward life, that He loves them, and gave Himself for them. They

have but faintly done the like: for love they have given themselves in behalf of His elect. He loves them, and they love Him again. Who shall unloose this knot? Who shall unravel the strength of the heavenly bond? Who shall separate them from the love of Christ? When memories of home, fond faces, beloved images, rise thick and crowd upon them, and what they have lost seems a paradise, and their present life a desolation; when the human heart, for a passing moment, is too strong, and love and sorrow turn towards earth again; when failures, miscalculations, hasty steps, hopeless efforts, unforeseen reverses, beginnings abandoned, and aims missed at the very stroke, come back upon them, then it may be they grow weak, and ask, "Have I not acted in a false excitement, and bound myself to one life-long mistake? When I was in my own land, was it not well with me? Might I not have served Him truly, as others before and now, in the midst of peace and home, doing good work among my own people and by my father's house? Why have I come hither, exiled and cut off, bound by an irrevocable word ?"

Because the love of Christ constrained them, therefore they are alone with Him in the wilderness. They have chosen well, and nobly followed out their choice. They shall never fail, nor be for