fills us with perplexity. All is well with the world when all is well with us; but seasons of privation and pain seem to demand pessimistic interpretations. Just as science hesitates in its explanation of nature, so are we confounded by our personal experience. Half our time we are satisfied that God is gracious, whilst the other half tempts to pessimism and despair. The fundamental goodness of the cosmos is obscured by the cruelties of nature, the confusions of history, and the tragedies of personal life. The world is a paradox; sometimes we construe it to signify joy and hope, when once more it seems to justify only misery and despair.

Here, then, comes in the mission of the Christian Church-to affirm the love of God in Christ Jesus to all mankind. The justification of an absolute confidence in God's unfailing love is not found in the sphere of science, but in the sphere of redemption. The austere science of our day has put entirely out of court the rosy philosophy of the old deism. It annihilates sentiment; it will have none of it. If men are now to admire, reverence, and love God, they must find another basis for their worship. There is none other except redemption; more than ever is the world shut up to that glorious fact. It is. enough. Here the eternal love blazes out with irresistible demonstration. We cannot deny it, we cannot doubt it. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid

down His life for us." Geology, biology, history, speak stammeringly; but in the story of redemption the eternal truth shines out with noonday splendour. Whatever appalling shadows rest on nature, the essence of the Eternal One is love, or He would not have stooped, and bled, and died for us men and for our salvation. When the summer roses fade, the love by which we live shines in the crown of thorns; when we cannot find it in other gardens, it blooms fadelessly in Gethsemane; when the sun is turned into darkness and the moon into blood, we are taught by the Cross that, all catastrophes notwithstanding, love is the central, supreme, undying fact of the universe. Men do not argue at noon whether the sun shines or not; and in the presence of Calvary there is an end of all strife touching the nature of God and the design of His government. Naturalism may doubt God's love, may deny it, but at the Cross we no longer guess and fear. He who died for us loves us, whatever enigmas may mock. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the face marred more than any man's. What shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?

II. THE VICTORY OF LIFE WROUGHT OUT IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THIS LOVE.

"In all these things we are more than conquerors." We are the victors, far away the victors. We come out of the struggle without a scratch-nay, all the

richer, stronger, happier for the fight. So decisive, so full, so glorious is the victory of those who endure the conflict of life in the consciousness of the Saviour's love.

1. Realizing the love of God in Jesus Christ, we more than triumph over all the mystery of life. The natural tendency of the painful things of human life is to induce a depressed mood, to render us sceptical toward the greatest truths. Many are not affected by the dark aspects of nature and history: they give these no place in their thought; they never brood over them, wondering what they mean; thoughtless and shallow, they eat and drink and sleep. It is far different with others. They cannot rest because of the suffering and sorrow of the world, and the natural action of such brooding is to work havoc in the soul. Reason fails to solve the cruel problems; then scepticism sets in, and despair by scepticism. In the deep seas are creatures which have dwelt so long in the darkness that it has put out their eyes. They had perfect eyes once, but these have atrophied in the persistent gloom; the organ of vision has perished-only the socket remains. It is thus to-day with thousands of men and women, and these the most reflective and serious. They have pondered the things of anguish and death until their eyes have been quenched in a gulf of dark despair. They no longer can behold God; they are unable to recognize the divine government; they can see no prospect of a rational issue to a chaotic world. There

has befallen them the terrible curse of spirit-blindness; the eyes of their heart are sightless. Faith and love in Christ Jesus save us from this dread eclipse. We are often startled and staggered by grievous and ruinous happenings; we cannot understand these terrible things; but we have power to trust, to wait, to hope, and this means vision and victory. So long as I can say, "I have lost sight of the love of God in nature and life, and fail to see how the terrible things of the world are terrible things in righteousness: but I apprehend the love of God in Christ Jesus; I know that He loved me, and gave Himself for me," so long as I can say this, I am immune from the baneful power of mystery and intellectual bewilderment; the darkness emphasized by science and felt by us all cannot blind. and destroy me. He who has saved me from death in His own death will one day clear up these painful puzzles; they are incidental and temporary. Love in the heart means light in the eye. Believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, I keep my hold on the eternal truths which ensure eternal life.

But this is only half the truth; for so far from the mystery of life blinding us, it shall work in us a strange purging and perfecting of vision. We have just said that certain fish in the darkness of the deep seas have degenerated in sight and become hopelessly blind. There is, however, another strange fact. In the same sunless deeps are animals with eyes of extraordinary size. But the marvellous thing is that these particular

creatures have in a high degree the power of manufacturing their own light, and the economizing of the delicate phosphorescence has developed in them eyes of remarkable magnitude and power. With their selfcreated luminousness these abyssal fish withstand the blackness of their environment, and indirectly the darkness has secured for them eyes far more splendid than those of their shallow-water relatives. Thus it is in the abyss in which we live, and which proves to so many a gulf of dark despair. There are thousands of noble men and women with splendid eyes. They see God as clearly as any angel in heaven can see Him; they behold His government over them causing all things to work together for their good; they view the golden consummation to which the universe tends. The very darkness that presses upon them has taught them the secret of making light in themselves, and it has developed in them a power of vision that pierces to the heart of things.

Let us not, then, be restive about mystery. Abiding true to the love of God in Christ, the perplexities of the present distress serve us. The starless night that broods around evokes the luminousness of the soul; contending with darkness, the optic nerve of the spirit is developed into rarer sensitiveness; tears wash our eyes into a power of seeing of which the shallower life knows nothing. When suns and moons are eclipsed, the astronomer learns most about the secrets of the heavens other people make hay when the sun shines,