had nothing to do, which we could not prevent, and which we cannot now remove? Is not our anger against the Jews and Romans too plainly mixed with a comfortable pride that we never have crucified our Lord, and that, if He were now on earth, we would not suffer such things to be done? This too is a natural thought; but God will not let us rest quietly in it. The Bible has some very severe and startling words about crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame. No, the crucifixion is not past and done with yet, so long as there is sin in the world. We cannot be in the way to enter into the inheritance which it has opened to us, so long as we fancy ourselves guiltless of that innocent blood. This is no trick or fancy of doctrine. It is the simplest, nakedest truth. We are guilty of that innocent blood. Our sins were part of the burden which bowed down the spotless Saviour's soul. Our sins, the sins of every one of you and mine, were part of the curse from which we and all mankind have been delivered by that cruel death. Every time we break the Father's holy laws we are making ourselves more guilty of that unutterable crime. Every year has its Good Friday to tell us that we are: but, thanks be to God, to tell us also that He whom we have pierced has forgiven us, and that He bids us go bravely on where He has gone before, knowing that in the might of His cross we can tread down His and our only enemy, for He being lifted up on that cross is drawing all men to Him.

XI

THE LIVELY HOPE PROCEEDING FROM THE

RESURRECTION

"BLESSED be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”– I Peter i. 3.

THERE is something strange to our ears in the present day both in what these words say, and in the joyful fearless tone in which they say it. We have all been born and bred in the faith that Jesus Christ, who was crucified on Calvary, rose from the dead on the third day. We have also been born and bred in the faith that, when our bodies are shut up in a coffin and buried in a grave in the churchyard, that is not the end of us; but that we shall rise again to a future life. Once more, we have been born and bred in the faith that Christ's rising from the dead at Jerusalem more than eighteen hundred years ago is in some way an assurance of our rising from the dead, and that therefore our hopes of a future life are naturally brought to mind by Easter Day more than

by any other day of the year. All this we take rather as a matter of course. But it does not seem to bring us much nearer to St. Peter's state of mind. We are willing perhaps to allow that thanks are due to God. for not leaving us to perish utterly with the decay of our present bodies like sheep or cattle; but we find it hard to join quite honestly in so warmly blessing the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for it. We scarcely think of it as mercy, much less as abundant mercy. We should hardly of our own accord call our own feeling a lively or living hope. Above all, we cannot enter into that very peculiar saying of St. Peter, that God has begotten us again to a lively hope by His Son's resurrection. It is not hard to understand how our rising from the dead to a better life might be truly called a second birth; and in that case God who will raise us from the dead might well be spoken of as begetting us again. But this is not what St. Peter says. The new life for which he blesses God is something given to us already and its great mark is that it is a life of glowing hope.

Now it is certainly not likely that we shall, in any case, attain to the full measure of faith and joyfulness which filled the blessed apostle St. Peter, himself a companion of Christ and an eye-witness of most of the wonderful works which Christ wrought on earth for his and our salvation. But, believe me, brethren, it must be sad and wrong that St. Peter's words should find so very poor an answer in our hearts, and that we should not be able to understand at least a little of what he felt by the help of what we are able

to feel within ourselves. Let us then try whether we can learn in some degree how he, who began by being a rough and ignorant fisherman, came into such a state, that the language of my text was what came naturally to his pen when he began to write to his fellow Christians.

In the very first days of our Lord's ministry he had been brought by his brother Andrew to see and own Him as the Messiah or Anointed One, whose coming the Jews were expecting. A little later he had obeyed Christ's call, and left his fishing boat to follow Him. He had gone about with his Holy Master for many months, understanding Him better and better, and yet expecting Him soon to throw off that life of humility and dazzle the world with royal power and glory. When Christ had put a stop to that foolish dream of the disciples, he still followed Him faithfully till the last night before the crucifixion, when in hateful cowardice he denied that he had ever known Him. Next day he must have seen the death on the cross and the writing set over it, which mockingly called on him to believe, if he could, that that dying prisoner was the King of the Jews. How could his hopes, either for himself or his people, outlive that day? The saying of Cleopas exactly expresses what he must have felt: "We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." It was no longer a question of sitting on Christ's right hand or His left in His kingdom. That dream Christ had long ago scattered. But he had the heart of an Israelite; and his hope of better days for Israel rested on the surest ground,

the old promises of God. seemed to be broken. persecuted even to death by the priests and rulers of his own countrymen: the people of the Jews had rebelled against the King of the Jews, and handed Him over to their hated foreign masters, the Romans, to be put to death.

And now God's promises God's Anointed had been

When then St. Peter at last knew that the Lord had indeed risen from the dead, the tidings had a meaning for him through which we may begin to understand the text. Everything that could possibly fall upon the Redeemer of Israel had fallen upon Him. Pharisees and Sadducees, priests and people, Jews and Romans, death and the devil, had all done their worst upon Him. He had yielded to them all, and then risen above them all. Death, which seemed always at last to swallow up even the best and mightiest of earthly things, had been shown to have no real power over Him. What end could there be to the reign of Him whom the Father had made to conquer death, the conqueror of kings and armies and peoples and every earthly might? Henceforward St. Peter could wait in patient faith Christ's own time for bringing to perfection the redemption of Israel. It might come to pass soon or late, in his own lifetime or when his weary body should have been laid in the grave. What did that matter? It must come to pass at last, for Jesus of Nazareth, his Lord and his God, was King for ever and ever.

Will not these recollections of St. Peter's past life help to explain how the thought of the resurrection. of Jesus Christ from the dead was able to draw forth