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and cheering memorial of himself; and uttered many soothing and consoling words to his disciples. He did not build a tomb, by which to be remembered, but he appointed a feast of remembrance. He did not tell his disciples to put on sackcloth, but to clothe themselves with the recollections of him, as with a robe of immortality. Death, indeed, was a dread to him-and he shrunk from it. It was a grief to his disciples, and he recognised it as such, and so dealt with it. But he showed to them a trust in God, a loving submission to the Father, that could stay the soul. He spoke of a victory over death. He assured them that man's last enemy was conquered. Here, then, amidst these memorials of death, let us meditate upon the life everlasting. Let us carry our thoughts to that world where Christ is, and where he prayed that all who love him might be with him-where, we believe, they are with him. Let our faith rise so high-God grant it!-that we can say, "Oh! grave, where is thy victory? Oh! death, where is thy sting? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord!"

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE, RESOLVED IN

THE LIFE OF CHRIST.

Jonn i. 4: "In him was life, and the life was the light of men."

THE words, life and light, are constantly used by the apostle John, after a manner long familiar in the Hebrew writings, for spiritual happiness, and spiritual truth. The inmost and truest life of manthe life of his life, is spiritual life-is, in other words, purity, love, goodness; and this inward purity, love, goodness, is the very light of life-that which brightens, blesses, guides it.

I have little respect for the ingenuity that is always striving to work out from the simple language of Scripture, fanciful and far-fetched meanings; but it would seem, in the passage before us, as if John intended to state one of the deepest truths in the very frame of our being; and that is, that goodness is the fountain of wisdom.

Give me your patience a moment, and I will attempt to explain this proposition. In it, was life-that is, in this manifested and all-creating energy, this outflowing of the power of God, was a divine and infinite love and joy; and this life was the light of men. That is to say-love first, then light. Light does not create love; but love creates light. The good heart only can understand the good teaching. The doctrine of truth that guides a man, comes from the divinity of goodness that inspires him. But, it will be said, does not a man become holy or good, in view of truth? I answer, that he cannot view the truth, but through the medium of love. It is the loving view only that is effective; that is any view at all. I must desire you to observe that I am speaking now of the primary convictions of a man, and not of the secondary influences that operate upon him. Light may strengthen love; a knowledge of the works and ways of God may have this effect, and it is properly presented for this purpose. But light cannot originate love. If love were not implanted in man's original and inmost being; if there were not placed there the moral or spiritual feeling that loves while it perceives goodness, all the speculative light in the universe would leave man's nature still and for ever cold and dead as a stone. In short, loveliness is a quality which nothing but love can perceive. God cannot be known in his highest, that is, in his spiritual and holy nature, except by those who love him.

Now of this life and light, as we are immediately afterwards taught, Jesus Christ-not as a teacher merely, but as a being-is to us the great and appointed source. And therefore when Thomas says, 66 How can we know the way of which thou speakest?" Jesus answers,

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am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the Father but by me. That is, no man can truly come to God, but in that spirit of filial love, of which I am the example.

In our humanity there is a problem. In Christ only is it perfectly solved. The speculative solution of that problem is philosophy. The practical solution is a good life; and the only perfect solution is the life of Christ. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

In him, I say, was solved the problem of life. What is that problem? What are the questions which it presents? They are these. Is there anything that can be achieved in life, in which our nature can find full satisfaction and sufficiency? And if there be any such thing-any such end of life-then is there any adaptation of things to that end? Are there any means or helps provided in life for its attainment? Now the end must be the highest condition of our highest nature; and that end we say is virtue, sanctity, blessedness. And the helps or means are found in the whole discipline of life. But the end was perfectly accomplished in Christ, and it was accomplished through the very means which are appointed to us. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin; and he was made thus perfect through sufferings.

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Our Saviour evidently regarded himself as sustaining this relation to human life; the enlightener of its darkness, the interpreter of its mystery, the solver of its problem. "I am the light of the world," he says, "he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." And again: "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness." It was not for abstract teaching to men that he came, but for actual guidance in their daily abodes. It was not to deliver doctrines alone, nor to utter nor echo back the intuitive convictions of our own minds, but to live a life and to die a death; and so to live and to die, as to cast light upon the dark paths in which we walk.

I need not say that there is darkness in the paths of men; that they stumble at difficulties, are ensnared by temptations, are perplexed by doubts; that they are anxious, and troubled, and fearful; that pain, and affliction, and sorrow, often gather around the steps of their earthly pilgrimage. All this is written upon the very tablet of the human heart. And I do not say that all this is to be erased; but only that it is to be seen and read in a new light. I do not say that ills, and trials, and sufferings, are to be removed from life, but only that over this scene of mortal trouble a new heaven is to be spread, and that the light of that heaven is Christ the sun of righteousness.

To human pride this may be a hard saying; to human philosophy, learning, and grandeur, it may be a hard saying: but still it is true, that the simple life of Christ, studied, understood, and imitated, would shed a brighter light than all earthly wisdom can find, upon the dark trials and mysteries of our lot. It is true that whatever you most need or sigh for whatever you most want, to still the troubles of your heart, or compose the agitations of your mind-the simple life of Jesus can teach you.

To show this, I need only take the most ordinary admissions from the lips of any Christian, or I may say, of almost any unbeliever.

Suppose that the world were filled with beings like Jesus. Would

not all the great ills of society be instantly relieved? Would you not immediately dismiss all your anxieties concerning it-perfectly sure that all was going on well? Would not all coercion, infliction, injury, injustice, and all the greatest suffering of life, disappear at once? If, at the stretching out of some wonder-working wand, that change could take place, would not the change be greater far, than if every house, hovel, and prison on earth, were instantly turned into a palace of ease and abundance, and splendour? Happy then would be these "human years;" and the eternal ages would roll on in brightness and beauty! The "still, sad music of humanity," that sounds through the world, now in the swellings of grief, and now in pensive melancholy,-would be exchanged for anthems, lifted up to the march of time, and bursting out from the heart of the world!

But let us make another supposition, and bring it still nearer to ourselves. Were any one of us a perfect imitator of Christ-were any one of us clothed with the divinity of his virtue and faith; do you not perceive what the effect would be? Look around upon the circle of life's ills and trials, and observe the effect. Did sensual passions assail you? How weak would be their solicitation to the divine beatitude of your own heart! You would say, "I have meat to eat that you know not of." Did want tempt you to do wrongly, or curiosity to do rashly? You would say to the one," Man shall not live by bread alone; there is a higher life which I must live:" and to the other, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." Did ambition spread its kingdoms and thrones before you, and ask you to swerve from your great allegiance? Your reply would be ready: "Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Did the storm of injury beat upon your head, or its silent shaft pierce your heart? In meekness you would bow that head-in prayer, that heart-saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." What sorrow could reach you-what pain, what anguish, that would not be soothed by a faith and a love like that of Jesus? And what blessing could light on you, that would not be brightened by a filial piety and gratitude like his? The world around you would be new, and the heavens over you would be new-for they would be all, and all around their ample range, and all through their glorious splendours, the presence and visitation of a Father. And you yourself would be a new creature; and you would enjoy a happiness, new, and now scarcely known on earth.

And I cannot help observing here, that if such be the spontaneous conviction of every mind at all acquainted with Christianity, what a powerful independent argument there is for receiving Christ as a guide and example. It were an anomaly, indeed, to the eye of reason, to reject the solemn and self-claimed mission of one whom it would be happiness to follow-whom it would be perfection to imitate. Yet if the former-the special mission-were rejected, if it were, as it may be, by possibility, honestly rejected; what is a man to think of himself, who passes by, and discards the latter-the teaching of the life of Christ? Let it be the man Rousseau, or the man Hume, or any man in these days, who says that he believes nothing in churches, or miracles, or missions from heaven. But he admits, as they did, and as every one must, that in Jesus Christ was the most perfect unfolding of all divine

beauty and happiness that the world ever saw. What, I say, is he to do with this undeniable and undenied Gospel of the life of Jesus? Blessed is he if he receives it; that is unquestionable. All who read of him, all the world, admits that. But what shall we say if he rejects it? If any one could be clothed with the eloquence of Cicero or the wisdom of Socrates, and would not, all the world would pronounce him a fool -would say that he denied his humanity. And surely if any one could be invested with all the beauty and grandeur of the life of Jesus, and would not, he must be stricken with utter moral fatuity; he must be accounted to have denied his highest humanity. The interpretation of his case is as plain as words can make it; and it is this: "Light has come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil."

"In him was life," says our text, "and the life was the light of men."

I have attempted to bring home the conviction of this, simply by bringing before your minds the supposition that the world, and we ourselves were like him. But as no conviction, I think, at the present stage of our Christian progress, is so important as this, let me attempt to impress it, by another course of reflections. I say, of our Christian progress. We have cleared away many obstacles, as we think, and have come near to the simplicity of the Gospel. No complicated ecclesiastical organization nor scholastic creed stands between us and the solemn verities of Christianity. I am not now pronouncing upon those accumulations of human devices; but I mean especially to say, that no mystical notions of their necessity or importance mingle themselves with our ideas of acceptance. We have come to stand before the simple, naked shrine of the original Gospel. We have come, through many human teachings and human admonitions, to Christ himself. But little will it avail us to have come so far, if we take not one step further. Now, what I think we need is, to enter more deeply into the study and understanding of what Christ was.

This, let us attempt. And I pray you and myself, brethren, not to be content with the little that can now be said; but let us carefully read the Gospels for ourselves, and lay the law of the life of Christ, with rigorous precision, to our own lives, and see where they fail and come short. It is true, indeed, and I would urge nothing beyond the truth, that the life of Jesus is not, in every respect, an example for us. That is to say, the manner of his life was, in some respects, different from what ours can, or should be. Ile was a teacher; and the most of us are necessarily and lawfully engaged in the business of life. He was sent on a peculiar mission; and none of us have such a mission. But the spirit that was in him, may be in us. To some of the traits of this spirit, as the only sources of light and help to us, let me now briefly direct your attention.

And first, consider his self-renunciation. How entire that selfrenunciation was; how completely his aims went beyond personal ease and selfish gratification; how all his thoughts and words and actions were employed upon the work for which he was sent into the world; how his whole life, as well as his death, was an offering to that causeI need not tell you. Indeed, so entirely is this his accredited character; so completely is he set apart in our thoughts, not only to a peculiar

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