perfect reconciliation.

Would you approach, fix your

thought on the Mediator. There he stands in human form, no aspect of inapproachable splendor and power,

- holding the Father's right hand in one of his, stretching the other to you, a bond between God and you, occupying and filling the whole distance; human on your side, divine on the other; shading off humanity into Deity from you through himself to God; shading off Deity into humanity, again, through himself from God to you; attaching you, by this mysterious, interlinked vinculum to his Father and your Father, and transmitting divine life and joy from the Father to your spirit. Still that outstretched hand, with the print of the nail in it, solicits your acceptance. When you clasp it, Jesus is yours and God is yours and heaven is yours. Holding there, Justice cannot strike you; you belong to the humanity of Jesus, and Justice has smitten there once, and is satisfied. Held by that hand, you are one with the Father and the Son. Those strange words of Jesus in prayer for his disciples on the sorrowful night of the betrayal are fulfilled, "I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." Come! Are you not ready? You are unworthy, you are weak, you are timid, you are conscience-stricken, you are shackled by evil passions and habits. Yes, all that is understood; but just such as you are God in Christ calls you, waits for you, by us beseeches you to be reconciled to him. Going hence to some secret place of prayer, will you not give your hand with your penitent heart to Christ, that henceforth, in life and death, in earth's travail and heaven's glory, you may, by that living link, be forever joined to God?

VII.

WEARING CHRIST'S GARMENTS.

AND THEY CRUCIFIED HIM, AND PARTED HIS GARMENTS, CASTING LOTS; THAT IT MIGHT BE FULFILLED WHICH WAS SPOKEN BY THE PROPHET, THEY PARTED MY GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND UPON MY VESTURE DID THEY CAST LOTS. - Matt. xxvii. 35.

IT

is a revolting scene of greedy cupidity which is here witnessed at the very foot of the cross. The Saviour, stripped of his garments, has been nailed to the wood, and the cross lifted and secured in its place. The mortal anguish has begun. On the right hand and the left of the chief sufferer hang the malefactors. The daughters of Jerusalem are weeping around. One would think that in the presence of such tragedies even the executioners would be sober and decent. They are inflicting punishment upon public convicts, it is true, but those convicts are human, and their dying groans, if unworthy of pity, might well touch a chord in the common nature that should hold observers at least gravely silent. But those whose bloody work has thus far progressed are not looking at the face of Jesus. They are looking for his garments. Those are their inheritance. It is a part of the usual price of the job. They are yet warm from his per

son; but the eager heirs cannot wait. While his sad eyes gaze down upon them, they make partition of the plunder. There are four of them, and they continue to make four parcels of what they have to divide. The division is equalized perhaps by severing the outer garment into its parts, fabric, fringes, and borders, so that each shall have his share. But when they come to the inner coat or tunic, it is perceived that it is not made in the common style, of two parts joined together, but is woven whole. To tear it into fragments would make it useless to anybody; so they cast lots for this, and one of them appropriates it as his prize. Look at them in their new garments. Will they know themselves? Will their friends know them? Have they not come to resemble Him whose well-known costume they have put on? Especially the man with the seamless coat, may he not be mistaken tomorrow for the Saviour himself, and startle somebody with the reappearance of the crucified Nazarene?

The resemblance goes no deeper than the garments. They are wearing what the Saviour wore, but they are like him in nothing else. They have his external appearance, but within they are unchanged, and carry still the hearts of thieves and murderers. They are his crucifiers; though they are clothed as he was while he walked among the living.

Is there anything significant in this incident? Is it not by itself a very meaning parable? Does it not hint to us that there may be many who put on the garments of Christ, but at heart they are no friends of his? May there not be many reasons why men should willingly and

eagerly clothe themselves in the outward mantle of Christ's likeness, and yet rank all the while among those who put him to grief and shame?

Let us suggest briefly some of these reasons, and name some of those whom they are allowed to govern.

Few men who have a bad heart are bold enough to wear openly the costume that really belongs to them. If they were to expose all their vile thoughts and wicked purposes to the public gaze, they would be shunned as men shun pitch, slime, the plague, and other things that work defilement and mischief. They must put on some decent outside covering. They must cover up the corrupt desires of their heart. What can they wear so cleanly and unsuspicious as some garment from the vestry of Christianity? These are wolves in sheep's clothing. They learned this art from their "father." For Satan himself is transformed often into an angel of light.

It is respectable now to put on Christian raiment. The cross decorates imperial robes, and gleams in golden lustre on proud temple towers. The religion of Jesus has wrought too long and well in the earth to be despised. The man who has embraced its truths, and is guided by its principles, commands the confidence of his fellow-men. Wherever one can introduce himself thus habited, the garb carries with it a high and worthy indorsement.

There are some men whose idea of Christianity is that it can be put on as one puts on a garment. With them it is not, in its nature, an inward radical change, but an outward fairness, pureness, and saintliness. It consists in a decorous observance of the Sabbath and its institu

tions of worship, in a formal daily reading before the household of God's word, and a still more formal address to his presence, or in putting on certain ordinances supposed to carry with them gracious forces for the character and life. There is a desire to be Christian for the sake of standing well with God and our own esteem, and these light fabrics are easily fitted to us and are no burden. Conscience is pacified, hope is warranted, the heart at rest, and meanwhile there is no quarrel with the desire and the relish for natural good.

There are reasons enough in our day for being not only willing, but anxious, to appear invested with the badges of a faith against which none but the worst men openly contend, and the confession of which carries with it so much that conciliates universal regard. And if now we come to classes, and ask who they are who clothe themselves in this Christian costume, we may remark,—

1. There are some who make humanity their whole religion. They leave others to talk about the love of Christ. They love their fellow-men. They plead the rights of man. They argue the worth of man. They cultivate the habit of expressing sympathy for human sufferings, and extending charity to human want. They devise institutions to shelter the houseless and friendless; they spread tables for the famishing; they make garments for the naked; they carry about subscription books for all manner of humane enterprises. Their charity is chiefly a charity for the present life, a charity for the body; it does not busy itself much with missions, or gospel societies, but it throws its arms around the fainting flesh, and seeks