Thirdly Presents motives for the highest gratitude. The grandest fact in the history of our planet is, that a perfect moral character has been here, wearing our nature. Though His physical personality is gone, His character is here still and ever.

Subject: How to Treat Persecutors.

"Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not."-Roм. xii. 14.

W

HATEVER the world may think of Christ, it most willingly acknowledges its indebtedness to the Christian ethics of the Bible. The old time-honoured maxim of the world has been, and is, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Its dominant spirit has ever been one of mean and petty revenge. According to this spirit men have not only felt justified, but have regarded it as a duty which they owed to their social status and moral manhood, to steal his reputation who first had stolen theirs, to strike any man in the face who first had smitten them, that thereby they might get the equivalent "tooth.”

When Christ came, He condemned that popular maxim of the world, and endeavoured to counteract and crush it, by giving to His disciples another and an opposite one-this: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." These words, enunciated by our Lord, were exemplified in the whole of His life, and therefore the spirit they inculcate is essentially Christian and Divine; and St. Paul is only following in the footsteps of Christ, when he says, "Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse

not."

The persecution of Christians has not ceased-that needs no proving.

The persecution assumes a thousand different forms, and it is useless to attempt to enumerate them.

To ascertain how the persecuted are to treat those that persecute them cannot therefore be an idle inquiry.

The text teaches us:

"Curse

I. How WE SHOULD NEVER TREAT OUR PERSECUTORS. not: i.e., do not curse or persecute them again. The temptation to revengeful retaliation, which comes puissantly to the pugnaciously disposed, is not easy to be resisted by even the most docile. We "must be manly;" and when annoyed and excited by persecution, we are extremely liable to form wrong notions of manliness-to regard it as the synonym of pugnacity. To turn again upon a formidable foe, requires courage; but that act may be at once one of masculine courage and moral cowardice. Much of the courage that is lauded and crowned with many honours, is that of mere animalism.

To refrain from injuring one who has injured us, from persecuting one who has persecuted us—that is moral heroism— that is one of the highest types of manliness. "Curse not."

To persecute persecutors, is a poor and mean revenge.

First: It will do you no good. Will it bring you gratification? Only one that is akin to fiendish joy. Is revenge sweet? Yes; if the triumph of devils over a soul taken captive is sweet.

Second: It will do you harm. It will only inflame and develop those passions which Christ came to stamp out of the human breast.

Third: It will injure your persecutors. It will only harden them in their sin and incense them in their persecuting work. "Curse not." The text teaches us :

"Bless

II. HOW WE SHOULD ALWAYS TREAT OUR PERSECUTORS. them that persecute you: bless." The word "bless" is twice repeated, and is remarkably expressive. All our treatment of, and conduct towards, persecutors must be in harmony with this word; and if we take it as the key note of our conduct towards them, that conduct can never be anti-Christian. God, Jesus on the Cross, the Divine Spirit, the angels are saying to you, "Bless your persecutors!" But, you ask: How are we to bless them?

First: Bless them with your pity. I do not mean that degenerate pity which is but a sublime, supercilious scorn; but the pity

can weep over the erring ones. This was how Christ pitied the persecutors of the prophets and His own persecutors (Luke xix. 41). We cannot be wrong in imitating Him. All who are secretly or openly antagonistic to Christianity, and who in any way persecute the good, need, if they do not deserve, such pity.

They will see their

Second: Bless them with your patience. folly by-and-by, and will repent of it. By patient forbearance you will at once recommend your Christianity and disarm them of their prejudice and stop their persecution. Saul, the champion of persecutors, was saved! Christ had patience with him. And since the "chief of sinners was converted, do not doubt of the possible conversion of any, no matter how inveterate and malicious their hatred, and passionate and persistent their persecution. O brothers, have patience with them. Though you have tried and failed, and tried and failed again, you may win them to Christ yet! 'Being persecuted," says Paul, "we suffer it.”

Third: Bless them with your prayers. We have quoted the words of Christ, which put the propriety and importance of such prayer beyond question. Hear them again, and obey them. "Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." Such prayers may be more acceptable to God-more likely to prevail, because offered, not for your friends, but for your "enemies." God admires and loves disinterestedness and magnanimity in the secret chamber, more perhaps than similar manifestations in the open community. In proportion as we can sincerely pray for God to bless our bitterest enemies-are we Christ-like. With the carnal man, this is simply impossible. Christ prayed for His very murderers, and with His dying breath Stephen did (Acts vii. 60).

Fourth: Bless them with your pardon. Let the whole of your behaviour show that you have forgiven them. To convince them of that, is to conquer them. There is no force in the moral universe so mighty and God-like as that of forgiving love.

Fifth Bless them, if need be, with the blessings of your

purse. "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." No persecutor can stand that long. Charities, loving ministries of beneficence, will sweep all prejudice and persecution away, as the rains, the snow of winter. Be it remembered then, that we are not only to refrain from cursing our persecutors, but are to bless them. "Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing (that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing" (1 Pet. iii. 9). "It is hard," you say. Yes; but like every other difficult thing, it becomes easy by practice and perseverance. The lesson is only to be learnt at the Cross on which the compassionate, forgiving Saviour died, and on which He interceded for the forgiveness of those who plaited the crown, and drove the nails, and thrust the spear, and wagged the head in mockery! You cannot learn it in any of the schools of philosophy, in any of the councils of State, in any of the communities of the world-for the world still believes in revengeful retaliation. Did I say the persecuting of the good has not ceased? is the spirit of persecuting the persecutors dead; but that spirit is devilish, while this, of praying for your enemies, of feeding them, if need be, of blessing your persecutors, is not only the best, the divinest, but the only way of effectually triumphing over envy, and reviling, and hatred, and persecution! You cannot destroy sin by sin. You cannot suppress hatred by hatred. You cannot silence reviling by reviling. You cannot kill persecution by persecution. No! A thousand times no! This is the only antidote to the rancour and revenge and implacable enmity of persecutors— "CURSE NOT; BUT BLESS THEM.” That is the Divine waythe only remedial way of treating them. God help us all to adopt it!

Nor

ENOCH D. SOLOMON.

SERMONIC NOTES ON THE VISIONS OF EZEKIEL.

No. XVI.

Subject: The Vision of a True Revival.

"The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, Thou knowest. Again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there. was no breath in them. Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding 'great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I will place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.”— EZEKIEL XXxvii. 1-14.

THIS vision, first doubtless portraying a national revival—

that of the Jews, is often and warrantably regarded as depicting a physical revival-that of the resurrection of the human body, and also as suggesting a religious revival-that of the Church of God. That it primarily referred to a National Revival there is no dispute. Ewald succinctly says of this and two succeeding chapters, as containing visions of Israel's future, "The prophet's eye still dwells the upon