And in a thousand ways that love is manifested; It sets before us ideals of character, and inspires to strive for their realization. It aims to touch our hearts by the unnumbered blessings of every day. It constantly appeals to our higher nature.

"The forgiveness of God," says J. Vila Blake, "is a pursuing love, never tired, never uncertain, unsteadfast, backward or unresolved, always perfect, present, unswerved. Look at all things. See how pityingly, events are ordered for our weakness; how they stoop to us when we fall; how tenderly the order of God takes up his children and leads them; how the flowers spring up before and behind, and love shines on the path. What helps, what incitements, invitations! What warnings, admonitions, exhortations! How our wanderings are followed by calls and penalties inward and outward, till we turn again to the light which never was turned from us! Look at these things till we know the forgiveness of God, the eternal forgiveness, and learn that never his face was averted, but ours was turned away."

There is a story in Lamertine of a nest full of young birds, whose supporting tree was torn away by an angry torrent and swept down the mad stream. The mother bird flew along beside the rushing waves that were bearing her nestlings to destruction, crying after them in plaintive, piteous notes, until at a bend in the stream, the tree be

came lodged, and she darted into the nest to find her young birds safe. So does the voice of the divine love pursue all who are carried along on the swift stream of life.

This is our conception of the Divine Forgive

ness.

When the forgiveness of God overtakes us, it imparts a forgiving spirit to us. This is the test

him, that we

We lose the

that we have become reconciled to are reconciled to our brother also. desire to take our fellows by the throat, saying, "Pay me what thou owest!" When we feel that we are forgiven, we are ready to forgive.

This evening closes the series of sermons I began some weeks ago. I am not given, as you all know, to over-much exhortation; but the subject of this evening concerns us all. It is for us to respond to the touch of the divine hand. It is for us to open our hearts that we may receive the transforming influence. "To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." A poor woman whose only daughter had wandered from her home, went to Dr. Bernardo, the worker among the London slums, and asked his help to find and restore her. He asked for a photograph of the girl, had several copies made, wrote upon each the words, "Come home," and placed them where they would be most likely to meet the eyes of the erring child. She would know by those words

that she was still loved, and that forgiveness was awaiting her. You know that there are many of the old watch-words of religion that I cannot utter; many of the old ideas that I do no believe. But it is with all sincerity that I say to-night to any who may have strayed from paths of righteousness, the voice of God is calling after you in all your wanderings, "Come home; O come home,"home to your forsaken allegiance, home to your neglected duties, home to purity and peace and faith and love!

X.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

[Sunday Evening, April 23, 1893.]

"Thou treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his works." -ROм. 2: 5, 6.

The ideas of judgment that have, for a long time, held sway, and that even yet linger in many minds, may be summed up in this wise: The day is approaching (some say that it is near, and some that it is yet remote in the future) when the sound of the great trumpet shall break upon the ears of a startled world, and when the terrified nations lift their eyes upward they shall behold the returning form of Christ. Angels will be his heralds and clouds his chariot. The blast of that trumpet will pierce the "dull, cold ear of death;" and those who have slept for ages in the earth will find their bodies miraculously restored. Soul and body will be united, and the entire man, as he was in the days of the flesh, will come forth from the tomb. The King will set up his throne, and those who are raised from the dead, as well as those who are alive at his coming, must stand before that throne to receive their final award or sentence. The right

eous will return with him to the skies and enter into life; the wicked will be sentenced to unending destruction. Thus closes the great drama of human history, and the world, the stage upon which it was enacted, will be reduced to ashes.

I. This was the old conception of judgment. While it still lingers, it does not, for various reasons, hold over human thought its original sway.

(1) First, men began to doubt whether the decisions of that day-supposing it to come in the form and manner described-were to be absolutely final. They began to doubt that, in the case of wicked persons, there was never to be another opportunity for repentance. This doubt has grown, has indeed become transformed into a belief in the possibility of restoration,-a belief that in the minds of multitudes of Christians in all denominations, now holds an important place.

(2) Then, too, when men began to question the finality of the decision, it was not long before they began to ask whether there was to be a future judgment at all,—whether there was any sense in which sentence against an evil work, under the Divine administration, could be said to be delayed. They studied more closely those laws of retribution that are ceaselessly in process of execution, and saw that here and now was judgment taking place.