preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the sick,—the one beautiful, transcendently perfect embodiment of all that is glorious in man's best thought; now crucified, His body rent, His spirit crushed, His very name held up to shame if possible, for all the ages. And yet God over all! But in that story was there a single intimation that God had forgotten Him? Was there a single complaining, not to say querulous, note as to whether God had left His world or abdicated His throne? "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Mebut not My will but Thine be done."

Now if there is a faith in God which can sustain a human heart through such an hour, if there is a faith in God which can lift up the soul of man to that fellowship with God which will blot out the trials of such a life, if there is a vision of God open to the soul that can enable one to look through the darkness of an hour like that, then how pitiful the Christian faith that is querulous of God and of God's ways because they are not our ways. "I would despise a religion," said John Calvin, “" that lies level to a man's understanding." Faith walks without sight because it believes. President McKinley was before all else a Christian. And the Christian is a man with a faith in God which quiets all question as to God's ways.

And so once more, such faith in God gives the single rule to conduct. Who are the men who have changed the course of human history? Who are the men who do their duty whatever the world. may think? "I stand here; I can no other,"-it was Luther before the Diet of Worms. "The man with the book," who was it? John Calvin, before whom, because of his faith, all the forces of evil trembled. Who were the men who laid the foundations of England? Cromwell, Hampdon, Pym, the Puritans, and all the long generation of men who counted not their lives dear unto themselves. These are the men who subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, out of weakness were made strong, put to flight the armies of the aliens-the men who had come to know God, and, knowing God, obeyed Him.

Now whatever may be said of the failures or mistakes of President McKinley, as men may differently judge him, no man seems to be willing to raise a question as to his purpose to do what he believed to be right. In him faith in God was dominant. He belonged to the same type of faith which those men of the past possessed; differing it may be in degrees of development, but of the same type; seeking the same results, developing the same purposes, moving obedient to the will of the heavenly Father. That is what it is to be a Christian.

Then again, in the fourth place, such faith as this enables a Christian character to unfold harmoniously. It is the center around which the entire circle swings. He was honest? Yes. And pure, and just, and loving, and very kindly in his home, and unselfish? Yes, all this is true, and more might be said. But what was the preeminent fact in regard to the man? That he was a Christian. And what does that mean? What did it mean for him? If he were here to-day, dear friends, what may we be sure that above all else he would want us to say about him? Any of these things? Not at all. What then? That he was a forgiven sinner. "I am nothing. Jesus Christ redeemed me. I am not my own, I am bought with a price." Hence comes humility; and out of that humbleness of heart of a forgiven sinner, the heart that knows its own weakness, its failures, and therefore its own bitterness, came all the beautiful flowering of a splendid life, rounded and complete in its development because it was being fashioned after the likeness of Jesus Christ That is what it is to be a Christian.

In these days we hear much about law and very little about the Lawgiver. We hear much about the rule of ethics and the relations of one man to another-the altruistic relation in life; and very little about the impulse to duty, to love, to the ethical life. And as a consequence, when we come to apply these rules to ourselves, we find so often in our lives the apostle's words coming true, "The good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not that I do." "My resolutions are writ in water. I have so many purposes to be a better man, more gentle, more pure, more unselfish, nearer to God, and I live on a lower plane or fall below it. The weight of years rests upon my shoulders, gray hairs are here and there upon me, and I mourn for my youth. The day of hope, the day of high ideals, the day of longings after better things, where has it gone?" We lack dynamic, that is, the impulse, the sustaining energy, which will enable us to be what we would be; to conquer ourselves, to rise to the higher level, mounting upward as the soul whose wings are unfettered. Now where shall it come from? Not from the philosophy of earth; not from the prudential lessons of experience. It should come only, and it does come only, from that consciousness of God which brings God, with His law, as the Lawgiver; which brings God as the Creator into His creation, which brings God as the Lord of the soul into the soul in all its daily affairs. When a man has come to know God, and to fear God, and to walk humbly with his God, and has found the abiding and

essential law of life, and his heart has received the impulse to obey it, which, starting him in the better path, holds him until God's work is accomplished-this it is to be a Christian.

And one thing more. This faith in God as a living presence brings heaven into a man's life. Men fear death, and they shrink from pain, and are overcome and broken down by disappointment and failure, but the Christian leans on God, he knows God as his Father, ever present, abiding, protecting, bringing him hope at last. Of the Christian we have that abiding picture of Bunyan's pilgrim in the Progress. All he experiences are so many steps toward the Celestial City which is always before him in the distance. Whether he is in the Slough of Despond, in Vanity Fair, on the Hill Difficulty, wherever he be, the Celestial City is before him. To the dying Christian death is going home. Therefore, when the hour comes, in the sudden shock, in the startling warning, at midnight or at cock crowing, what does the Christian say? "Break it tenderly to the loved ones. It is God's will; I have no will of my own. Hold me not back. Darkness is disappearing, behold the day is at hand." You remember when Bunyan's pilgrim came to the house of the Evangelist, and they met him at the door, and wondered that he could be so cheerful and bore so bravely the journey, he said, When I consider whence I came and whither I go, when I think of Him whose name I bear, when I look at the beautiful robe that has been given me, then I can do it." And they led him to the chamber the name whereof is Peace, and its windows open toward the sunrise. Once within that blessed abode, he laid down and slept, and in the morning awoke singing. Every true Christian is permitted to lie down in the chamber of Peace, whose windows open toward the sunrise; and if the call come at cock crowing or in the morning, when the real window opens and the real sun arises for the new life, it finds him singing.

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So the fame of the beloved President is safe in the hearts of the nation because of his place as a Christian. “And I beheld a great multitude which no man can number, out of every kindred and nation and clime, assembled before the throne of God. And they sang a new song,' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. To Him be dominion, and glory, and power, for it is His right to reign.'" We thank God for every life of a forgiven sinner that brings us back to the old faith in the living God.