himself the fulness of bliss, while yet at the same time he is covered with want, destitution, and wretchedness; thus serving as a model for all classes and conditions of men.

"He took

our infirmities and bore our diseases."*

His sufferings are beyond all measure. The agony in the garden of Gethsemane causes drops of blood to flow from every pore of his body; his face is livid, he is all one wound by the stripes he has received, his head is crowned with thorns, and as he bears his heavy cross upon his lacerated shoulders, a crowd follow filling the air with cries of derision and contempt. Stripped of his garments he is nailed to the cross by his hands and feet; there is not a limb or member of his body in which he does not suffer unheardof cruelties.

Raised upon the cross, his heavenly Father turns away his countenance, and the angels that serve him, filled with dismay and fear, cover their faces with their wings. At the moment of death his divinity abandons, as it were, his humanity; still he remains calm and peaceful, and prays not for himself but for his executioners.

* Matt. viii.

The last words he utters are, "It is consummated."* What he could not gain by his wisdom and power, he gained by his sufferings and death-the hearts of men.

His work was accomplished-the conquering of humanity by love; and at his last act, the crowning act of his career, he fulfilled his saying, “When I shall be raised up I will draw all men unto me.” That is, men beholding this last and divine proof of my undying love for them, will be able to resist my love no longer. Thus did the man of Nazareth stand out before the whole world as the God-man;-man's perfect model, and his life the model of man's life perfected, inviting all men to follow him-the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

"Like us, a man, He trode on earthly soil,

He bore each pang, and strove in weary toil;
He spake with human words, with pity sigh'd;
Like us He mourn'd, and fear'd, and wept, and died."

"A Heart that beat for every human wo,

A Choice in holiest purpose pure and strong,
A Truth, sole morning-Light of all below,
A Love triumphant over deadliest wrong." +

XIII.

Idea of the Church.

"For haply thus the Lord of earth and skies,
From his own Heaven of Heaven descending
To look on us with human eyes,

Clothed with our sympathies and with us blending,
Would teach us that His Church on earth,

Shadow of Him who gave her birth,

E'en like her Lord when seen below,

Should put on human charities;

Visit each shape of human woe;

And like her Master should be known

Making our human feelings all her own,
Visiting each in lowly dress

Of more than human tenderness."

BAPTISTRY.

T is remarkable that no one before or since

IT

Jesus Christ ventured to proclaim himself as

the guide to truth and life. Jesus Christ did

more than this; he proclaimed himself to be "the way, the truth, and the life."

But Jesus Christ, to be the way, the truth, and the life to all generations of men, as he was to the generation in which he lived, must be present to them, not in a dead book, or in an indefinite and abstract manner, but as their Teacher, Guide, Helper, Father, Friend, Brother, Lover. He must meet all the wants of man's heart, and satisfy all the demands of man's intellect; and that really and personally, for all men have need of vital and personal relations with their Saviour.

We, for our part, refuse to acknowledge for our Saviour, one dead and separated from us by eighteen centuries; nor can we admit that a book, written in a dead language by his disciples, containing, at best, but a small part of what he said and did, is the fountain-source of God's eternal and everlasting Truth.

To send man back eighteen centuries, or tell him to read a book, however good, when he feels the pressing need of the love of the infinite God in his heart, is downright mockery. If Christ is to be to us a Saviour, we must find him here,

now, and where we are, in this age of ours also; otherwise he is no Christ, no Saviour, no Immanuel, no "God with us." If Christ does not do this, then he is no more than a man,-a man, if you please, like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato; no more,-nay, not even so much, for Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato acted, died, like men, and claimed to be only men. But Jesus Christ proclaimed himself equal to God,—yea, God himself; and taught his disciples to believe it. Hence, if he was not God, he was less than these heathen philosophers; for, say of them what you please, they did not practise imposition on their disciples.

We are nothing loth to give to Christ all the titles he claims, or that his followers ask for him; on the contrary, if we could conceive of higher titles than are claimed for him, we would readily concede them. But what we want and desire from our inmost soul is, that he should make these titles good. For man needs a Saviour, and needs as a Saviour one who is all that Christ claims to be.

66

We have seen that Christ was The Model Man," and presented to the world "The Model