There is, indeed, one instance where our Lord refused to listen to a prayer. It was when the two "sons of thunder," St. James and St. John-strangely unlike that loving nature which this latter subsequently developed-wished that fire might come down from heaven on a hapless Samaritan village which refused Him admittance when "His face was steadfastly set to go to Jerusalem," because "the days were well-nigh come that He should be received up." "And Jesus turned and rebuked them."

He came for blessing, not destruction. He came not to destroy the world, but that the world through Him might have life. And now that He is leaving it, His last parting words are words of blessing.

II. A MARK OF OUR LORD'S HIGH-PRIESTLY CHARACTER AND WORK. Looking at the immediate context, we see our Lord performing the prophet's function of teaching: "He opened their mind that they might understand the Scriptures." We see Him as King, and as such just before His ascension He issues His royal commands to His obedient subjects: "Tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high," and "Go ye unto all the world ;" "Ye shall be my witnesses." And here in this text we see Him as Priest bestowing the priestly benediction on His disciples and His Church. Distilling kindness from His lips, Christ rose to heaven as our High Priest. It is as a Priest He blesses the world.

1. As a Priest our Lord has blessed the world with a sufficient sacrifice. The priestly blessing of old followed the offering of the sacrifice, its presentment on the altar, its divine acceptance. How can Jesus bless men cursed with the fearful curse of sin? Only after He has, as the Lamb of God, taken away the sins of the world. Then He blesses. He dies for our sin; He is raised for our justification. Then He blesses; then He ascends to heaven and gives His parting blessing. Atonement, like creation, is God's work. Man cannot create. Very wonderful is the power of chemistry. It can build up atom after atom the acid which is secreted in the body of the ant, formic acid; it can make molecule after molecule of the strongest and purest alcohol, as if distilled from wine; it can, in short, turn existing atoms, existing materials, into an innumerable number of shapes, some absolutely unknown to nature; but it cannot make one atom. It needs creative power to take the step from nothing to something, It is equally as impossible for sinful man to offer an atonement for sin. Only an innocent being possessed of divine power can make a sufficient satisfactory atonement and oblation for human guilt. To offer an adequate atonement for himself, man must first become sinless. Can

this be? It is as impossible as to create. Our Lord has performed this work. The foundations of the city of the New Jerusalem are sprinkled with blood, as the heathen of old used to lay the first stone of a city or temple, and to sprinkle them with the blood of a human victim. Thus has our Lord acquired the right to bless.

2. As a Priest our Lord has blessed the world with the greatest spiritual gifts. To Him the psalm prophetically refers: "He ascended. up on high. . . . He received gifts for men.” With a slight but pertinent modification St. Paul quotes the words in speaking of the great fact of Christ's ascension: "He gave gifts to men," for He received that He might give.

(1.) He gave the Spirit. As the sun is the source of all dynamic energy, the fount of life and power, the means of production and growth to countless forms of animal and vegetable life on the earth, which could have no existence in the absence of his beneficent rays, so is the Spirit of God the cause and origin of all blessings to His Church. "I will send Him unto you, . . and when He is come, He will guide you into all truth."

(2.) He gave His Word. "He shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." The Word of God is Christ's gift. Trace all the thoughts in the apostolic Epistles to their germs in the words of Christ, and will it not be felt that they are as much the result of Christ's sayings as the flower is the result of the growth of the seed? But, beside this, the Epistles are developments of truths already givendevelopments guided by the Divine Spirit.

(3.) A constant intercession is another of these blessings of Christ's ascension and session at the right hand of God, whose value cannot be weighed in earthly scales. The world depends on the prayers of the great Intercessor. The intercession of the Son of God is to the spiritual world what the great force of gravitation is to nature. Unloose that power which mysteriously holds the starry worlds above us in their several orbits, and at the same time stoops to shape a tear, and all these fair worlds sink into a weltering ruin. Take away (were that possible) all sacrificial intercession and stop the prayers of Jesus, and straightway all cohesion is lost to the spiritual world, all power departs from His Church, all moral order from the world He blessed as He departed from it. No; by that blessing His prayers shall never cease. That blessing is the guarantee for the constant and abiding presence of the Holy Ghost with His Church, and for the unceasing prayers for it of the Son of God, who "purchased it with His own blood." This, too, is the warrant that never shall faithful and true-hearted prayer ascend to

the throne of God in vain. "In that day ye shall ask in My name."

It is.

3. As a Priest Jesus blesses the world with His constant supervision. Is the world under competent spiritual guidance or is it not? The true Christian has only one answer. In his "Cosmos," Humboldt tells of an incident which happened during one of his many voyages. They sighted an abandoned vessel which, when they approached it, had all the appearance of having been long tossing helplessly upon the waves, the sport of every wind and wave. It was all rotting and weed-grown. There was a helm but no helmsman on board. Is the world like this disabled, sinking hulk? Is there no great Guide, no sufficient Steersman? Science says, "We have never found Him." Faith says that great Guide, He who holds the helm of providence, is Jesus; it is He who blessed the world when He left it, and He blesses it still. Nay, faith says He left it but to be more intimately nigh_to His Church, but to act more powerfully upon the world. "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." And He comes in every spiritual influence exerted on the world or in our hearts.

At times we are tempted to suppose that He was nearer to needy suppliants when actually upon the earth-nearer to suffering men or women, who could, like the feeble woman on one occasion, and like a multitude on another occasion, touch the hem of His garment and be whole. Not so; distance does not cripple His power. "Give me a line long enough," said the great electrician, M. Faraday, "and I will send a message through it, though wrapped eight times round the globe, in one second." Electricity is instantaneous; the mechanical appliances occupy the time in the transmission of a message. So instantaneous is the transmission of Christ's spiritual influences to His Church and people. Raised far up above all heavens, He is yet near to help. Resting on this fact, we are assured, and can have no shadow of a doubt, that He who gave His Church His parting blessing will through that channel diffuse the influence of it through all the world. It is not with our Lord as St. Peter or St. Paul. When these apostles of the Lord had gone to heaven, Rome, or Ephesus, or Philippi could know them no more in their personal presence and influence. All that remained was the priceless power of a holy life and the unspeakable value of inspired writings. But when Jesus left the earth His personal agency did not cease. Baumgarten's work on the Acts of the Apostles lays down this idea as the proper foundation of his work, that as in the Gospels we have the beginning, so in the Acts we have a continuance of the story of Christ's work on earth. St. Luke says his Gospel re

lated to "all that Jesus began both to do and to teach." All that is recounted in the Acts was wrought by Christ's present power, in His name. And still He works by His name, and will finally conquer by His name. Underneath and around His Church are the everlasting arms of the Saviour. He ascended blessing. He shall come again "in like manner as ye beheld Him going unto heaven"-blessing His Church. Only the unbelieving and the abominable will "go into the clefts of the rocks, and unto the tops of the rugged rocks, for fear of the Lord and for the glory of His majesty when He cometh to shake terribly the earth." His Church says, "Come quickly," and waits His final word of blessing. "Come, ye blessed of My Father: inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Then, and then only, will His saving work be finished and His blessing find its completion.

FIRST EVENING LESSON.

THE ASCENSIONS OF ELIJAH AND OF CHRIST COMPARED (2 Kings ii. 1-15).

I. ELIJAH ASCENDS IN THE PRESENCE OF A SOLITARY WITNESS; CHRIST IN VIEW OF THE WHOLE OF HIS DISCIPLES. Elijah wished to be alone; Christ desired the presence of His disciples, and led them out as far as Bethany.

II. ELIJAH ASCENDS IN A CHARIOT OF FIRE; CHRIST IN A CLOUD, SOFTLY AND QUIETLY. How typical was this of the difference of the whole of their past work-the fiery prophet of vengeance and the mild Prophet of grace and love! Jesus ascends blessing His disciples.

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III. ELIJAH LEAVES BEHIND HIM A SOLITARY GIFT; CHRIST THE "" KINGDOM OF HEAVEN ON EARTH. Not a solitary prophet's mantle, but illimitable "gifts for men," are Christ's inheritance to His Church.

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Sunday after Ascension.

EPISTLE.

"THE END OF ALL THINGS IS AT HAND; BE YE THEREFORE SOBER, AND WATCH UNTO PRAYER

(1 Peter iv. 7).

"

As men advance upon the path of life, they find that one thing after another comes to an end. But this apostolic message warns us that the end not only of this thing and of that, but the end of all things is at hand.

I. THE IMPORT OF THE DECLARATION HERE MADE.

1. The end of the age. Peter writing to the Jews of the dispersion might well remind them that the end of the old dispensation, the end of the Jewish nationality, was near. But in his teaching, as in that of his Master, there was a commingling of that "end" which came to pass in the destruction of Jerusalem with the vaster end which religion bids us anticipate. And this involves with it the end

2. Of earthly honours, emoluments, and pleasures.

3. Of human relationships, which endure for a season and then cease.

4. Of the gospel-day, the day of visitation.

5. Of opportunities of Christian service here upon earth.

6. Of all unbelief, which then will no longer be able to resist the majestic evidence to be afforded of the authority of Christ, and of all hypocrisy, from which the mask will then be torn.

II. THE ADMONITIONS HERE FOUNDED UPON THIS DECLARATION. 1. To sobriety, i.e., moderation, self-restraint, and temperance. This has reference to earthly associations, interests, and enjoyments, which are likely to become too absorbing to many minds.

2. To watchfulness, i.e., against slothfulness, against temptation to sin. The uncertainty of the time of "the end" is an especial motive to this exercise. We know neither the day nor

VOL. III.

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