afraid of something it sees, settles down with hushed scream, drooping plumage, on the ground.) Wild prophet of desert feels awe before Holy One, feels self unworthy; even he had his sins (comp. Isa. vi. 5 with St. Matt. iii. 14).

(c) The Lord. Our last picture of Him was as a Child of twelve. What His words? Now He is thirty. Come from out His retirement of eighteen years' carpenter's life. What His words now ? (Second recorded saying) : "Suffer

it . . . righteousness" (ver. 15). No sin to repent, yet would be like others.

(d) The open heaven. Light pouring down, gleaming on the drops of water on the Holy Saviour. (1) What else to be seen? In form like a dove, the Holy Ghost; this like Jesus being confirmed; Father's unseen hands laid on Him (see prayer in Confirmation Service, "Let Thy Fatherly hands," &c.; see also Acts xix. 5, 6). Holy Ghost coming to enable Him for more difficult fight and work (St. Matt. iv. 1). To fill His whole being. His body a temple (St. John ii. 20-21). (2) What to be heard? Voice of the Father; the Holy Spirit helps people to feel that God is their Father (Rom. viii. 15-17); with the same Spirit came Father's voice, "This is " or 'Thou art," &c. (St. Matt. iii. 17; St. Luke iii. 22). Lord came up praying.

Now (1) Find Jacob's ladder here. Yes; Christ, Man on earth, God in heaven; the way up for us, way down for angels to us (St. John i. 51). (2) Find the meaning of "Holy, holy, holy." Why thrice? All made clear by Jordan's stream: Holy Jesus, Holy Dove, Holy Father. Glory be to the Father, &c.

(ii.) Now we will read our Creed in front of the picture.

The painter seems to put the whole Creed into this picture. Can we find it? Let us see. (Here the children are to say the Creed, article by article in turn, the teacher drawing out (or pointing out) how each part is illustrated).

4,5. Suffered under, &c.

6. The third He

day
rose, &c.

The

hands devoutly clasped would be pierced with nails; on the head, where drops of water fall, there was to be a crown of thorns, drops of blood. That sacred body would be on the cross in agony, then cold in the grave.

As He came up out of the water, So He would come from the dead. We are "buried with Him in Baptism," we rise with Him to the new life.

7. He a s- Up into that clear light cended, &c. through the open heaven He passed. Jesus going up, the Holy Dove coming down, for us.

8. I believe He takes no form that in the Holy we can see, now, but Ghost. just as really does He come to be with us, especially at Confirmation, and He would do for us what He did for Jesus.

9. The Holy His sacred body filled Catholic with the Spirit is a picChurch, ture of His Church, &c.

ness of

sins.

the Body of Christ," in which His saints are united.

10. Forgive- "I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins." The Baptist demurred at Jesus being baptized. Why? Because He had no sin to wash away.

11, 12. Resurrection of the

body, &c.

Follow the drops of water in that river; they flow down to Dead Sea; caught up by the bright sunshine, they form clouds, beautiful in the light, floating over the land northward; then the same drops changed to pure snow, falling on Hermon glittering in sun. So we in life float down the stream, these bodies of ours will be with the dead; but if we shall have lived "to the

III. THOUGHTS 1. On the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity.

The passage treated of in this Lesson is a proof against the heresy of the Sabellians, who drew an unreal distinction between the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. They taught that the One God was pleased sometimes to act as Father, as when He creates ; sometimes as Son; sometimes as the Spirit; sometimes as all three. Thus the Trinity became but three different aspects of God; "Names for God as observed from three different points of view." These teachers "confounded the Persons." At our Lord's Baptism, as in other parts of Holy Scripture, the distinction between the Three Blessed Persons is unmistakably marked and real.

On the other hand, we have to guard against Tritheism, the teaching that there are three Gods, which is, says Dr. Mason, unconsciously the Creed of a great many persons. Observe that Our Lord's baptismal formula is not "into the names," but "into the Name" &c., thus showing that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One. "We find," says Bishop Harold Browne, "that what the Father does, that the Son does, and that the Holy Ghost does; where the Father is, there the Son is, and there the Holy Ghost is," e.g.

The Father made the world (Heb. i. 2; I Cor. viii. 6).

The Son made the world (St. John i. 3; Col. i. 16; Heb. i. 2).

The Spirit made the world (Job. xxvi. 13, xxxiii. 4).

Again, the Father quickeneth (St. John v. 21). The Son quickeneth Whom He will (St. John v. 21). It is the Spirit that quickeneth (St. John vi. 63). Of each of the Three Persons it is said that He spake by the prophets; to each

Spirit," they will be

caught up again and become beautiful as the snow, on which sun shines, for ever and for

ever.

One word: think when you stand and say your Creed what it all means; God most good to reveal to us all this truth; pray that you may believe it with all your heart (St. Matt. xi. 25; St. John xx. 29).

Prayer: Collect in Baptismal Service (adapted) immediately before address to Godparents.

FOR TEACHERS.

sanctification is ascribed, and Ordination, and the Indwelling Presence.

Bishop Harold Browne on the First Article of Religion, and Canon Mason on the Blessed Trinity in his "Faith of the Gospel," should be studied.

2. On the Creed.

'Though the Scriptures be a perfect revelation of all Divine truths necessary to salvation, yet the fundamental articles of our faith are so dispersed there, that it was thought necessary to collect out of those sacred writings one plain and short summary of fundamental doctrines, which might easily be understood and remembered by all Christians. This summary, the Creed, in Latin is called symbolum. Reasons given for this term. (a) An allusion to the custom of several persons meeting together to eat of one common supper, each bringing a share; Gr. symballein to throw together. Some say that the Apostles met together, each threw in his article to compose this symbol. (b) It denoted the marks, signs, watchwords by which soldiers of an army knew each other. By this Creed the true soldiers of Christ are distinguished. (c) The Pagan symbols were secret marks, words, tokens communicated at the time of initiation, or a little before, to those who were consecrated to their hidden rites, thereby they knew each other, so they were admitted to the secret mysteries of the worship of their gods. The Creed was concealed from Pagan world, and not revealed catechumens till just before Baptism, and became the secret note by which they might know one another.

to

The greatest part of the Creed found in the writings of St. Ignatius (early second century), the whole found in St. Ambrose.

The Creed was only recited, in early times, at public Baptisms which were at Easter and Whitsuntide. About 500 A.D. P. Gnapheus, Bishop of Antioch, prescribed its public recital.

Its place in our Liturgy, after the Lessons, for "faith comes by hearing," before the prayers, for we cannot call on Him in Whom we have not believed.

It is repeated standing to signify our resolution to stand up stoutly in defence of it. In Poland and Lithuania the nobles drew their swords when they recited the Creed in token that they would, if need be, defend and seal the truth of it with their blood.

Catechumens in the primitive Church turned to East or sun-rising in making their profession; to the West, or darkness, in making renunciation of the devil, &c.-(Wheatley, "Book of Common Prayer," condensed.)

3. The Twelve Articles of the Creed gathered from Acts i.—iv.

I. God the Father; Lord, Thou art God which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is.

2. The Lord and His Christ. Thy
Holy Child Jesus. The Lord
Jesus.

3. Mary the mother of Jesus.
4. Jesus Whom Thou hast anointed
Pontius Pilate and
the people of Israel were
gathered together. Him ye
have by wicked hands crucified
and slain.

5. His soul was not left in hell,
neither His flesh did see cor-
ruption, Whom God hath raised
from the dead. Jesus Christ
Whom ye crucified God raised
from the dead.

6. Being by the right hand of God exalted . . . He would raise up Christ to sit on His throne. A cloud received Him out of their sight.

7. This same Jesus shall so come

in like manner as ye have seen Him go, &c. Before that great and notable day of the Lord

comes.

8. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost .. I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh. 9. They were baptized . . . about 3,000 souls. continued

steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. The Lord added to

10.

the Church daily such as were being saved.

Repent and be baptized for the
remission of sins.

11. Preached through Jesus the
resurrection of the dead.
12. Thou hast made known unto
me the ways of life.

4. It is perhaps hardly accurate to say that there are three Creeds; the Creed is one, the original form, the Apostles' Creed, passing on through the centuries, several of its articles being more fully stated in the longer forms; it is as a building complete in form and outline, which, however, at subsequent periods has certain of its parts more fully elaborated, not added to. 5. The Baptism of our Lord.

'Jesus had been waiting for the fit moment for leaving His thirty years' obscurity in Nazareth, and presenting Himself before the herald who had been unconsciously proclaiming Him. Though cousins, the Baptist and the Son of Mary had never seen each other.

But the Baptist must have been daily expecting Him to put in His claims. His appearance, wholly different from that of those who had thronged to his ministry, at once arrested the prophet's eye. The light, as of other worlds, shining from the depths of those calm eyes; the radiance of a soul free from all stain of sin, transfiguring the pale face-full, at once, of highest beauty, tenderest love, and deepest sadness, was hereafter, even when dimly seen by the light of midnight torches and lanterns, to make the accusers shrink backwards and fall, overcome, to the ground. . . . The soul has an instinctive recognition of goodness, and feels its awfulness. Spiritual greatness wears a kingly crown which compels instant reverence. John, for the first and last time, drew back. I have need, &c. 'Suffer it now,' said He, 'for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness' (every duty).

"Can we question that such an act was a crisis in the life of our Lord? Holy and pure before sinking under the waters, He must yet have risen from them with the light of a higher glory in His countenance. His past life was closed; a new era had opened. Hitherto the humble villager, veiled from the world, He was henceforth the Messiah openly working amongst men. Past years had been buried in the waters of Jordan. He rose from them, the

Christ of God.