be sustained, nor our growth continued. The condition of fellowship with God is walking in His light. This is also the very element in which He meets and has fellowship with us, The man whose life moves in and turns to the world, as its element, walks in darkness, and if he says he has fellowship with God, our Apostle declares "he lies and does not the truth. While the man whose life moves in the way of obedience to God, and turns to Him as its portion, our Apostle as positively affirms, walks in the light and has communion with God. In like manner he has communion with the church and people of God in Heaven and on earth.

3. Once more, learn that, if His light shines upon us, it is not only to enlighten our own steps, but that we may shed it on the paths of others.

A lamp is not lighted to be put under a bushel, but on a lampstand that all who enter in may see the light. God does not give us light that we may quench or cover it; but that we may spread it abroad. The sun does not shine on the planets of the solar system simply and solely to illuminate them; but to enable them to shine and dispel the darkness around them. So God shines on us not only to make our own way clear before us: but that we may enlighten others also. For the light does not originate in us but in God. He alone is self-luminous. We are to give out what He has required us to diffuse abroad. He instructs us to so let our light shine, that others seeing our good works may glorify our Father who is in Heaven.

4. Finally let no trace of the Darkness of falsehood, ignorance, untruth, secret sin, unbelief, or shadow of the second death remain in your hearts, or lives. But let the light of the reconciled Father's love illuminate and clarify your whole soul. That love is strong, constant and unchanging. Though at times clouds and earthborn troubles may rise between you and Him, and shut out the light of His countenance and brightness of His presence, yet remember that in God there is no change, nor any darkness at all. In dark and foggy days the light of the sun may be cut off from the earth, but even then, we know His light is not quenched, nor His heat turned to coldness. Clouds may sometimes enwrap and chill us, but they do not lessen the warmth or dim the brightness of the Divine love. They may shut out His light from our eyes, but cannot change, or cloud the Father's heart toward us. For "He is light and in Him

is no darkness at all."

"He will light you through toil, He will light you through sorrow, He will beam on your journey, and smile on your grave,

He will wake up your soul to an unsetting morrow,

For the light of the world is all powerful to save."

III

THE LOVE OF CHRIST THE GREATEST OF SPIRITUAL FORCES

"For the love of Christ constraineth us."-2 COR. v. 14.

"O Love divine how sweet thou art !

When shall I find my willing heart

All taken up by Thee?

I thirst, I faint, I die to prove
The greatness of redeeming love,
The love of Christ to me.'

In this brief text the Apostle brings before us the greatest spiritual force revealed in the Gospel, the love of Christ. That love manifested the greatness of its power in what it disposed Christ to do on behalf of man. It also manifests the greatness of its power over men, in what it enables them to do for Christ. In the love of Christ originated the plan and work of redemption. That love also supplies the controlling motive-power for all that is most noble in Christian conduct and life. It disposed Christ to assume our nature, come under the limitations of human life, experience its privations and sufferings, bear ignomy as a malefactor and die upon the Cross. For He died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. The love of Christ, shed abroad in the hearts of men, has often enabled them to despise shame, persecution, torture and the stake, for Christ's sake. The love of Christ is then a force of

manifold and marvellous power, in the Kingdom of God.

Now observe that the phrase "the love of Christ," in the text, does not mean our love of Christ but Christ's love of us. The expression is of the same form and meaning as when our Apostle, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, prays that they may know the "love of Christ," or in his Epistle to the Romans in argument demands, "who shall separate us from the "love of Christ?" In these scriptures it is obviously Christ's love for us, and not our love for Him which is set forth. Our context requires that we here take the phrase, love of Christ in this sense. For it was not our love of Christ which disposed Him to surrender His life for our redemption; but, as the context teaches, His great love for us. While it is true that the love of Christ in the Christian's heart is an essential element of true religion, and disposes the Christian to do the noblest things of which he is capable; yet his love of Christ is too feeble and changeable an affection to effect what is here ascribed to the love of Christ.

But notice further, the power over his own conduct, which the Apostle here ascribes to the love of Christ. He introduces the text with the illative particle "for," to indicate that he employs the expression to account for, and explain, some seemingly contradictory aspects of his own conduct, which certain of his Corinthian disciples alleged against him. Some of them insinuated that he was given to boastfulness of speech, others that his religion bordered on fanaticism, while others regarded him as stern

even to asceticism. To these insinuations he replies, that the love of Christ constrained him in all he said or did. It impelled him in seasons of excitement and seeming extravagance, as well as in times of sternest sober-mindedness; in moments of warmest zeal and enthusiasm, as in exercising forbearance, with ignorance and prejudice; as well when enjoying the ecstasy of raptures and elevation of visions, and revelations, as in times of patient labour among, and pastoral care of, his flock. His whole life whether he seemed beside himself even to madness, or was sternly sane and self-contained, had constant reference to the glory of God, and the best interests of his fellowmen; he was always urged and controlled by one and the same impelling motive-the love of Christ. It constrained him in everything.

Let us now bring to view and enforce some of the outstanding characteristics of this greatest spiritual force, the love of Christ. It may help us to more readily apprehend the nature of the love of Christ, if we first think for a moment or two on love as an affection of our own hearts. Theologians agree that we may best form a conception of God, by advancing from the spiritual qualities of our own nature, and ascribing them to God in perfection and boundless degree. This is a proper method inasmuch as we bear the image of God, and are called His offspring. Thus we may rise, from our knowledge of love as an attribute of our own nature, to apprehend something of the pure and boundless love of Christ. Now love is a benevolent affection of the heart, which desires the happiness of the