From the two examples just offered of the noblest of the race, it will readily be seen that there is not one point in common between them. The source of action in both individuals is entirely different: the self-regarding interest, which is the just and legal feeling, animating the one, while the other, having ceased altogether to think of self, has his conduct controlled by love to Christ, and that feeling of gratitude which the prospect of eternal happiness in and through Jesus, his Lord and Master, has inspired.

of the redeemed. In this way a constant action and reaction in the form of the feeling and the felt is taking place between Christ and His body or Church on earth.

CHAPTER III.

THE ORIGIN OF THE OBJECTIVE CHRIST TRACED THROUGH MANY STAGES, AND THE FORCES EMPLOYED

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IN BUILDING THE NEW MAN.

EAVING my two possible types of the last chapter, I would try to present the Christianity of the future in the light of known truth, by building a new structure out of the material which may be said to be the effect of that self-regarding feeling or instinct of self-preservation which has been seen to be the strongest power in man. The soul of the infant I would regard as though the forces in the little brain of the child had been in equilibrium. Furthermore, as the product of the joint conscious beings from whom it has sprung it may be looked upon as embodying in a manner the experience of the race, and as having stored in its brain the ideas which have been evolved in the process of time, and of this experience the soul of any such dying in infancy may be taken to be in a measure the expression. The souls of the imbecile or idiot may be viewed in a similar way, only I cannot help thinking that their souls have a special claim on the Almighty, and in this idea I would cling to the old Scotch saying, that they are the children of the Almighty, implying that He keeps a special watch over them. And indeed I am sure that He does so, knowing them to be irresponsible creatures, whom His own laws have produced. All the insane, therefore, seem

in my opinion to be specially cared for by God, and to have before them a future very splendid indeed, as possessing much of the experience of the race without any responsibility attached. We may say that their's are souls fresh from the hands of the Creator, as being the product of His laws, and this would be a good reason to offer for such an opinion or belief, through the latter may also partly have arisen from the sympathy I feel for all such in the treatment they often receive. Anyhow, in the spirit of the old Scotch saying I would address one and all, and say, Behold the offspring of God-the offspring of the Almighty-which He has committed to the care of mankind, and in regard to which we will have all of us to render to Him an account of our stewardship.

To return to my subject as relating to the power that Christian influence exerts on the individual life, I would first deal with the germ which I perceive to present itself as the original Christ, understood to represent the God Man. And I would begin by stating that I hold the religious and moral element in humanity to be a fact which is apparent to all. Therefore, understanding this to be an element existing in the race, I would take hold of Abraham as that one in the race who in his generation displayed the religious element in the highest form, and in consequence of the developed state of this element was chosen by God to fulfil His design, and to become the medium through which the future Saviour was to be produced. In this way came the effect that the revelation given by God was intended to produce, which was destined to be accomplished by God revealing Himself

from time to time to Abraham and his seed. It must be observed here that the revelation thus made by God is understood to include an entirely new element, namely, that of God specially presenting Himself to man. No matter how high and exalted and utterly beyond our reach it may be, modern science presents a first cause, while as believers in a revealed religion we are dealing with facts, and must conclude that Abraham and his seed were specially called of God, and in this form presented a new development, which was destined to produce eminent and glorious effects, through the influence of this new element of God revealing His will to man. It was this that taught Abraham's race to fear and adore Him, as the Self-existing, Eternal, Omnipotent One, who chose thus to make Himself known to them by this wave of feeling issuing from the Eternal, and making itself felt in truth communicated through this medium.. Man was brought to the knowledge of God, and the forces thus united eventually assumed the form of definite ideas, in which God's character was revealed, and through which God ordered that man should perceive his need of a Saviour. The result of the laws thus originated through the forces employed has been the production of a germ, in the shape of an idea, which includes God's will to save and man's desire to be saved. This is the germ from which the future Saviour was destined to be produced, and to which as made apparent in the light of our present knowledge our Lord traces His origin when he alludes to the root and offspring of David, implying by His language that David's united contrasted ideas in re

vealed truth, which, when united, formed a full thought, and became the word of God. Thus was presented to us the germ which afterward appears in the form of the Lord of Hosts, who is to be called the God of the whole earth (Isiah liv. 5), and which, being in due time brought to maturity though the Virgin Mary, is known to our age as the Jesus of history, and the Christ of Christianity -the child of Mary indeed, but also the Son of God, and the God of humanity, by whom as God-Man our race is redeemed. Thus we have the medium of the organism and its environment presented in the subjective and objective, the feeling and the felt, and expressing itself in the wave of ether, which in this sense includes the embodiment of the spirit of God uniting sinful humanity, as conscious life, with the eternal, in the expression of the "Abba Father" which is the Christian's birthright. Thus we have found the Jesus of history in the first revelation made by God to man, and have followed the cause presented till we see Him seated on the judgment seat, and recognised as the God of the whole earth, and the only one able to weigh and measure human energy, that is to say, what is seen in the possible to man in his efforts to mount up higher and yet higher, bearing the image of God. In all this I would have it observed that I have not stripped Christ of His divine nature. For every unit of the forces thus employed existed in the form of the Godhead before they were presented in the way we have seen. To show this we need only quote the words of Jesus Himself, " And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (S. John xvii. 5.) Such