child, I died for thee, and canst thou reject My love? I know thy sin, better than thou knowest it thyself, I suffered the nails, the thorns, the spear to give thee the victory. Though thy sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool. Come unto Me, thou sinful one, and I will give thee rest."

And if God gave us grace to answer casting ourselves down before Him in the dust, "Lord, I have sinned. Thou knowest-Forgive me or I die," with what intensity of joy were we filled when we felt His tender hand raise us up, and His tender voice breathe in our ear, "So I forgive thee. Go and sin no more." With what depth of gratitude did our heart exclaim, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me." With what joy and gratitude shall we come to Him, Who has not only redeemed and forgiven us, but of His infinite love has prepared for us the sacred food of His own Body and Blood to strengthen our weary souls. With what joy and rapture shall we exclaim as we come to Him in humble penitence, without a thought of the jeers or taunts of men, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Verily Thou hast anointed my head with the oil of forgiveness, and the cup of my joy runneth over." With what humble and trembling, yet with what deep and abiding, faith shall we exclaim, Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.' And when the brief struggle of this life is over, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

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XLVI.-CALLED TO BE SAINTS

Called to be saints.-ROMANS I. 7.

T is remarkable that St. Paul nearly always addressed the congregations to whom he wrote as "saints," or called to be saints "; yet the men and women to whom he wrote were, as we see clearly from what he says, not saints in the sense in which we use the word, but men and women just like ourselves, more enthusiastic, more earnest perhaps, but just as liable to fall into sin and to forget their high calling when the moment of enthusiasm was past, and just as slow in some cases in paying what they owed for the service of God.

It is clear that by " saint " St. Paul meant, not one who was already perfected in righteousness, but one who, with however many falls and failures, did at least believe wholeheartedly in the truth of the Christian Revelation, and was trying, to the best of his ability, to lead such a life as Christ wished him to lead. In other words a saint was an honest professing Christian such as all of you ought to be, and you are all, or ought to be, saints in St. Paul's sense of the word. Let us then try to grasp three or four of the essential notes of a saint, i.e. of what each one of us ought to be.

1. Faith, that is Belief in God and in the supreme purpose of life. It is not always easy to believe in a good God and in the divine purpose of human life in the present day. Men ask why did God allow all the horrors of war, its stupid cruelty, its mad brutality, its senseless waste, its obscene materialism? Is it not inconsistent with any idea of the moral government of the world at all? So strongly was even an intelligent writer like Mr. Wells impressed with this idea that he asked us to believe in a Good God of limited power, Who was doing his best for the right and asked for and needed our help. Such an idea is entirely repugnant to the Christian. He believes

in a God Who is Almighty, and Who has put him into the world to do His perfect will. In reply to those who are faint-hearted and fearful he points out two things, first that no one imagines that almighty means able to do anything. God cannot lie, cannot do wrong, cannot be untrue to Himself, and even God cannot make man a being possessed of free will, and at one and the same time prevent him from exercising that free will. If man is to be man, and not a mere animated puppet, he must be allowed to do wrong if he will and God can only lead, not drive him back to better things. And secondly, it is at least open to argument, and many of the wisest men have believed it to be true, that this world, as it is with all its evil and cruelty and wrong, with all its darkness and its half light, is after all, the best possible means that could have been devised, not for man to find earthly pleasure, but to give to man an opportunity to grow, and develop those characteristics of faith and love and pity and self-sacrifice, of self-denial and self-conquest, of hope and trust and aspiration, which God created man to acquire. He cannot positively affirm that this is so, but he can affirm, without any hesitation, that it is quite as likely to be true as any other explanation of life that has ever been put forward.

2. Holiness. Holiness must not be confused with morality. A man may be perfectly moral, so far as his conduct goes, and yet be a hypocrite of the worst type, secretly loving the things which he finds it to his interest not to practise. For instance, a man may be a total abstainer because he believes it better for his health, or because it helps him in business, or because he thinks it makes people trust him, or because it saves money. There may be not one spark of religion about his action. On the other hand he may be a total abstainer from the desire to help weaker brethren, or because it enables him to be more spiritual in his outlook and action, or because he wishes to give the money it would have cost him to the service of God. For the latter case, his action is religious and a product of the desire for holiness or spiritual healthiness. Great harm has been done by associating holiness with the observation

of a long string of negatives. "Thou shalt not do this or that." This is a great mistake. Holiness is positive not negative. It is the desire to carry out and live up to a great ideal. The true Christian does not abstain from a sin because he is commanded not to commit it, but because he does not want to do what he knows God hates, because he wants to be and to keep in touch with the spirit of the Will of God.

Remember always that it is easy to do wrong, hard to do right. Any fool can do wrong. You don't want any intelligence, any strength, any courage; all you have to do is to let yourself go, never to say no, to swim with the tide, and you will find no trouble in committing all the sin you want. But doing right is another matter. It means going against the tide both of your own desires and of the ways of the world. It needs intelligence, courage, strength, patience, and determination. It needs all that is strongest and most manly. Never be afraid of the taunt of goodness. It is at least a compliment to your strength.

3. Life. If we may use a colloquial expression, God does not need dead-heads. It is extraordinary how many people there are who think that He does; that He is quite satisfied with people who seat themselves or are more often seated by others in the train of religion, and who think that it is quite sufficient to travel along quietly without effort and at no real cost to themselves. God does not want people like that, and they are terribly deceived if they think that they are really travelling at all. Their train has been shunted on to a siding, and the wheels are overgrown with thorns and weeds. God wants live souls, active and growing, not torpid and dead. One often hears people say, "Oh, I used to go to Church regularly. I used to be in the choir or a teacher in the Sunday School, and I worked so hard that now I am having a rest." Something is wrong with people who talk about what they used to do. Growth is the real test of life. If we are not spiritually growing, if we are not at least desiring to do more, pray more, work more for God, it is a sign that our spiritual growth has stopped, and then there is always the danger

that it may insensibly begin to die. Spiritual life and spiritual growth are absolutely essential to the true Christian. Without them there is death.

4. Truth. There is nothing at all that is more important than truth. It is of no use for us to have a religion that is beautiful, or that is comforting, or that satisfies all our ideals, unless that religion is true. Truth is the one thing of absolutely primary importance. Yet it does not follow, as so many people think, that they are themselves fully qualified to decide what is true and what is false. Take the truths of religion for instance; many people will tell you that they can judge quite well what is true and what is false, and that their own belief is firmly founded on what is true. But consider a moment which is most likely to be right, the imperfect judgment of a very ignorant man or woman, who has lived twenty or forty or sixty years in the world, and who has probably never made any real study, either of philosophy or of theology, or the opinion of the Church, which means the summing up and putting together of the religious experience of thousands of the greatest and wisest Christian thinkers and teachers for nearly two thousand years. While we are rightly anxious to arrive at the truth we must be very careful indeed about assuming that our opinion is and must be the truth.

To sum it all up, the saint, the man that St. Paul expected you and me at least to try to be, is a man who is in real earnest; who believes in God, not only with his head, but with his heart and his whole being, and believes that life was given him for the purpose of trying to learn the will of God and do it; he believes that it is the will of God that he should set his face against all that is evil, and fulfil God's law of holiness and purity; that God meant him to be ever learning and growing and deepening in his spiritual life, and searching ever after the truth which he expects to find, not in his own wisdom, but in the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This kind of saint will win the respect of men and the approval of God.