which the Bible is inspired. It can scarcely be doubted that the Providence of God has been so exerted in the selection of the various writers that without any deliberate co-operation and intention on the part of the writers there runs through the whole a most wonderful and divine unity of thought and aim, so that one part harmonises with another in the most amazing fashion. We can detect four great principles which run through all the parts—

1. The doctrine of the unity of God. This truth was burnt into the Jews by the Exile and they never afterwards departed from it.

2. God's love for man. At first it was thought of as restricted to the Jews, but hundreds of years before the Gospel it had been perceived that it extended to all nations.

3. Man's need of Righteousness, thought of at first in terms of the Law, but widened into the Gospel.

4. Man's need of a Redeemer; grasped vaguely from the very first and ever deepening as the years went on.

The Bible is the divinely intended Guide for all people. There is nothing provincial about it in its full development. It can be translated with ease into every tongue, and its appeal is universal to every heart and to every conscience.

It was written for our learning and the more we study and love it the nearer we shall come to that Truth which is above and behind all written words, because it is not a thing but a Person, even God Himself.

It is true, as the Coronation Service says, that the Bible is the most valuable thing this world affords, yet how many people utterly ignore it. They have a copy perhaps, kept under an antimacassar, and carefully dusted, but of its contents they know little or nothing. If it be true, as has frequently been asserted, that the greatness of our race is largely owing to the way in which we used to read and study the Bible, the prospect for the future is not very encouraging. Even as literature nothing can compare with the Bible, but if as we believe it is the very word of God it ought to enter into our daily thoughts and life, so that it holds an entirely predominant place.

XXIV.-RESPONSIBILITY FOR BELIEF

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already.-ST. JOHN III. 18.

T is very instructive to compare the list of the damned in the Inferno of Dante with the list of those who are condemned to outer darkness and gnashing of teeth by our Lord in His parables. Dante's list comprises the Lustful, the Gluttonous, the Sullen, the Leaders of Heresy, the Murderers and Violent, the Misers, Liars, and Traitors.

Our Lord's list, on the other hand, includes the Five Virgins, against whom it is only alleged that they had been thoughtless and improvident, and who were quite confident that all was well with them; the Servant to whom the one talent had been committed, who had not been dishonest, only idle, and who felt that he had justice on his side; the Goats on the left hand, whose crime was that they had been unobservant of their neighbours' needs, and who were indignant at being accused of neglecting their religious duties; the Wedding guest who was either careless or conceited, and had neglected to put on a wedding garment, and who is speechless with amazement at his rejection; the Rich man who had lived in comfort, but not, so far as we know, in crime, and who justifies himself even in hell; the Guests who would not come to the banquet because they were full of their own business, and were quite convinced that the excuses they gave for their absence were adequate. When we look at this list we notice that there was not one open notorious sinner among them, not one who would have found his place in Dante's Hell. They were lost because they had taken a mistaken view of life; because they had thought it was not necessary to be always prepared, that it did not matter if they did not work for God as long as they did not work against Him; because they thought themselves exempted from acts of respect necessary for others; because they thought

more of enjoying life than of their duty; because they had been so engrossed in their work that they had forgotten anything higher; in a word they were condemned because they had not believed aright. It sometimes seems to us hard that a man should be condemned for any error in belief, yet these instances should give us warning of a real danger. Is it right, we ask, that we should be condemned because we did not know any better, for a mistaken belief which arises from ignorance of the truth? The answer depends upon circumstances. No one would condemn a child for ignorance of what he had no opportunity of knowing. You would not blame a tiny child for crawling on to the railway line, but in a grown boy it would be an act of culpable folly; we sympathise with Othello because he has been deceived by the subtle treachery of Iago, but he would have been a monster if he had not been so cunningly deceived. Much ignorance is entirely blameworthy. It is no excuse for the captain of a ship to say that he did not know that a certain rock was marked on his chart. It was his business to know, before he set the ship's course over it. It is no excuse for a commander, who has lost his army, to say that he did not know he was marching into an ambush. It was his business to have found out. It is no excuse for a mother who gives her child, sick with typhoid, hard food to eat, to say that she did not know it would kill him. It was her business to have found out what was safe. It is no excuse for the fool, who points a gun at a man, to say that he did not know it was loaded, and so on.

Just as we are very largely responsible for our ignorances so we are very largely responsible for our beliefs, in spite of the efforts that are often made to disclaim responsibility on the part of men for their acts.

We are obviously entirely responsible in nature.

If we go up to the top of a high tower and jump down, no amount of belief in our ability to fly will prevent us from being dashed to pieces at the bottom. If we drink contaminated water no amount of belief that it is not contaminated will save us from typhoid fever.

It is so in human society; a man may honestly disbelieve in the rights of property, but that does not prevent his being prosecuted for theft if he takes his neighbour's property. A man may believe quite honestly in the principle of the vendetta, being convinced that his duty and honour alike demand that he should kill his enemy; but that belief will not save him from the gallows in a civilised community.

The truth is that our beliefs are very largely the consequences, as well as the causes, of our acts. The rogue believes that all men have their price and would be dishonest if they could be so with safety. The sensualist believes that honour and purity do not really exist among men, or among women; the man who occupies himself entirely with the material ceases to believe in the spiritual.

There is a constant interchange between acts and beliefs. We act in a certain way because we believe in a certain way, but it is equally true that we believe in a certain way because we are accustomed to act in a certain way.

The appeal made by Jesus Christ is an appeal to all that is best and noblest in human nature. Of course it often happens, through the unworthiness of those who make the appeal in Christ's name, through their sins and inconsistencies, that the appeal is not really understood, but the appeal of Christ Himself as He really is, and not as He is too often misrepresented to be, the appeal of Christ Himself is to all that is best in a man. If, therefore, he cannot believe and accept that appeal it is because there is something amiss in himself, something that does not and cannot respond to what is noblest and best. "What think ye of Christ?" is a test, not of Christ, but of the man who answers. If he cannot believe he is condemned already by his inability to respond. He cannot believe until he has got rid of the evil in himself, which is warping his judgment. Christ is thus the great Touchstone of life and character. He that believeth is acquitted, because his past has led and predisposed him to respond:

he that believeth not is condemned because his past has led and predisposed him to reject and to hate the goodness which is presented to him in perfect form.

The mission of the Church with regard to Christ is often misunderstood. It is not primarily, as is often represented, to convert the world. This is not the work of the Church, which has no power to accomplish it. To convert the soul is the work of God the Holy Ghost, Who is the Lord and Giver of all spiritual life. The work of the Church is to be the Herald, Preacher, and Teacher of the Gospel, to present it to all men everywhere, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. This real meaning of Christian missions answers many prima facie objections that are often raised. The Church is doing only its legitimate work. It is trying to present Christ to all men, to bring men face to face with Christ as He really is in His own nature, and to leave Him to make His own appeal. A great deal of the failure of missionary work, especially missionary work by English Christians, is due to the way in which we insist on forcing on converts a great deal that is simply English rather than Christian. Instead of bringing them face to face with Christ we insist on the acceptance of an English Prayer Book, and even of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. After all, the great question is not "What think ye of the Church of England?" but "What think ye of Christ? Just because we are, to a tremendous extent, responsible for our beliefs men will always and everywhere react to that test. Those who have, however dimly and uncertainly, been trying to lead the higher life of unselfishness and truth will respond to the appeal of the One Perfect Life, while those who have fallen under the sway of selfishness and passion will refuse to believe that which they instinctively feel to condemn themselves.

It would be well for all of us, when we find belief hard, to ask ourselves why it is that belief in Christ is hard; and whether it may not be that our very unbelief is a condemnation. There is, of course, an unbelief for which the sins and unfaithfulness of Christians are responsible, and it has sometimes saddened the noblest spirits, but when Christ