is used vaguely. Sometimes people talk about preaching the doctrine of the Cross. Do they know what the real doctrine of the Cross is? It is the expression of this divine solicitude-the very persistence of the divine love in behalf of the sinner. Preach that, believe that, trust in that, listen to the appeal of that, be moved by assurance of that. Be transfigured in your own heart by the same loving and self-sacrificing spirit.

There is a downward joy and an upward joy in the world. The worst trait in wickedness, the worst manifestation of a bad spirit, is joy in the fall of anotherjoy when sin prevails-joy when a brother trips and stumbles into ruin. Do you remember that terrible but magnificent passage in one of the chapters of Isaiah, where the prophet addresses the king of Babylon, and says: "Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?" That is the way bad men feel when a man has lived twenty or thirty years without doing anything wrong, and then falls. "Aha!" they say, "thou hast become like one of us at last." So the libertine, who has tempted a woman to fall, says to her, "You are debased now." That is the feeling of men who have gone far in sin, when they put the glass to your lips and succeed in leading you into vice. "It is no use

now; you are down." Such a joy as that, my friends, is hellish and abominable; it is one of the darkest problems in the universe; it is the grandest embodiment of the devil that I know of. There is only one thing that is almost as bad, and that is the spirit of the eldest son in the parable, who believes he is going to heaven because he has worked for it all his life, and nobody else has any right to go there who has not worked as hard as he has. Or that of the Scribes and Pharisees, who can not bear the idea that God in some way will have mercy upon all-that he would bring all (not in their sins, but out of them-remember that) into his kingdom at last—that in some way he will break the rocky heart-that he will watch from the eternal heaven, wait and put forth influences until they all come at last into his kingdom. The Scribes and Pharisees can not like that; they have lived on earth for the purpose of being happy in heaven. Such a spirit is near akin to that which says to the fallen, "You have become like one of us." That is a downward joy. There is an upward joy that blessed spirits feel when another spirit becomes blessed. It is the joy of redeemed souls when others have become redeemed. It is the joy of those who have fought the good fight and achieved the victory, when others come drenched, as it may be, with the blood of their wounds, but saved and delivered. It is a joy that flows from earth to heaven. As there is light in the morning that goes shimmering up the clear upper sky, so there

is a light that goes shimmering up to the white robes of the blessed, making their crowns brighter, when the faces of the penitent are upturned in prayer. As when the breath of the summer air begins to stir the leaves of the forest, they all shiver and lift themselves with rejoicing, so when the soul of the penitent begins to move, when the guilty heart turns from sin to Christ, there goes forth a breath, an impulse, higher and higher, deeper and deeper, stronger and stronger, until it becomes a sweet hallelujah sweeping all round the courts of heaven. That is the upward joy

Now, oh, man, how do you stand? All heaven sympathizing for you-God solicitous for you, and yon holding on to your sin! Are you not ashamed of it? Is it not strange that you will indulge in any sin? For it is not for the outcast merely-the gross prodigal —that he is solicitous, but for all sinners. You have a bosom sin a bad practice-a vice-or you feel that your heart is full of sin. Are you not ashamed of it? With God Almighty watching for you, with angels solicitous for you when you fall, rejoicing when you rise, can you continue in sin, and turn your face from God! Or will you not be moved, impelled, and inspired by this very sympathy to renounce your sin and rise to newer life? There are great joys in this earth, but the deepest joy is that of turning from the evil to the good, and when that deepest and truest joy springs up in your heart, remember there is joy in heaven.

HONORING CHRIST.

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna; Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.-John xii, 12, 13.

AST take up the account of

SI take up the account of this enthusiastic homage

rendered to the meek and lowly Redeemer, my mind reverts to another scene famous in ancient history, a scene in which there was also a great multitude, more numerous, perhaps, than was ever collected for any other purpose in any period of time. I allude to that immense host which accompanied Xerxes in his attempted conquest of Greece; a concourse gathered together from the Indies to the Lybian desert; a sea of nations rolling on in serried waves, with turbans and helmets of brass and steel, of silver and gold. Seven days and seven nights were they without intermission, and under the stimulus of the lash, in crossing the boat bridges of the Hellespont; and as those thronged ranks took up their line of march, they all moved on with exultation, and strewed branches in the path-way of their king. But what a contrast in spirit, in purpose, and in result, between that occasion of murmur