himself with all the more confidence on that God who has, so to speak, taken upon Himself the responsibility of choosing it for him. A task which is manifestly of divine appointment brings with it the tacit proffer and assurance of divine assistance.

It is further to be noted that a man may sometimes be practically constrained, not by circumstances from without, but by his own affections, conscience, or character. Two alternatives may theoretically lie before him; but, of these two, one may be so utterly repugnant to his own nature as to be practically excluded from his choice. It might be physically possible for a son to murder his own father; and yet filial affection might make such an act a moral impossibility. Thus also, in a crisis of commercial difficulty, a man of thorough integrity may feel that he is shut up to the endurance of misfortune, when the only way of escape is the way of immorality and dishonour. And so it happens that, whilst to one man there may appear to be a number of courses open, another man in similar circumstances feels that to him there is only one course open, all the others being so repugnant to his moral nature that he cannot even look at them as possible. And this sense of constraint brings with it a great relief from the suspense of hesitancy and the pressure of temptation.

When Jesus said to the twelve, "Will ye also go away ?" the answer of Peter was, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" Theoretically, there were the two alternatives before the apostle-either to go, or to stay. But, of these two alternatives, one was so intolerable as to lie outside the region of practical choice.

It was not as if he had before him two paths,

both leading in the same direction and to the same destination, causing him perplexity as to which was the better road. No: he had before him a path which was manifestly a good one; and to quit this path would be to go out upon a trackless waste where he would be only likely to lose his way. To go away from Jesus! The very thought was enough for Peter; for to whom could he go? And, in the midst of the conflict which is now being waged in our own day between Christianity and infidelity, it is no small relief to feel that our own spiritual nature and experience constrain us to abide in the faith. There are those who tell us that historical criticism and scientific truth are rapidly making Christian faith impossible. They ply us with arguments which tend to shake belief in any inspiration of the Bible; they insist on the incredibility of miracle; they present the scientific doctrine of evolution and development in such a form as to give a mythical look to the incarnation and even the sinlessness of Jesus; and they regard all thought as being so absolutely a function of the brain that they dismiss the doctrine of immortality as a baseless dream. Now, if we were to do nothing but listen to such arguments, if we were to hold our judgment regarding Christianity in suspense until we could see our way through all the difficulties suggested by infidelity, we might simply plunge ourselves into painful perplexity. But this is a practical world; and the question between Christ and unbelief is a practical question. Nor is this a question on which an attitude of pure scepticism and suspended judgment is resultless. To accept Christ as our Teacher, Saviour, and Lord has its serious issues; to reject Christ and His

gospel has its serious issues; and an attitude of indecision, as between Christ and infidelity, is also fraught with its own serious issues. If a man is hungry, and two different kinds of food are offered him, he does not necessarily mend matters by refusing to partake of either! This may or may not be the wiser course, but it certainly has its own results. And if, of the two kinds of food, the one is bread, which in his own experience has heretofore satisfied his hunger and given him strength, whilst the other is an unpalatablelooking mess from which he instinctively turns away, he would surely be foolish man if he refused to eat at all until he had answered the arguments which seek to persuade him that the nourishing power of bread is a delusion, or that the bread with which he is familiar is not free from adulteration.

We know what Christ is to us, and what He can do for us. He reveals God as our Father; He draws us to penitence; He assures us of pardon; He inspires us with trust, patience, and love; He strengthens us for duty; He gives us the hope of heaven. If we leave Him, whither shall we betake ourselves? To Atheism, with its universe of whirling atoms ungoverned by any mind? Or to Pantheism, with its vague, unknowable force, and its religion of "cosmic emotion" and lyric poetry? Or to the Religion of Humanity, which directs us to worship the human race, and to look for our only immortality in the. influence which may survive our death? Shall we give up bread for a stone? Shall we give up that to which our soul responds, and take that from which our soul shrinks back with instinctive repugnance ? No: there are some alternatives which we cannot

choose. And thus, amid the perplexities of modern thought, it is a relief to feel that the spiritual instincts and necessities of our nature constrain us to keep clinging to Jesus, as the Christ of God, the Revealer of the Father, the Saviour of the world.

SERVANT-FRIENDS.

[Read at a Devotional Meeting held in connection with the Cheshire Congregational Union, at Middlewich, April 6th, 1886, and reprinted from Sun and Shield, May 1st, 1886.]

You are met here this evening to stimulate one another in the service of Christ, to pray together for more power and grace to serve Him, and to ask God's blessing, especially on the Christian work which by your united efforts you are endeavouring to do in this county. It is a serious thought for all of us, that we might perhaps be more truly successful in our work for Christ if we were more thoroughly devoted to His service, and if we had more sympathy both with the aims and the methods of our Lord. And it might stimulate and help us greatly if we were to realize more fully that, as disciples of Christ, we are called upon to be at once His servants and His friends. "Henceforth," He said, "I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends: for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.” This, of course, does not mean that, up to a certain point, the disciples had been simply His servants, and that then they altogether ceased to be servants, and