We have said, that Christ's disinterested love-the spirit of true greatness-required that He should be secularly poor. Indeed, it is difficult to see how He could, as a Redeemer, who was to save by a living example, as well as by a propitiatory death, accomplish His work without becoming poor. Humanity required, at least, three things to save it: (1.) A conviction that its well-being is not in externalities. Men's crime and curse have been in looking for happiness in the possession of worldly wealth, power, grandeur, and influence. Had Christ, therefore, lived in secular opulence and magnificence, would not this souldestroying tendency and habit have been encouraged and strengthened? (2.) A practical and soul-penetrating display of a spirit, opposite to that which inspired it. Selfishness is "the spirit of the world,"-that which prompts and directs its every movement. This spirit is eternally incompatible with virtue and happiness. It must be exorcised ere the world can be saved. And how can it be expelled? Only by the opposite. Satan cannot cast out Satan. Now, had Christ lived in affluence, where would have been the display of the opposite spirit-disinterestedness? (3.) A conviction of the universal practicability of the saving principles inculcated. Had Christ lived amongst the higher classes, it might have been said as an excuse for neglecting His teaching, The principles He inculcates may be practicable to His own class, who have luxury and leisure; but not to us, the children of indigence and toil. But the Divine Teacher being the poorest of the poor, has for ever precluded the possibility of such an objection.

These remarks, whilst they serve to show, in some measure, the rationale of our Saviour's secular poverty, bear powerfully in support of our position, that Christ cannot encourage the selfishly ambitious spirit. His whole secular life was a protest against it; the genius of His religion is against it; there is nothing in His system to sanction it. Its imperial voice to every man is, Deny thyself and take up the cross, and follow Him who had nowhere to lay His head.

Christianity has glory for its disciples; but not the pretentious and tawdry glory of gilded and highly decorated externalities. The selfishly ambitious man, who frequents church or chapel, will find nothing in the ministry of the gospel, if that ministry is true to Christ, that will meet his tendencies, sympathise with his spirit, or favor his aims. Empty men of this scribe-class are never satisfied with a faithful ministry.

We observe, in relation to the inability of Christ :—

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Thirdly That he cannot tolerate the half-hearted in religion. This appears from the incident recorded in the twenty-first and twenty-second verses. Another person on this occasion approaches Christ, and manifests a desire to follow Him. It appears from Luke that Christ commanded him to do so. The man, however, though partially inclined, is not thoroughly disposed. A stronger sympathy holds him to another course. There was another object nearer his heart than Christ. "Suffer me first," says he, "to go and bury my father." It is not necessary to suppose that his father was actually dead and his body at home awaiting interment. There are reasons to believe that this was not the case. The meaning, probably, is, let me go and live with my father until his death, and then I shall be free, and will follow thee. May not his state of mind be thus paraphrased?—I love my father dearly; the infirmities of years are growing on him, symptoms of approaching dissolution are appearing, he cannot live very long, my heart will not permit me to leave him now, when he most requires the succour and the guardianship of filial love; I will wait his end, fulfil the last offices of affection, and see him borne reverently to his "eternal resting place;" then, when this attraction of home is gone, "I will follow thee.' Will this do? Does Christ accept it as a valid cause? "Let the dead bury the dead; follow thou me."

Hear Him.

What does this strong figurative language mean? Not either of the three following things: Not (1.) that Christ had no respect for parental claims. The feeling displayed

towards His Mother on the cross, and the whole spirit of His religion show that He could not mean this. Not (2.) that He was indifferent to the condition of those who were spiritually dead; supposing that our Saviour meant to say what some suppose "Let the spiritually dead bury the corporeally dead." We cannot entertain the idea for a

moment that He was indifferent to the condition of those who were "dead in trespasses and in sins." Not (3.) that the duties of His religion are incompatible with filial obligation. Real duties never come into collision-to follow Christ is to fulfil all righteousness. What, then, does this language mean? That religion must be everything or nothing. That Father, Mother, houses, land, &c., must be held subordinate to religion. Religion is not mere love to God. Perhaps, all men feel some kind of love to God at times. His goodness, sometimes, awakens their gratitude; and thoughts of His grandeur call up their reverence. Love to God only becomes religion when it becomes SUPREME. In all other stages it is destitute of moral worth, and unacceptable to our Maker.

Christ cannot tolerate half-heartedness, then, in religion. He must have the whole heart, or nothing, But why cannot He tolerate half-heartedness? First, because there is no moral excellence in half-heartedness. Moral thoroughness is the only soil in which divine seeds of heavenly virtue grow. Secondly, because there is no true happiness in halfheartedness. A divided heart is the arena of conflict-the fountain of every bitter stream. Thirdly, because there is no power for true usefulness in half-heartedness. He only is powerful to promote religion, whose heart is in it.

Germs of Thought.

SUBJECT:-The Starting Point of Christianity.

"Beginning at Jerusalem."-Luke xxiv. 47.

Analysis of Homily the Hundred and Sixty-fourth.

THE verse, of which this is a part, contains four facts:

First: That "repentance and remission" are the two greatest blessings humanity requires. This is evidently implied in the fact which Jesus here expresses, namely, that He suffered and rose from the dead on the "third day," according to the scriptures, in order that these blessings might be offered to the human race. Man is inwardly depraved, and consequently divinely condemned; he needs "repentance" to remove his depravity, and "remission" to remove his condemnation.

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Secondly That these great blessings are both supplied in the 66 name of Christ." They are to "be preached in his name." Christ's history is at once the only moral power that can produce this "repentance," and the only governmental ground which can secure this "remission."

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Thirdly That the offering of these blessings to humanity, through the name of Christ, is the great work of the gospel ministry. They "should be preached in his name."

work of the minister, as such, is not theological disquisition, nor polemic controversy, nor priestly fulmination, but the generous, earnest, and faithful offering of these blessings to humanity, through the name of Jesus Christ.

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Fourthly That it was the plan of God that the Gospel ministry should commence the offer of these blessings in Jerusalem. "Beginning at Jerusalem." Why begin at Jerusalem ?

Why not begin in Egypt, or Greece, or Persia, or in some other city of Judea? Why begin at Jerusalem? Antecedently, we should have thought that Jerusalem would have been one of the last places in which "repentance and remission' would have been preached, rather than the first. There are, especially, three reasons which would have lead to this conclusion. (1.) The abundant opportunities which it had long possessed of becoming fully acquainted with the gospel. Jerusalem had been for ages the scene of that splendid ritualism which Infinite Wisdom instituted to symbolize the gospel; for ages, too, it had been the home of prophets and of priests; and many times, moreover, had Jesus, to whom all these ceremonies referred and predictions pointed, walked its streets and appealed to its population. As this city had opportunities of knowing the gospel that no other city ever had, and as there were other numerous Jewish cities which had not these advantages, and many gentile cities which had no opportunities at all, we might have thought that Jerusalem would have been amongst the last to have had the offer. (2.) Its abuse of all the opportunities with which it had been so highly favored. Its very privileges had become means of formality, hypocrisy, and crime. Under all its religious means it had become one of the most corrupt and wicked cities under heaven.-The city that had martyred the prophets of every age. Would it not, therefore, have been natural to suppose that a city which had thus abused such unparallelled religious privileges would rather have been destroyed, than have been chosen as the first to be offered the great blessings of the last dispensation (3.) Its heartless, wicked, and impious, treatment of Christ. He addressed doctrines to it, but those doctrines it proclaimed blasphemy; He wrought miracles for it, but those miracles they referred to satanic power; He wept tears of compassion over it, but those tears it spurned. Jerusalem was the scene of His insults and the home of His murderers. Would it not, therefore, have