fuses to be satisfactorily explained on any merely natura ple. The predominance of Jesus in the evangelistic might, for the most part, have been easily accounted for erary considerations only; but there is something so tho unwonted, so unconsciously vain and pretentious in the ual and exaggerated prominence given by Christ to Hir all His teaching and throughout all His works, that the natural or the demoniacal is at once forced upon us, and the two we must make our choice. To men who set the to explain the life by natural causes, this is no incons difficulty. They do not know what to do with it. Th not deny it, though they have a "rudiment of certainty extremest tenuity. Approaching it, they express their and then in a rhapsodical utterance take their leave in less perplexing ground. Everywhere the fact meets us did not," confesses Renan, "preach His opinions; He p Himself." Throughout His teaching there is a weary offensively repetitious egotism, unless, indeed, we feel are listening to one who is our God and Saviour. "I way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the Fa by me." "Without me ye can do nothing." " WH drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a water springing up into everlasting life."

The same fact is indisputably supreme in the mi works of Christ. The object of the exertion of His working power was not to gain the applause of men, love and worship of Himself as the way to their n He was no sorcerer. There is nothing of the patron o

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s out anew in a living gospel in the healed bodies ar nchised minds of poor and suffering men, and repeated: er manner the comfortable words, "Come unto me, a at labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." llowing the steps of the Evangelist and of our Lord, w t err in attaching importance to the investigation of thi ge concerning the person of Christ. Here, first of all, b erved He is described as Jesus. This designation give a place in the history of the world, allocates and identi Him with men, and forms a useful starting-point for all ries concerning His character. At once we meet with Him e plane of human life, in the midst of the known and the able, a man like ourselves, grafted on the stock of common nity, and in most essential respects identical with us. His was not an unfamiliar one at the beginning of the present There was nothing strange in it to the ears of His comns in the streets of Nazareth. Betokening Him through Jehovah sends salvation, it had passed into common ciron, and was often represented by the Greek Jason. In st of seventy-two commissioners sent by Eleazer to Ptoleis found twice. One of the books of the Apocrypha is ated to Jesus the son of Sirach. A companion of St. sat Rome was Jesus, surnamed Justus. According to ew the name was given to the son of Joseph because it escribed the purpose He would adopt, and the work He estined to accomplish for men. Certainly events have ed the prophecy uttered in the name. John regarded it,

as appears from his first Epistle as well as in this Gospel, as fixing the real human personality of his Lord. It chronicled and reported the fact that He was made a little lower than the angels, that He had a manhood as veritable as our own. His name was not Gabriel or Michael, but Jesus-a common, human, historic name, fitting well the man whose place in the successions of the race of men it registers. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." "He was made of a woman, made under the law." His human nature was real. There was nothing simulated or abridged about Him. He was the fulness of humanity in its depth and height, length and breadth. No one was ever more human than Christ. Never was one so completely and thoroughly man as He !

This has abundant corroboration in the fact that Jesus describes Himself as the Son of Man in the hearing of his disciples and antagonists, with a frequency that is an argument, and a persistence of purpose that is convincing. The apostolic writings plainly and of set aim shun that mode of representing Christ as though it inadequately expressed the exalted estimate of His character their authors had formed, so that (it is said) there are only three instances in the whole of the New Testament (the gospels excepted) in which He is referred to by that name, and even those speak rather of His heavenly than earthly appearances; whereas the Lord Himself uses this phrase eighty-eight times in the four gospels to portray His relations to men. Again and again He introduces it, even under circumstances in which we should least expect it, for when He is chiefly concerned to affirm His equality with the Father, He afterwards appends the statement descriptive of His being also the Son of Man. Christ appeared as a man, was a man, and as such wished to be known and remembered. He belonged to mankind, and would not have it forgotten. He took upon Himself our nature even in its infirmities, so far as they are not moral defects, and in that nature He wrought out His purpose and made life possible to man and He held that it was essential to the success of His plan that it should never be erased from the records of Christianity, that "as by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead."

but with painful slowness, even as a youth goes through itical scenes of his earliest manhood to the solid strength, aunted purpose, and resolute will of a consecrated life. eard the voice of Wisdom crying in the streets and learnt ssons, sat by the streams of Hebrew sacred literature and bed knowledge, worked as a carpenter at his father's be nd became strong, endured suffering as a son of the Eter nd learned obedience. The crises of His life are repeat emselves in ours to-day, and it is well indeed for us if an pass through ours as He did through His. The clouds oubt hung o'er His sunny horizon, and hid the bright a eautiful from His gaze. Visions of hope cheered and sustain [im in the perilous ascent of the mountain path of holine he gnawing worm of disappointment and the corroding touch rief did not pass Him by as too sacred for their visitation. I as a man of sorrows, and sicknesses were His familiar friend Death rudely invaded the selectest circles of His affection, an ears started from His eyes at the grave of Lazarus. That un ersal teacher, experience, who with her wand of office calls u l to school and gives us the advantage of her discipline, di ot excuse His attendance, but after some painstaking sent Hi orth her most perfect and finished pupil. He partook of ou usceptibility to mature by trial, to become strong by suffering grow by feeling and doing rather than by dreaming and nowing; and finally gained the altitude of human greatness ot by waiting for fortune's favorable winds to waft Him to th eight of His sanctified ambition, but by patiently climbing

though with wounded feet, the jagged rocks of duty and sacrifice. We repeat it, there never was a man more man than He!

Jesus died young! after a brief ministry, but not before He had become the ideal of manhood, and established additional claims to be considered in a distinguished sense the Son of Man. The climax of His career was in the darkest night, but a night that only gave fresh brilliance to the star of purity which shone on His brow. He had passed safely through the most perilous time of human life, and stood forth at the last, apparently beaten, but really a victorious Captain who had defeated every foe, and was scattering the largesses of His beneficence amongst His expectant soldiery. He began well. Conquering in the first and severest crisis, He proves Himself the pattern man. No hour in life's short day equals in tragic interest that early one which links the youth with the man, when there is dimly but with growing distinctness dawning on the soul the sense of its unfolding power, of its immense capacity, of its noble desires. and new and untold possibilities. It is the era when the chrysalis of youth is cast off, and the new being that is to mould its own grand future makes its first essays in life and duty. The excitement is portentous. As when the far-resounding sea is lashed by fiercest winds, so the soul is agitated to its lowest depths. Every faculty is raised to the highest pitch of action. Ambitious schemes leap through the soul in rapid succession, like troops of fancies through a poet's dream. Visions follow visions. Temptations gather in besieging crowds, and impetuously rush at every gate of the soul. Angels and men fervently watch and pray for the hour when the crisis shall be passed. Some go through this trying period with faith in God, fortitude, and self-mastery, and they come out men, fully panoplied for the warfare of life, and ready to serve God and their fellows. But many, alas! too many, yield to the intoxication of the hour, and are destroyed for ever. The toga of liberty they have received on their advent to manhood is used as a disgraceful cloak for a degrading and damning licentiousness. But whatever the issue, the trial must be met. We cannot take the position and responsibilities of men without confronting it. The entrance upon life is through a wilderness tenanted by demons waiting to assail us