This union must be in a state of filiation.

natural horizon.

Its realization is in sharing the divine Sonship. For union with God, as He is known to unaided nature, is not enough. By the creative act God made me in His image, yet only His creature; I long to be His son. "For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God" (Romans viii. 19).

There is a divine communication which I need, and which yet transcends all my natural gifts I must share God's natural gifts. I must be His son.

The widest horizon of the soul has a beyond of Peering beyond the truth and virtue, whose very existence is not understood by the mere natural man, and only the dim outlines of which are caught by the uttermost stretch of vision of even the regenerate soul. Hardly car human nature steadily contemplate this lofty and glori ous state, even when it is revealed, much less compas? its possession; and yet man instantly learns tha there is his journey's end. The dearest victory of mere nature is to know that there is something somewhere in the spiritual universe which it needs and cannot of itself possess; we have a measure of God which overlaps all that we by nature possess of Him.

Reaching towards supernatural strength.

There is a strength of character everywhere made known to man as the highest fruit of knowledge and love, and which is yet strange to him: a strength to conquer time and space, moral weakness and mental darkness-divine strength. This strength he feels the need of; striving alone, he cannot have it. This strength of God and the character which it generates in us have ever claimed and received the name supernatural. Man obtains this quality of being by the infusion of a new life in the spiritual regeneration by which he is made God's son. He

sees the glory from afar, and then he hears, "Unless a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John iii. 3).

The inequality of men and the difference of races cry aloud for universal possession of God. There is no joy of life which can be universal except it be God. There is Greek and barbarian, bond and free, male and female, and their common medium of unity, as well as their common joy, can only be God, revealed as a father.

The dignity of man suggests the possibility of the Incarnation; the aspirations of man suggest its probability; the degradation of man cries out for it, and implores its immediate gift. As a matter of fact, the entire human race has ever expected that God would come among men. The ignoble taint of idolatry is thus palliated-a vice so widespread and deep-rooted that without palliation it were fatal to humanity's claim of dignity.

"LO, THIS IS OUR GOD: WE HAVE WAITED FOR HIM!

Longing for supernatural equality among

men.

Summary of antecedent probabilities of the Incarnation.

idolatry.

The palliation of the guilt of self-worship by ancient humanity is in the truth that, somehow or A palliative of ancient other, man is or can be made one with God. That any error may be possible of credence, it must taste. of truth; man's palate cannot abide unmixed falsehood. Now, in many forms of idolatry men beheld the possible deity instead of the real. When we consider what the Incarnation proved human nature capable of, we can pity as well as condemn that highest form of idolatry called hero-worship. "Ye shall be as gods" (Gen. iii. 5) was a cunning temptation, because Adam and Eve already felt within them. a dignity with something divine in it.

In the far East the Chinese, the Japanese, and Immemorial expect- other kindred nations have cherished an immemorial ancy of the Incarnation. tradition that God was to descend upon earth in visible form, to enlighten men's ignorance in person, and redeem them from their sins. One of the most precious results of the later learning has been to show that the Hindus and the Persians, the two dominant races of southern and central Asia, looked for nothing less than the coming of the Supreme Being among men, to cleanse them from vice and to elevate them to virtue. The Egyptians, Plutarch tells us, looked for the advent of the Son of Isis as a God-redeemer of the world. Humboldt has recorded that among the aboriginal Mexicans there was a firm belief in the Supreme God of Heaven, who would send his own Son upon earth to destroy evil. The same is true of the ancient Peruvians.

The witness of the

But how much clearer was this tradition among the Greeks and the Romans, the two most powerful

sages of Greece and and most enlightened races of antiquity, and how

Rome.

The Roman Sibyls, orators and philosophers.

energetic was its expression! Socrates, at once the wisest man of heathendom and the most guileless, taught his disciples, and through them the entire western civilization, man's incompetency to know his whole duty to God and his neighbor, and his inability to perform even what he does know of it; and he implored a universal teacher from above. Plato bears witness to this teaching of his master and reaffirms it.

The Romans had their Sibylline prophecy of a divine king who was to come to save the world. The illustrious orator Cicero, the enchanting poet Virgil, voice this tradition or this instinct of their imperial race: God is needed, and needed in visible form.

The historians Tacitus and Suetonius tell of the universal conviction, based on ancient and unbroken tradition, that a great conqueror, who should subjugate the world, was to come from Judea.

So that the long-drawn cry of the Hebrew prophets, now wailing, now jubilant, always as sure as life The Hebrews and their prophets. and death, and in the course of ages rising and falling in multitudinous cadence among those hills which formed the choir of the world's temple, was not the monotone of a single race, but the dominant note in the harmony of all races. "God Himself will come and will save you," says Isaias (xxxv. 4) in solemn prediction. And again: "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him” (Isa. xxxv. 9), as if answering by anticipation the question asked by John the Baptist on the part of humanity: "Art thou He that art to come?" (Matt. xi. 3). No voice ever heard by man has sounded so deep, clear, peaceful, and authoritative as that which said in Judea : "I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly" (John x. 10). They that shall hearken to that voice, "to them shall be given the power to be made the sons of God" (John i. 12).

The times, places and circumstances of God's

Here, then, is the meaning of the promises made of old. Even to Adam a Redeemer was promised. Abraham was His chosen stock, Israel His race, coming foretold. David His house and family. By Isaias His attributes were sung, by Daniel His coming was fixed as to time, by Micheas Bethlehem was named as the place of His birth. The angel foretold His titles, His royalty, and His divinity to Mary, His mother. The question, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" (Matt. ii. 2), put to the doctors and rulers of Jerusalem by the first pilgrims to His shrine, was answered with decision and the spot pointed out.

O what a boon! To possess God, and to possess The boon of God's Him as our brother; to have His Father as our fatherhood, brotherhood and spouseship. father, His Spirit as the spouse of our souls! What are all the joys of this life but mockeries compared to the possession of God! O that serene, gentle, tender Master, who came on earth to teach us how to become divine! O that valiant Saviour who died that we might live the life of God!

Christianity is the history of its Founder.

The effrontery of saying that Jesus Christ never existed.

"MY LORD AND MY GOD!" Christianity is historical. It deals with the life which the human race has lived. It is not a theory to be considered in the abstract. It is a fact. It has been a fact. It belongs to that narrative of men's lives and deeds which we call history. And Christianity is especially the life and the deeds of one man -its Founder, Jesus Christ.

Look at Christ as a promise and a fulfilment. The Jews expected Him, the nations dreamed of Him. He came, and His name and power have overspread the earth. What an astonishing thought! Yet men have had the brazen boldness to assert, and to try to prove, that Christ never existed! This greatest, not only fact but factor in all human history was a myth. Though the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses or their depositaries, though Jewish contemporary history tells of Him, though heathen contemporary records tell of Him, though the tracings of ancient art teil of Him, though the unbroken traditions of the whole race tell of Him, men arose a hundred years ago and said He had never existed at all. He existed in prophecy from Adam's time. The oldest and most venerable monuments of history tell of His promise on the spot and in the hour of the first sin; of the dedication of a family and then