society, and bear no witness to the power of a saving Gospel to enlighten the world, it is only judging the tree by its fruit to say of such, "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." We shall never reach the heart of the difficulty in our foreign missionary work until, by sharp, resolute, fearless thrusts of the sword of the Spirit, we reach the consciences of many professing Christians; and dare to arouse them from a self-complacent apathy and lethargy by a bold application of the truth. We must dare to use God's own touchstone of piety. Down beneath outward ordinances and formalism thousands of church members are living a life essentially ungodly and unregenerate. They are not "new creatures," in whom "old things have passed away, and all things have become new."

There

has never been a surrender to God; the will is unsubdued, the heart is unchanged, they are under the dominion of the flesh, the natural man, the carnal mind. Worldly amusements ensnare them because they have no relish for higher joys—they are greedy of gain because they know nothing of the higher gain of counting all things loss for Christ. Their names are on church rolls, but are they on the Book of Life? They cannot be depended on to work for God, or even to give, because their hearts are not right in His sight.

Such words as these cannot be written or spoken without giving personal anguish to one who is

compelled to utter such testimony. But let us remember Christ's own words: "If any man wil come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Cross-bearing is the one condition and sign of discipleship. What is cross-bearing? In nothing, perhaps, has the tradition of men more made void the Word of God than in the common popular abuse of this phrase. We talk of "crosses," little and great. Every trial of our patience, every vexation of daily life, everything that crosses our inclination, is a cross. We make crosses so common that we lose sight of that unique and sublimely solitary self-offering which our Lord meant to convey by the phrase.

Let us notice that the word cross never in the Scripture occurs in the plural. There is but one cross: it is the cross of self-abnegation. To Christ the cross meant one thing, and nothing less: His sacrifice of Himself to save others. And that is what it must mean to every disciple. To take up the cross and bear it after Christ is to undertake, like the Master, a life of self-denial for the saving of others. It is to lose life and lose self for His sake. It is to be willing to die, if need be, that others may live. When our Lord hung upon the cross His enemies tauntingly said: "He saved others: Himself He cannot save." No sneer ever hid a truth so sublime. In the Christian life, saving self and saving others are utterly incompatible; and the one great difficulty with the whole

body of professed disciples is that most of them are trying to save themselves and yet be saved. And so it comes to pass that, while thousands go to church, come to the Lord's table, say their prayers, and bear the name of Christ, they live a life essentially worldly, are engaged in no soulsaving work, and have no relish for it; they have no experience of the sweetness of a voluntary selfdenial for His sake, and spend a thousand times as much on self-indulgence as they give to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or even give the living bread to dying souls!

Consider what would be the immediate result, if every professed child of God could burn with Paul's passion for souls-could know the "great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart" for the unsaved, that made it possible for him to wish himself accursed that they might be blessed!

That was cross-bearing; he died daily, he was crucified with Christ, he bore the very marks, the σTLYμaтa, of the Lord Jesus. Could ten thousand, of the thirty or forty millions of professed Protestant believers, burn with such a Christ-like passion for souls as that, for one year, the Gospel would within that year be carried round the globe! But arguments and appeals are vain, while you argue with the deaf and appeal to the dead. Before the Church can "convert the world," the Church must be converted. The remedy for this widespread indifference must be radical.

The difficulty is not in unsanctified purses, or unsanctified cradles; it is deeper-in unregenerate hearts. "By their fruits ye shall know them." If have no witness for Christ, have you anyyou thing to witness?

We strike here the very bottom of this divine philosophy of missions. We are to conceive such witnessing as a necessity to a truly saved soul. A light that does not shine, a spring that does not flow, a germ that does not grow, is not more an anomaly or a contradiction than a life in Christ which does not witness to Christ. "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard," is the natural utterance of every believer whose eyes and whose ears have been opened to behold the charms and hear the voice of Jesus. He who has thirsted for God as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, who has known the gift of God, who has asked of Him and has drunk the living water, will find not only his satisfied soul thirsting no more, but he will find the water of life springing up within him, a living well. And, if there be a spring within, there will flow a stream without. "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his inward being shall flow rivers of living water." If therefore there be no impulse outward, how can there be any life inward? If there be no stream, is there any spring? if no ray, is there any light? if no witness, is there any experience? These are serious and searching

questions; and, as Christlieb has hinted, that disciple who has no testimony for Christ, no spirit of missions, is rather himself the subject for Gospel conquest, presenting in himself a field for missionary labor. He who has no passion to convert needs conversion.

If

This is God's test of piety: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." any one thing marks, above all else, the Spirit of Christ, it is the unselfishness of service. To seek even salvation, for its own sake alone, is utterly repugnant to the whole disposition of a thoroughly regenerate disciple who is recreated in the image of Jesus.

In the Jerry McAuley Mission, in New York City, was a poor victim of drink and of vice who bore in his body the marks of his crimes. Nature herself resented his violation of her laws, and avenged herself in his person. He had become bowed and bent until he was a mere dwarf, and the very fibres and tissues of his throat had been eaten away until there was no palate, tonsils, or vocal chord, and he was without power of speech. When Christ found him, the grace that healed his soul bore help to his body, and, in course of time, the dwarf and cripple, like the woman with the spirit of infirmity that could in nowise lift up herself, was made straight and glorified God. And, though the lost vocal chords were never restored, this old man could not endure to be without his