a warfare and a work. Our hands must not only be lifted up in prayer, but armed for conflict and engaged in toil. It is good to be with Christ on the mount. It is also good to come down from the mount and labour with, and for, our fellow-men. Let us remember that, "while he blessed us, he was parted from us," and that his benediction was given to strengthen us for work and for endurance. He has withdrawn but for a time, and that we may learn how far our manhood has been replenished by fellowship with him, how far the Divine now dwells in us and is independent of outward aids. He has but sent us from him that he may teach us we can never wander beyond his reach, that we may find his prescience and power displayed in scenes and modes in which we looked not for them. We think it would be best to be always with him. He knows that it is good for us to be sent away on his errands, to meet the demands men make on him, or to urge his demands on them, or to overget their opposition to him and to us; in all to behold the manifestations of his grace and truth.-And this leads us to our second lesson, viz., that

II. Christ's benediction, even though it be a parting one, should inspire joy and thankfulness. "And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." The disciples,

'giving."

as I have said, had not been taught and disciplined altogether in vain. At last they had learned what a parting benediction meant; that it meant," Use faith instead of sight; leave contemplation for labour; express your love, not in looks and words, bat in patient waiting and strenuous toil; rise from the lower blessedness of receiving to the higher blessedness of Possibly as they went up the Mount of Olivet as far as to Bethany, they had thought, "Never were men so blessed as we; never were we so blessed as now." Christ had risen, and yet was with them, more glorious, and yet to the full as gracious as ever, lavishing on them the looks and tones of an eternal love. But they were to touch even a higher blessedness than this; and they were to touch it in crowded streets, and opposing throngs, in prisons, at the stake, and on the cross. A few short weeks ago and they had not conceived any higher honour than that of beholding Christ in his glory. They had said, "It is good to be here and thus; let us build tabernacles

and abide here." But the discipline through which they had passed, the errands on which they had been sent, the works they had been given to do, the sorrows they had been called to endure-this discipline has opened their eyes to a yet higher honour and service-that of reflecting and reproducing Christ's glory, that of "filling up the remnant of his afflictions," and carrying on his work of mercy. Hence they can "worship" him even while he departs from them, and return to the Jerusalem which he has left "praising aud blessing God."

Now, there are two modes in which Christ is parted from us, two reasons why he hides himself from us. We may "grieve" him away, cause him to depart by lapsing into our old sins; or it may be "expedient" for us, may conduce to our spiritual culture, that we should lose the sense of his presence. In this latter case "he blesses us while he is parted from us; in the former he blesses us by departing from us.

He blesses us, I say, by departing from us. For consider, brethren, what it is you seek, or rather what it is that Christ seeks to make of you and give you. He is seeking to make you, not simply happy and at ease, but holy and loving; to give you, not a mere sensual vulgar enjoyment, not a mere present passing happiness, but a far deeper and more blessed thing-the peace which flows from a perfected manhood, from being altogether made like to him. Whatever your thought may be, his thought concerning you is, not merely that your sins shall be transferred to his account, and his righteousness to yours; but that your sins shall, by whatever painful processes, be really purged out of you, and that by a real spiritual development you shall grow up into his righteousness. It is a very small thing whether or not you are at ease, free from disquietude of heart, at this moment or that; but it is a very great thing, to you the greatest of things, that at every moment you should be growing pure and wise, entering more and more fully into the Divine life. He did not draw back from suffering himself; he became perfect through suffering; and he will not withhold needful suffering from you; his very mercy will constrain him to send it, that you also may be made perfect. When, therefore, you sin against him, what wiser or kinder thing can he do than depart from you, and make you feel that he

has departed? Nothing will convince you of your sin if that will not. Nothing will make you repent and forsake your sin if that fail. You have then to lament, not the clouds which obscure your heaven, but the bitter waters of evil from which they have been drawn. Shining on these, what can the Sun of Righteousness draw from them but mist and cloud? You cannot be too sorry that you have grieved Christ; you cannot be too thankful that, when you grieve him, he departs,-by his departure making you sensible of your offence. That is the highest benediction you can then receive.

But, again, Christ may not only bless by parting from you, he may also bless while parting from you. That is, he may go away, may deprive you of the sense of his presence, not because you have offended him, but because he has been teaching you new lessons and would have you practise them, because he has been conferring new gifts and graces upon you and would have you use them. He has been leading you into some new path of duty, up some new height of experience, and now he withdraws his hand to see whether you can walk alone, leaves you to yourself that he may test your fidelity and strength, and, by testing, aug. ment them. It was thus with the Seventy." Christ taught them, trained them, blessed them, and then sent them forth

as sheep among wolves;' sent them forth, timid, imperfect, unheroic though they were, to do battle with the cruelest and most fatal prejudices and enmities. But the conflict revealed in them unexpected powers; they now learned how much Christ had done for them and given them while they were yet with himlearned it with wonder and delight: astonished at their own triumph, they came back exclaiming, "Even the devils are subject to us!" He blessed them in, and while, being parted from them.

Or, again, Christ may wish to teach us new lessons, to impart the powers and graces which can only be acquired in the school of sorrow. We may have embodied our partial conceptions of truth in doctrinal formule which, once helps, have become hindrances to us; or, through dwelling always in one set of circumstances, we may have acquired one-sided habits of thought and feeling which mar our service and contract our souls. Look, for instance, at Job. He was an "upright" man, 66 perfect" even in his loyalty to such truths as he knew. He could charge himself with

no sin, and God charges him with none But Job held a dogma which was only partially true, which therefore was perni ciously untrue. He held that outward prosperity was the proof and reward of righteousness, that suffering was the invariable consequence of personal sin. You see how this doctrinal formula was likely to vitiate his creed and contract his sympathies, how it would provoke to self-esteem and uncharity, making him hard in his judgments of the poor and unprosperous, inciting him to find in his own enlarging prosperity the proof of his own righteousness and good desert. Well, God teaches him his error by introducing new facts into his experience, by permitting an adverse change in all his circumstances. At first Job tries to make the old formula cover the new facts, but he soon learns that it is too narrow; he soon comprehends that suffering, instead of proving personal sin, may be a proof of the Divine love; that it may be sent for culture, and not in anger; that even the tree which does bring forth fruit may be "purged that it may bring forth more fruit." Job, too, had been just, generous, princely in his prosperity. "When the ear heard him, then it blessed him; when the eye saw him, it gave witness unto him." But the nobler virtues of adversity-what had there been to develop these ? In these he failed so soon as "God put forth his hand and touched all that he had." That he might be "perfect and entire, wanting nothing," God compels him to acquire these. In the school of adversity he acquires meekness, patience, long-suffering, and their kindred graces. Job would not have been so long under the rod had he been an apter scholar; nor should we. When at last, and with many tears, he had learned his lesson, he "worshipped" and gave thanks for the teaching vouchsafed him; so also should we. To lose the con sciousness of Christ's presence that we may grow wise or strong, that we may cleansed from error and made perfect in holiness--what is this but to have Christ blessing us while he is parted from us? And if in our loneliness, if while seeking after him we do gain insight or grace, have we not reason to "return with joy, praising and blessing him"? He may have left us, as he left his disciples, only to be more intimately with us, taking away the blessings of his presence only to make them more divinely ours.

be

You ask, perhaps, "Are we, then, to take up Peter's word, 'Depart from me, O Lord; I am a sinful man'?" Nay, brethren, God forbid. We are not to ask, but to acquiesce in Christ's departure. We tre simply to rest assured that, whether resent or absent, he is seeking our ighest welfare, is affording us the very liscipline we need. We are simply to joy and rejoice in his benediction, even though, while he bestows it, he should be "received p out of our sight."-Finally, we may earn from this passage that

It

It

III. The sense of Christ's absence should lead us to the place of his perpetual presence. "They returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing God." The Temple was the place of Divine manifestaion. God's " "" way was "in the sancuary." Christ had been taken from them, but the Temple remained. seemed sad enough, no doubt, to come away from the mountain to the crowded metropolis,-instead of beholding the grace and truth of Christ to look on the priests who had crucified him, and on sacrifices "which could not take away sin." must have been like going back into the old shadow-land from which Christ had delivered them. But it was right to go. Now that Christ, the living Temple of God, was taken up into heaven, and until the Holy Ghost came down from heaven to open his temple in their hearts, they could do nothing better than carry their praises and hopes into the ancient house of God. The divinest means of grace they had ever known had been taken away, but they would not therefore neglect what means were left. Diviner means of grace were promised them and were drawing nigh, but they would not therefore neglect what means they had. And they had their reward. They found Christ in the Temple,

or rather were found of him.

The day of Pentecost came, even as he had said, and with it gifts and labours. The Holy Ghost fell upon them. The spirit gave them utterance. They preached Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, winning to his faith and service thousands of those who had just delivered him to

death.

They have taught us a lesson, left us an esample. Had they "stood gazing up into heaven," hoping to see Christ return, their hope would have made them ashamed; they would not have "received the promise

of the Father." Their Master's command was, "Wait for that promise at Jerusalem." They obeyed, and in their obedience lies our lesson.

For in our times of desertion and consequent dejection of heart, we have all found it very hard, I suppose, to use the common means of grace, or to discharge the common duties of life. We would fain indulge our grief. The service of the sanctuary seems to have no blessing for us; the daily duty and the patient waiting in the discharge of duty grow very wearisome to us. To sit silent on the ground, or to break forth into bitter complaints, accords better with our mood than to stand in the temple praising and blessing God. We had rather imitate Job than the apostles, rather brood over our sorrow than engage in service. Yet all this, natural as it is, is utterly unwise and wrong. Mere grief and bitterness of heart-because something has been taken away crying over what is left, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit"-will do us harm and not good. In obedience and worship lies our only hope. However long we delay, we must at last follow the apostles. Job suffered much through his delay, and after all had to do what the apostles did. It was not till he had "seen God," till he had risen from the heap of ashes to offer "sacrifice," that "the Lord turned his captivity." apostles were wiser in their generation. They hastened to worship and obey. And you, brethren; Christ may seem to have forsaken both the outer sanctuary and the inner temple of the heart; obedience may be distasteful, the public service may seem unprofitable: but only as you bring the daily sacrifices of obedience and seek the Lord in his sanctuary will your captivity be turned. It is not yours to "sit upon the ground,” or to “stand gazing up into heaven." You have received commands; obey them. You have received promises; seek their fulfilment in the temple. The day of Pentecost will surely come. The Spirit will give you utterance. "The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple," to renew his manifestation and to rekindle your joy.

The

And in this hope, dear brethren, many of you have doubtless come up hither today. To some of you the spiritual experiences which I have ventured to describe are quite familiar. It may be that contact with the cares of life, or exposure to the