In the dawn of his day of light he said: The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed, which, indeed, is the least of all seeds; when it was sown it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air came and lodged in the branches thereof. The kingdom of heaven, he also said, is like the leaven which a woman took and put into three measures of meal, and leavened the whole. When his disciples came to him rejoicing that they had been successful in their first attempts to perform miracles, he assured them that they should hereafter do still greater things; and to unfold to them the complete triumph of his power, and the total destruction of sin, he said: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." With this bold and striking metaphor he revealed to them the completeness of his moral victory, the falling of sin from its throne of power, and the raising of the world from its moral degradation, to the condition of holiness and joy a grand end that should be attained though he had but just begun his work.

We should labor in his spirit-labor where we are, in the conviction that the hand of duty leads us to the work that is nearest, and that it belongs to us to do what we can for our own souls, our homes, and our own parish, our own village, and to reach the world at large through our influence as exerted within our own limits.

I have thought a great many times, that, if only the time spent by discontented men and grumblers in making complaints and imprecations against their own places of habitation, and in sighing and praying for a

change of circumstances, were occupied in cheerful though the humblest endeavors to induce improvement where improvement is needed, they would soon see but little cause for unhappiness or discouragement. Whatever the condition of things, there is no excuse for him who shirks the duties which he finds before him in the organized, social or religious life where he belongs, or who quits the path of labor because it is the path of labor, and shuts himself out from the world around him because it does not perfectly suit him in all respects. There is a bane upon every man of this character. He is never at peace. a Christian heart to correct what is wrong, to overcome with deeds of goodness the power of evil, to temper the life in which he moves with the pure spirit of his own concern, his own nobleness, charity and selfsacrifice, is a man of cheerful, hopeful, blessed life, and will live to see the Bethlehem in which he dwells not the least in the cities of Judah.

But he who works with

DISCOURSE III.

CHRIST'S POWER PROGRESSIVE.

JOHN III. 30.

HE MUST INCREASE, BUT I MUST DECREASE.

These words were spoken by John the Baptist. He was a prophet, greater than all former prophets, a man of extraordinary power and courage, sent from heaven to prepare the way of the Lord, to be a forerunner of the promised Christ. He first appeared to the world as a divine messenger in the wilderness of Judea. Here in the strictest modes of virtue, and in the simplest state, he began to preach, saying, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And so attractive was he in his high office, that there "went out to him" to be "baptised of him," "Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan." In his day of honor and glory, he in no degree departed from the course of duty. He could easily have presented himself to the people as the Messiah whom they were expecting, but he was not in the least degree disposed to deceive them. He firmly continued in the path which had been marked out for him. Loyal to the Almighty, and faithful to his mission, he

"I am

frankly and nobly affirmed that he was not the Christ, but the herald who was to come before him. the voice," said he, "of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias." And when, at last, certain men came to him saying, "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him," he answered them and said, "A man can receive nothing, except it be given him. from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and hear eth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all."

In the history of Christianity we see the verification of the Prophet's words. The dispensation of the Baptist was superseded by that of the Universal Lord. The baptism of water was superseded by that of the Holy Ghost. The forerunner passed on leaving the road behind him clear. Then the wiser Teacher, the loftier Guide followed after to fulfil the purposes of the Father. The light of the morning star waned and became invisible in the light of the sun of day which waxed in brightness every hour.

Thus, from the beginning of the world, the lesser forms of good have come before, and then have given

away to the greater. The outward world or this planet on which we live, presents to our eyes a grand and beautiful surface, which is the last and most perfect of a series of strata, which, one after another, through the long epochs of the past, have been the exterior of the world. So, in the moral world, the greater lessons, the broader views, the purer influences, the nobler aims, and the holier and more benevolent works of the Christian to-day, shall overgrow and bury out of sight the errors, and hide even the best features of the Jewish and Pagan yesterdays.

The stars fade in the light of the sun. The moral world improves. Great changes are taking place in it. The leavening influence of Christ is felt in every part of it. But the whole lump is not yet leavened.

The moral world moves forward under the guidance of the Saviour, whose dominion must "increase till "every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." There are those who say that they cannot see this spiritual progress of the human race. They behold the strife of the world and the cruelty of oppressors; and they hear the cries of the enslaved, the pleadings of the poor, and the profanities of the sinful. But this class. should see that the world does not move forward in an unbroken order. It was never meant that all men should be precisely alike. Evermore there will be different grades of thought and character, and so the spiritual progress of the world cannot be like the movements of an army of soldiers under marching orders, but rather like the advancement of scholars