office in the early days that it has not now. It would strike the senses then as it does not now, because we must go up the chain of evidence to justify the fact of miracles. I do not believe the supernatural is the foundation of religion, but that religion is the foundation of the supernatural. I believe that miracles are a deduction from Jesus Christ, and not Jesus Christ a deduction from the miracles. The supernatural, therefore, is not the exclusive element in religion. The great power of the Gospel to me is its immediate application to my wants, to my soul's life, to my best desires, to my immortal prospects. That is the everlasting verification of it to me. I accept the supernatural in the religion of Jesus Christ, but I find him not merely a prophet, but more than a prophet.

Religion is not then a reed shaken by the wind, nor a man clothed with soft raiment, nor a prophet. It is something higher. "This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." That was said of John the Baptist; it is equally true concerning religion itself; it is equally applicable to us, leading us to a true conception of religion. For religion is not an endit is a means. Some people think that to get religion is to get the end of life. I say that religion is not the end of life. I say a man may get religion sometimes, and be very far from the end for which God appointed him. Sometimes religion is made to override morality; men carry it out into asceticism. Then another class

of men arise who preach mere morality-our duties to ourselves, our families, and to humanity. And then, again, somebody comes in and injects the great principle of religion, and so we keep vacillating. This shows that the end of the Gospel is something more than religion. Religion is a messenger of God, so to speak, touching the deep sanctities of the conscience, waking up our intuitions of God and immortality, and by its vast realities and rich truths leading to some higher end. And what is that end to which religion leads us? Its great end is, to bring Christ into the soul, even as John the Baptist introduced him into the world. When the spirit of Jesus Christ comes into our souls and we become one with him, when his life becomes our life-his life of holiness, perfect obedience and self-sacrifice-then we reach the great end of our being. So it is not merely religion as an element of the supernatural that we are to seek, but it is the end to which we come through religion, namely, to communion and oneness with Jesus Christ.

And now, my friends, comes the question, what is religion to you? You attend upon its ministration, you hear its word, you have some notion about it; what is it? A reed shaken by the wind? A vague, vacillating principle? Something that you put clear aside as having no real practical claim upon your active moments and the daily work of life? Is it something that you hold traditionally or respectably clothed in soft raiment? Is it merely something com

a man

forting, soothing, and calming—something that makes you feel good? Is it something that inspires you to duty, or rebukes you? Is it something merely supernatural that you hardly believe-something awful, concerning the nature of which you have no clear conception? Or is it Jesus Christ within you the hope of glory-his life, his power taken into your heart; animating your soul, inspiring you in every action and breath of your being? That is the great end, and if you have not reached it, with peculiar force comes to the question of our Saviour, "What went ye out into the wilderness to see?"

you

THE BREAD OF LIFE.

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.-Matthew iv. 4.

S Jesus was in all points tempted like as we are,

it seems no strained or fanciful interpretation of these transactions in the wilderness to say, that they represent different classes or orders of temptations as they occur in the personal history of men; and if such is the case, then it may be affirmed that the particular temptation to which the words in the text refer, symbolizes the distinction and the conflict between the claims of man's higher and his lower life. Or rather, I may say, these words vindicate the jurisdiction of man's higher life against the encroachments or usurpations of his lower life. Here was an appeal to hunger; a solicitation to sacrifice right and duty to appetite. No matter what particular interpretation we give to this narrative; whether we take it as recording a literal temptation by a personal Satan; whether we take it as recording a vision or a suggestion arising in the mind of Christ from the nature of the conditions in which he was placed; the essence of the temptation was that he