The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-06-22

WIS t em Into sand. The tree deyours the soil the heat the cold, the lightning and the storm destroy the tree, and the flowers of spring are feeding on au- tumn's Withered leaves. It is so in the life of brutes, and still more so in the life of men. The higher the organi2a- tion the completer and keener the sac 'rittce, Whence come much of the laughter and tears of men, except at the expense of the feelings of their fel- lows and of themselves? History is the record of the persistent conquest of the weak over the strong. Civilization does indeed qualify and modify the character of strength. so that the DOW erful of one period are not necessarily powerful in another. Brute force is constantly undone by intellect. and even intellect must bow to the nobler and finer influences of the heart and the spirit. But although the thing sac rificed may alter, the supreme law that something must be sacrificed prevails. The little girl, in her pretty but pa thetic ignorance, laughs in her mothers lap and, stretching her dimpled arms towards the beautiful world, fancies that she can have there whatsoever she may desire; but, grown through maid enhood to be wife and mother. she finds that in her case also the saying of Jesus to St. Paul has come true: When thou vast young thou girdest thyself, and Walkest wither thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hand, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou Wouldst not
 'The peculiar way in which Jesus Christ promotes the achievement of character on the part of the human soul is two-fold. First, Christ insists that the power of thorough and con- scious self-sacrifice is not only the es- sential characteristic of man as man, but furthermore that it is the beginning in man of what makes man one with God; that self-sacrifiCe is essentially God-like. And secondly, Christ gives us grace to initiate His self sacrifice ourselves. It is on the first of these points that I wish briefly to dwell this evening.
 Tt is the marvellous revelation of Jesus Christ to man, that self-sacrifice is God-like; that sacrifice is the general Au ol lillo " lIOlC "Oll TUT lIl6 very reason that it is Gods world and that its laws are the expression of Gods Being. If God is our eternal Father, then Gods own Being is one eternal act of self-devotion to His creatures. The devotion of Jesus Christ to us is but phase of the whole devotion of God to us. And when we, His creat- ures, by the stress of circumstances are compelled to sacrifice ourselves, we are in reality being compelled up towards the very life of God; we are being told, as the men with the talents were told In parable, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, find thy joy in that which is Gods joy. Self-sacrifice is companion ship with God.
 Many and many a man has gone far on in life making the sacrifices which all life claims to us, but making them reluctantly The rich man sacri- fees himself to the laws of money-mak- ing, and in his more serious moments he finds them tiresome. The learned man devotes himself to books; but sometimes as he rises and looks out of his study windows, he finds that books grow dull, and that to know thoroughly an effort of mind and body quite equal to that of the laborer in the field. The young woman of fashion builds for her self ud-castles where there shall be the pageant and the finery and the charm of gay society, without the grinding mill; but after a few years of it the lines on her face tell different story from her dream. The young man comes into his fathers millions, and fancies that even if his father did toll to make the millions, the son at any rate can keep them without trouble,- but he soon ascertains that if he will not watch and work neither shall he be rich. The politician devotes himself to statesmanship; the lawyer to his eli ents; the phlanthropist to human wei fare; but often and often the question presses: What profit is there in 1t un- der the sun? o my brothers, you are very young and very thoughtless if that question has not risen in your hearts sometimes and tired you. The burnt offering goes forward in all our lives; but in how many, many, cases there is no song with it. The very philanthropist gets tired before he has begun to understand the distress which he means to mend. And over all the great, good God presides, smiling at the futile efforts of His children to ignore the stuff whereof they are made, and to shirk the task that belongs to them not as men merely, but as sons of God Most High An me! it is the evil in our nature, it is the perVersiOn of Gods image in us that converts labor into sorrow. God labors always, yet there in finds His joy. And Jesus was born to make Gods Being and character wis ible to men He that hath seen Jesus hath seen the Father. And to walk with Jesus is to catch the contagion of His song, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the crOss,-en- dured it because He is the Son of God, and God is always self-sacrificing, and it is only our fallen manhood that rem ders self-sacrifce painful to us. Self God is Love.
 My brothers, that is why the Chris tian church dwells so on the Bible his tory of Jesus. It is an awful thought, and yet it may be to each of us an in spring and consoling thought, that when with our fingers we turn the pages of the gospels our minds, our hearts, our wills, are in very contact with the will, the mind, the heart, of Him who made us, in whom we live and have our being Just as when you and I speak face to face, it is mind SDeakinp to mind Sou1 addressing soul.