Himself our nature in the Virgin's womb.

He joins

And He

Himself to each, when we are born again. feeds us on Himself the living bread which came down from Heaven, that we may be bound to Him in closer and more indissoluble union, if we walk by faith and do His will. In union with Him is all our strength. What harm can happen to us if we are one with Him? Nothing can touch us His members which does not also touch our head. What storm can shake us if we are built on Him as our rock? What can the winds do and the waves of trouble if faith in Christ is the cable on which our hopes hang? "Though I walk in the midst of trouble yet shalt Thou refresh me. Thou shalt stretch forth thine hands against the furiousness of mine enemies, and Thy right hand shall save me.' What cannot faith in Christ accomplish? "All things are possible to Him that believeth." Look at faith upon its active side, if it be but as a grain of mustard seed it can remove mountains. Difficulties fly before it. Impossibilities vanish. Look on it as passive. What has it not resisted? It bows before the blast which else might break it, and bowing overcomes. By submission it conquers. By yielding it triumphs. It is strongest when it looks most weak, highest when it bends most low, noblest when it is made most vile. My Brethren, live by faith in Christ. He is the foundation on which the Church is built. ground in which all our hopes are fixed. firmly on to Him, burying your hearts and heads within the secrets of his two-fold nature, no storm will ever move you. Live by faith in Christ as the king of earth and Heaven. Things are not what they seem. The things which men count greatest are not thought great by God. The things which God honours are

He is the If you hold

by men despised. The world unseen is the world for which we must live. This outward world, and the things which are most valued in it are but a pageant, a passing. show, a shifting scene, in the drama which is now enacting upon the stage of earth, before God and all His angels looking on. What will come next, is the great question. What is that which shifts not, changes not? It is the object and the ground of faith. "The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Live for that which is eternal. Live by faith in Him your forerunner, who has gone before to show you how you ought to live. Faith in Christ is a cable which has never parted. By faith in Christ ye may hold on to God whatever comes. It will carry you through all storms, storms of life, storms of death, storms of judgment. Live by faith.

II. Thus much for the grounds of our hope. Now for hope itself. Hope is our anchor, and it is "sure and stedfast." Not only is it an anchor, but it holds. It will not fail us in the hour of trial. It is strong and it is sure.

Faith and hope have much in common. They have both of them to do with the world which is unseen. A man does not hope for that which he sees; he has it. When he hopes it is for something absent, not for something which he has in hand. But the peculiar office of hope is this, that whereas faith trusts, hope cheers. Hope rests on faith and follows it. Faith might live by, and be sure of, that which is unseen, and yet it might be sad and melancholy; overcoming the world by settled stern endurance, a conqueror but drenched in tears. Hope cheers the drooping heart, and holds out brighter and gladder prospects; looking

forward, and pointing, in the midst of clouds and darkness, to the promise of light and of a coming sun. Faith would say in the midst of trouble, "Though he slay me yet will I trust in Him." Hope would add, ""I shall not die but live." The day will soon be breaking the shadows will soon pass and be away.' Hope can never faint and has a heart which never can be broken. Even "when deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts," it can say, "Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime and in the night His song shall be with me.” In the darkest night hope sings its song.

How comes this? A sanguine temper of mind is the immediate consequence of goodness. How can a man who knows and is sure that there is a God be anything else but hopeful? If God is and is good, how can evil triumph? how can darkness, danger, difficulty, be anything but a passing, changing state of things? They cannot be permanent. Evil cannot last; good alone can be abiding. The good God may suffer evil for a time. Clouds and thick darkness may gather round His saints for a little space. But the sun must be behind the cloud, and hope, piercing through the darkness, sees the hidden sun. A good man cannot long despair. He says to himself, 'Things may look very bad. I can see no refuge from this sore distress. I know not where to look to. Evil seems to have its way. Bad men triumph. Good men are oppressed. The better men are, the more they seem to suffer. The worse men are, the more they seem to prosper. “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree." But still a better day is coming, as daylight after darkness; if not now, in this present time, yet certainly hereafter, in the

new and more perfect world in which all evils shall be redressed and goodness shall be rewarded.'

Therefore let us hope, hope in God. If trials come, we must not faint and be desponding, as though God had ceased to be or to govern His world. We must say, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise Him." We must cast out hope our anchor into the deep sea. The sea beneath is calm always. It is only the highest waters which are tossed and agitated by storms. The deeps far down are waveless. Below there is perfect peace. There is not a ripple or a murmur there. And in God there is perfect peace and unimagined calm. We must anchor our hopes in the depths of God; in the hidden mysteries of His being; in that profound peace in which He dwells for ever; in the I Am, the self-existent, the unchanging, "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." Then though the storm rage and do its worst it cannot shake or disturb us; for hope, our sure and steadfast anchor, has a clinging hold on God.

III. And so we reach to our anchorage, which is Heaven. Hope "entereth into that within the vail." The language here is drawn from customs and observances of the Jewish ritual. The temple had an inner part, which was itself divided into two parts, with a curtain or vail between them. The one of these, the outer, was called the Holy Place. And the other, the inner part, was called the most Holy Place. In the outer place were the altar of incense, and the table of shew-bread, and the golden candlestick with its seven lights. And into this all the priests might enter. In the Holy of Holies, or most Holy Place, was the

ark, the covering of which was called the mercy seat; and above the mercy seat two Cherubim spread out their wings in such a way as to form a kind of throne, where God symbolically sat as King over His people. Into this no one but the High Priest might enter, and that only once a year, on the great day of atonement. His whole action on that day was typical of our Lord's Ascension into Heaven. The outer parts of the temple betokened earth. The inner was Heaven. The most Holy Place was the most glorious seat of the Divine presence. The ark, with the mercy seat and Cherubim, was the sign and symbol of God Himself. As then,

once a year, the high priest, having offered sacrifice, went in to the most Holy Place, and, as it were, into the presence of God Himself, as representative of all the people, and in token that God forgave their sins and received them to Himself, so Jesus Christ, the High Priest of our profession, and also the Lamb slain, went in, not once a year, but once for all, once in the world's year, sprinkled with His own blood, into the Heaven of Heavens, "having obtained eternal redemption for us;" entering for us, as our forerunner, our head and representative, into the presence of God our reconciled Father, and rending the vail of the temple, because the door of Heaven was now opened, and all who would might enter in by Him, the living way.

Heaven is open to us. The everlasting doors have lifted up their heads that "the King of Glory " may go in. And we may enter also. The Holy Place, the part within the vail, the most inner sanctuary, the very presence of God Himself—is thrown open, that all who will may approach the throne of God. Our Lord is gone before us, and we may go through Him. Here our hopes rest. The