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النشر الإلكتروني

The natural man alone, or the spiritual man trusting to natural means alone, can never accomplish the plans of the God of grace. There must be, in addition, His supernatural help. It is only by the perpetual concurrence of God's upholding power, that even the best of our schemes can possibly succeed.

The two forces are not contradictory; but, rather, coördinate with one another. It was not God in His own visible person Who went about preaching the Word in the days that followed the feast of Pentecost. Neither was it because of preaching alone that miracles followed upon sermons. The apostles preached; the Lord coöperated with them. Then the signs came; in confirmation by Him of what they, in dependence upon Him, had delivered to the people. So it was that the infant Church learned that although Divine grace is ever above nature, yet it is always in harmony with nature when it would work by grace.

And this same lesson needs to be repeated constantly in the Church of to-day. It is a lesson especially appropriate for Advent; but it is always seasonable.

From it will come the fire that shall enkindle our enthusiasm, as well in what may be technically styled missionary labors, as in all kinds of work for Christ, with the invigorating energy of a supernatural force. "I can do all things," said St. Paul, "through Christ that strengtheneth me."

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There is therefore, nothing too great for us to undertake, if only we have within us the love of Christ and of human souls, with a corresponding measure of faith in His will and power to aid us.

*Philippians iv., 13.

Only we must seize the opportunities as they arc offered to us. When the Master sent to the village for the ass and the colt, an opportunity of serving Him was offered which was not allowed to go by unimproved. There was, indeed, the inquiry: "What do ye, loosing the colt?" But the answer: "The Lord hath need of

them," sufficed.

So ought it to be with all of us to-day. Where the Lord's needs are known, we should be forward to supply them. They will not be laid upon us beyond our ability to bear them. In doing this, we may have to spend, submit, even perchance, to suffer. But what of that, if thereby we are brought into closer companionship with Him Who came to give Himself, to do His Father's will, and to endure what no other person has ever endured?

Let us remember that the true life of man is the life of service. Even our Blessed Lord, Whose advent we are now especially bearing in mind, came among us as one that serveth.§ What prevents the service of Christians from degenerating into what is termed servility, is the constant remembrance on their part of the fact that they are serving the Lord even when in deeds of mercy and charity they may be more directly benefitting one of the lowliest of their fellow creatures. God is the first and highest object of such service: then man, for God's sake.

It has been the aim of this discourse to set before its hearers the duty and privilege of ministering to the Lord's needs, with all the additional force and solemn

St. Mark xi., 5.

§St. Luke, xxii., 27.

ity which attach to the beginning of another of our ecclesiastical years.

Each Advent tells of prolonged opportunities, and yet of the inevitable judgment. To some of us, the time for embracing these opportunities may be very nearly ended. The inquiry comes, all unbidden: What shall the Judgment be?

On every hand, there is work to be done. Christ calls us to it. The Church calls us to it. Humanity calls us to it. There is work within the soul in making it ready for the Master's reappearance. There is work without, in helping other souls to meet Him without fear. What, suppose you, is the Eternal Judge thinking of our work now? How will it look even to ourselves in the day of final reckoning?

This we know full well; that the best of it is poor indeed, and will then appear to us as nothing worth. Let us be quickened to better service, and still better, day by day. Let us pray in earnest for the raising up within us of God's almighty power, and for the kindling of His Holy Spirit, so that, by His mercy, when He comes again, we may, like lamps replenished by His divine gift, shine as bright lights in the presence of His same adorable Son. Then as we shall feel as we have never felt before our need of Him, He will be our All in All.

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THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

A MESSAGE OF NATURE.

TEXT: And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars.-St. Luke XXI, 25.

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By the REV. ROGER H. PETERS,

Rector of St. Paul's Church, New Albany, Indiana.

T this time of the year, the silent voices of nature are

preaching a solemn sermon. The face of the world which, but a little while ago, was kindling with expressions of life, appears now to have settled to the inexpressiveness of death. Where warmth was, now there is coldness; where there was joy, now there is sadness; where there were carols, now there are dirges. The flowers have surrendered their blossoms and been stripped of their leaves; the brown and bare woods are teaching their lesson of patient resignation; the mysterious flights to the South of the winged creatures of the air are tokens that they are for a time done with us. The gray shortened days, the hush of birds, the pathetic lowing of cattle, emphasize to man the law of constant change. Things are not what they were but just now. Suddenly and almost startlingly the human conscience is aroused to what has been so silently and so steadily going on. The year is about run out. Spring, Summer, Autumn,each in turn has come, has

brought its gifts, has done its part in nature's work-shop, and the end has been reached. Perhaps we were tired of the seasons which have passed, and welcome the change. Perhaps their pleasures have sated us or their sufferings have wearied us, and we would not have them linger. Perhaps a mere change is grateful, whether or not we can detect just what it will mean to us. But it does not matter; if it be or be not welcomed, the change has come. The joys of the summer could not be retained. The life of yesterday is gone; the life of to-morrow is before us. Man is swept resistlessly onward. He gazes upon the present, he grasps it, he thinks he is using it, is enjoying it, is enduring it, and lo! it has glided into the past. Man has not here any sure abiding place, and never continues in one stay.

Is not this, then, the sermon of nature, that a mighty, momentous, resistless change is going on? And does she not plead with man, plead with all the eloquence of her majestic silence, to mark the change? It is not only that the seasons are changing, that they come and go and will come again; not only that the circumstances of man's life will not be the same ever again; but that man's life itself is sweeping onward to some point in time where there will be a final and complete change.

And with these intimations of nature to impress upon our minds-all too willing to forget the approach of one great last change, the soul is cast forward to the future, and strains to catch some glimpse of the land that is very far off. And the blessed Church of Christ, falling in with, and taking advantage of the sombre mood of nature and the solemn reflections she induces, bids the world of living, suffering and changing men and women: Expect not some indefinite shifting of itself, not

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