Of ourselves we can do nothing. He gives the power and strength. But since the power and strength are given it must be used.

True Christians have learned of their Master. They hear His words—the words of God, and do them. They are of God and so the Spirit of Christ actuates them. As He came to save men, so His followers will have their part in the same blessed work. His true followers are inspired with His love. That is more powerful than all the swords of the world. That will beam forth in the faith and life of the disciples. "By their fruits ye shall know them." The evidence of being with Jesus will be plain.

Men will be drawn towards those in whom Christ dwells, and the joy which the angels of Heaven feel at the repentance of sinners will fill the souls of those who on earth truly represent Christ.

PALM SUNDAY.

TEXT: Now when the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, truly, this was the Son of God.-St. Matt. XXVII. 54.

By the REV. Wм. B. CORBYN, D. D.,

Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Quincy, Ill.

'HE Gospel for this day does not detail the events

THE

that transpired on the day that is commonly called Palm Sunday. On that day our Lord made His final entry into Jerusalem, where He was to expiate the sins of the world. He came in the double character of the Paschal Lamb for the great sacrifice, and as the Son of David, the King, of whose kingdom there should be no end; and as such was heralded by the joyous crowds of the people who testified their devotion by cries of "Hosanna," and the waving of palms.

But the Gospel of to-day, as do also those of the following days, carries us forward to the scenes of Good Friday, the sufferings under Pontius Pilate and the Cross of Calvary.

The last words of the Gospel will furnish us a fitting subject for our present meditation.

It is noteworthy that the confession of our Lord's Divinity should have been made by the heathen centurion, while hundreds of His own people, who had been favored by His three years of parable and miracle, and had now witnessed the scene of His crucifixion, had

gone away, muttering curses upon the Nazarene, and flattering themselves that they had heard the last of His rebukes of their sins, and His calls to repentance. It illustrates the words of St. John: "He came unto His own and His own received Him not."

The military education of this centurion had made him keen-sighted and observing; he had come with his band of soldiers to execute an order of his superiors. He was to see to it that the execution of the supposed criminal was properly conducted. He and his men had observed the meekness and God-like bearing of their prisoner, and could not fail, when supernatural signs attested His character, to acknowledge their force.

Other instances are given in the Gospels of the recognition of our Lord's divine character, by persons outside of Israel; that of the Syrophoenician woman; and of the woman of Samaria; another remarkable instance was that of the centurion of Capernaum, whose acknowledgment of the Lord was such as to call forth those memorable words of special commendation: "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”

How this Gentile centurion had obtained such knowledge of our Lord as this faith of his shows him to have we do not know; but we do know that this knowledge of God is the great human need, and nowhere can it be sought for with better hope of success than at the Cross of His Incarnate Son.

Now, what is this knowledge of God, and how can we obtain it; and what will be the fruit of it in the character and life of those who are blessed with the possession of it? This knowledge of God implies the knowledge of ourselves. When Job, that ancient servant of the Lord, had taken a lesson in this Divine

learning, he cried: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

As we gaze upon the Cross, and allow ourselves to question the meaning of that awful spectacle that moves heaven and earth, we find that it is not a scene of the dim history of the far-away past, but its lesson is the lesson of all lessons for us to-day. Instructed by prophets and evangelists, we of to-day know that the victim on that bitter cross is no less than the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. That that Lamb of God is none other than the Son of God Himself, giving His human life as the second Adam for the sins of the sons of the first Adam. We are of that sinful family, and our first impulse will be like that of Job; and we, too, overwhelmed with the consciousness of our manifold sins and wickednesses, shall abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes.

St. Paul had obtained this knowledge of God, which he communicates to us in this wise: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

It is taught us as children in the simplest forms of our common speech, in the Catechism: "I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me and all the world; in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind; in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me and all the people of God." This is that knowledge of God which teaches us, not only what God is, but what we ourselves are, and what are our relations to Him; He is our Creator, Father, we His sinful children; but God the Son, taking upon Himself manhood unto God,

has "borne our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness." And this is what we learn of Him who "hath redeemed us and all mankind."

And in this immediate connection another all important lesson in the knowledge of God is taught us. To the disciples, made sorrowful by our Lord's announcement that He was soon to leave them, He promised to send another Comforter; and so we learn "to believe in God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth us and all the people of God."

Thus, we have in few words the necessary knowledge of God for the salvation of a human soul. And we also see that this necessary knowledge is obtained by the diligent soul in the study, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, of the Life, Death, Resurrection, Ascension and Intercession of the Incarnate Son of God.

But what must be the outcome, the fruit of such knowledge of God? What must be the effect upon the man whose heart is open to receive it, and whose mind is able to grasp somewhat of the amazing truths thus revealed by the Holy and all merciful Creator to His sinful creatures? To his trembling, half-established faith it all seems incredible; but by the continued pondering of the Divine words revealed, aided by the Divine Spirit who revealed them, he is able to comprehend with all saints so much of the love of the Incarnate God as to waken a loving response in his own soul. "In this," saith St. John, "was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."