raised it to a grander stage of development than had before been possible.

They did not doubt that He would now work with and for them more mightily than before. They had now a Great High Priest, who could be touched with the feeling of their infirmities, who had passed into the heavens, and who was "able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." His earthly priesthood was at an end. His heavenly priesthood, His more excellent ministry, had begun. From henceforth He would plead for fallen man before the throne of Heaven, lifting up there His pierced hands, offering Himself as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, making intercession continually for that whole great family of which He is the Head. This would be His great High-Priestly work.

But it would not be all. For He had promised them that, after they had tarried a few days in Jerusalem, He would send them a divine Comforter, through whose ceaseless activities He Himself would continue to work in the world until all those great and precious purposes which He had at heart should be fulfilled. Thus, through the ministries and sacraments of the Holy Church which they should establish under the guidance of His Spirit, would He work on until the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.

Such was the groundwork, we may rest assured, of that great joy with which the orphaned Apostles returned over the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem on the first Ascension Day. Whenever and wherever the Christian Church has taken her stand upon it, she has found

it a sure foundation, a solid rock, from which she could look out over all the world's storms in the confidence of a sure and certain hope. The faith which can fortify the human heart against all that might make it afraid, and fill the Christian life with brightness and holy joy, is not faith in our Suffering Lord, nor in our Crucified Lord, nor even in our Risen Lord, but in our Ascended Lord, enthroned at God's right hand as King of kings, and Lord of lords.

TEXT:

SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION.

The Gospel for the Day.--S. John xv. 26 to XVI. 4.

By the REV. W. R. RICHARDSON,

Rector of St. Mark's Church, San Antonio, Tex.

HIS is the Sunday after Ascension. still of that wonderful event.

Its lessons are

The Sunday next after Easter is sometimes called "Low Sunday," suggestive of the state of uncertainty and doubt and depression in which the disciples were at the end of that first week after the Lord's Resurrection. He was risen, yes; they had seen Him on that first Lord's day; but now a week has elapsed, and they have seen Him no more.

We can imagine then the joy with which they hailed His reappearance on the next Lord's day after, and again and yet again, during the forty days that elapsed before His ascension into heaven. That great forty days which was the seed-time of the Church, when in repeated discourse, though not recorded for us, our blessed Lord taught His apostles "the things concerning the kingdom of heaven," His Church.

In similar spirit the appointed Lessons for this day have something of this same strain of sadness, mingled with the thought in the Epistle, that the end of the world is nigh; while the Gospel for the day repeats yet again the promise of that Holy Comforter they should soon so sorely need; whom as yet they knew not; and for whom

He bids them wait; and they are waiting; but as yet they are grieving too, as we grieve when our dear ones are taken from us.

And they cannot understand how it can be expedient for them that He should go away. Such is the state of uncertainty, even though of an expectancy of they knew not what, in which they await the promised Comforter.

In the Gospel, too, our Lord forewarns them of the trials and dangers, and even deaths, that await them, that they might not be taken unawares, and unprepared; and so, either through the pains or the fear of death, should fall from Him. So honest and true was our dear Lord.

People misunderstood Him, then; they do now; but He never once promised worldly pleasure or prosperity as the meed of His service. They may incidentally come in His service, but never as the reward of it. His reward is laid up where the crown is that awaits all those who shall prove His faithful soldiers unto their life's end.

The doctrine and fact of the Ascension of Christ is of such supreme and vital importance, that the Holy Church throughout all the world hath received and held it, from the beginning, in "that form of sound words" committed unto her by the holy apostles: "He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty."

It was repeatedly foretold by our Lord, as, for instance, when He speaks of going to the Father; of going to prepare a place for them; of departing that He might send the Comforter; and yet again, after His resurrection, that mysterious prohibition to Mary, and the reason He gives for it: "Touch Me not, for I have not yet

ascended to My Father; go say to My brethren that I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God, and your God."

After the event, it is the constant theme of the apostles; and they hesitate not to stake all upon its truth; their word, their honor and their hopes of future bliss.

It was also foretold and foreshown in type and figure and prophecy long before, especially in that remarkable passage in the Psalms: "Thou art gone up on high, Thou hast led captivity captive, and received gifts for men; yea, even for Thine enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them."

These words could by no possibility apply to any other being than Christ, nor to any other event in the history of the world than His glorious Ascension. Let us consider them carefully. After the words “Thou art gone up on high," which, as we contend, is the prophetic declaration of the Ascension, we are first struck with the remarkable expression, "Thou hast led captivity captive."

You will remember how the blind prisoner, Samson of old, grasped the pillars of Dagon's temple, and threw the whole into ruin, destroying himself and his enemies. with it. Or, in the common affairs of life, you know how often it is that the captor is taken, the biter bit, and the deceiver himself deceived. But all this is trivial and tame compared with what is meant here where it is said, "Thou hast led captivity captive." Knowing who Christ was, and what His mission here, we may Imagine Satan, who held the power of death, as making all hell to ring with his pæan and shout of victory. When he saw our Champion, the Captain of the Lord's host and of our Salvation, go down; when he saw the Prince of Life and Lord of Glory in His day of humiliation, although self