appeared to be well filled. Every now and then he shouted "hell" at the top of his voice, and everybody laughed. A word which should never be named without awe, without tears, which represents the fate from which the Son of God shed his blood to deliver men, is made the theme of jest and laughter, and that which broke the heart of Jesus is turned to a joke. Reverence lies at the heart of religion. Where it is wanting it is plain that we know neither God nor ourselves as we ought.

Have we outgrown this conception of the prophet? Justice and mercy toward our fellow men, and a humble, holy walk with God, is not this what God requires to-day? He can ask no more, he will accept no less. This is still the way of duty and life, a way made plain to us, thrown open to us, through the life and death of his Son our Saviour. There is no other way by which we may enter into life eternal.

X

THE PROMISES

"Whereby he hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises."

II Peter 1:4

The promises are not mere ornaments of the Word, but its very strength and substance. We are wholly dependent upon God, and we are altogether unworthy of his favor. Our only hope is in his sure word of promise.

There are two great facts that impress upon us the sense of our dependence. The first is the fact of sin. We have broken God's law, we daily break it in thought, word, and deed; and we cannot make atonement for our sin, or cleanse ourselves from its pollution. Our hope of pardon and peace is found in God alone, and that hope is conveyed to us by his gracious promises.

There is again our ignorance of the future. No wit or ingenuity of man has availed to penetrate the darkness that veils the future from our sight. We may pierce the depths of space, weigh the sun, and measure the stars; but the marvelous achievements and inventions that have marked the progress of the race have not availed to throw one ray of light upon the time to come. It is still as true to-day as it was in the beginning, that we know not what a day may bring forth. Walking amid the splendors of modern civilization, we are as pitifully ignorant of the future

as the first of men. God bestows upon us the good gifts of his providence without measure, but he doles out time to us with a miser's hand, not day by day, or hour by hour, but moment by moment. The passing moment is all that we may call our own. We know nothing of the future except what he has been pleased to reveal; there is nothing to throw light upon the future but a promise.

A complete study of the promises would embrace all Scripture, for it is woven of promises throughout its whole extent. The Old and New Testaments, what are they but covenants; and what is a covenant but a promise upon condition? The Bible is a book of great events interpreted by great promises, of great promises fulfilled by great events. We can consider only some of the salient characteristics of the promises of Scripture, that we may see how true is the word of Peter that they are precious and exceeding great.

(1) Consider the number of the promises. The Bible is preeminently the book of promise. No other book recognizes so clearly the weakness and the sin of man, no other book reveals such a great and gracious God. When gracious God speaks to guilty man, his word must be a word of promise.

The Scripture begins with promise. The first word spoken to man, the creature, was the promise of dominion; the first word spoken to man, the sinner, was the promise of redemption. And the Scripture closes with the promise, "Yea: I come quickly "; to which the heart of the believer re

sponds, "Amen: come, Lord Jesus." The Bible opens with the promise of the first coming of Christ, and ends with the promise of his second coming; and all the way between is strewn with promises, as the sky is studded with stars. They illumine every page, and shed the light of heaven upon every step of our journey from the cradle to the grave.

(2) Consider the variety of the promises. They are suited to every occasion, every experience, every need. Under whatever conditions a man may be placed, there is always a promise to bring courage and cheer to his heart, a promise that speaks to him by name. The promises, too, are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation; and they come to men arrayed in the power and grace of God.

There are great historic promises which determine the course of nations, and shape the destiny of mankind. There are two of these promises in the Old Testament. The first is the promise that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. The very form of the promise is significant. It was not addressed directly to man, but is contained in the curse pronounced upon the serpent, even as Christ in whom all the promises are fulfilled was made a curse for us. This promise is in three parts: (a) There shall be enmity between the woman and the serpent, and between his seed and her seed. Friendship with Satan was man's undoing, only through enmity and strife with Satan shall man escape the bondage and the guilt of sin. (b) In this

conflict man shall prevail. “He shall bruise thy head," the vital part. (c) But though man triumphs, he shall suffer sorely. "Thou shalt bruise his heel." The whole course of human history is the fulfillment of this primal curse, this primal promise; is the record of the sorrows and sufferings through which man must tread Satan under his feet. The promise is fulfilled in Christ, who through Gethsemane and Calvary destroyed the works of the Devil and won the name that is above every name; and leads the victorious host of his followers in triumph to the eternal city. All history is the record of the conflict, the struggle, the victory of mankind through Christ. The other great promise of the Old Testament which sweeps the whole course of history is the word spoken to Abraham: "In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." The earlier promise is taken up, confirmed, defined. How the first promise shall be fulfilled is declared by the second-it shall be through the seed of Abraham. The names given him in Scripture attest the place he holds in the history of redemption. He is the friend of God and the father of believers alike under the old covenant and the new. "They that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham." Gal. 3:7. "And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise." Gal. 3:29.

All history is the unfolding of this promise, given to man in the hour of his sin, renewed when the covenant of grace was made with Abraham and his seed. Eleven chapters of Genesis are given to the