converts looking askance at him. Hear him say to these carping Corinthians, "I will gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved;" and to the cavilling Galatians, "I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you." Look at Paul, stoned, in prison, in sorrow, in shipwrecks; but triumphing in it all, and bearing the Gospel banner from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum. What was the secret of so much service so gloriously done, so much suffering so meekly borne? Paul gives us the secret in Gal. ii. 20 (read at your leisure, and ponder the Revised Version of it, especially its margin, and you will find the secret was death), "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." "It is no longer I who live"-the very thing you might expect of a crucified man. You do not hang up a man on the cross, and nail his hands and feet, and expect him to survive. What, then, is the animating spirit in Paul? "Christ liveth in me." The secret of service is suffering, the secret of service is death, crucifixion with Christ. Yet even such a one as Paul felt he must keep under his body, keep it in subjection to Christ, lest he should be a castaway. That is, his elevation with Christ was accompanied by humiliation as "the least of all saints," "the chief-sinners." There he hung, a martyred man before his martyrdom; dying, yea, dead with Christ, as he tells the Galatians, "Crucified with Him;" no longer living, but Christ taking his place, and living in his stead.

And WHEN shall this be? When this service be rendered? When? When we take Christ, as our subject tells us, as our Leader and Guide in service. Remember, He must be the only guide; we cannot follow two. I remember being on the icefields on one of the Alps, and our party being in some danger. The danger was caused by a quarrel between the two guides. One wanted to take the right side, and the other wanted to take the left; but between the two we knew not which way to take, and got into difficulty and danger. It must be true of us as of Israel in her best days-"The Lord alone did lead them."

And as He is our only Guide, so must He be our only Leader. I am not clear about that word as put on the paper to

day. Perhaps it is this, "Remember you take no lower model for service than Christ Himself." Sounding in our ears have been His words, "Ye also ought to wash one another's feet; for I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." And the words of the apostle too, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." It is humility the apostle is speaking about there, and he will have no less standard than the example of Him who bowed the heavens and came down. John also tells us we ought to walk as Christ Himself also walked; that we ought to walk with God as Christ walked with God when He was here below. If there be a more difficult duty than any other, it is the duty of dying for others. But even that we are not to escape, it seems; for John tells us, "We ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren ;" and in modern language we might translate that, lay out our lives for the brethren. God's work will never be done by us till we are ready to lay out our lives in His service; and this world never will be evangelized as He would have it by our witnessing to all nations, clear and full, the witness He would have borne, till we are ready to die, as Jesus would have us die. I know not what you think, but it seems to me that amongst all the missionaries who went forth last year there is no missionary who has touched the heathen and Mohammedan world as the martyred missionary, Gordon, who died at Khartoum. We must be ready to lay down our lives, if our service is to be after the pattern shown in the mount, the mount of Calvary, where the Lamb of God was slain for us.

But perhaps the word Leader has another meaning. A leader is one who leads. And is it not our comfort when we are going to conflict that we have Christ in His own beauty of holiness going before us, and securing the victory and passing it over to us? And the same joy is ours in undertaking any work, very arduous, difficult, and seemingly impossible. God is with us, the Lord of Hosts is our refuge, Jesus is in the midst. "The Breaker is come up before them, they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it; and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them." (Micah ii. 13.) Brethren, I do not know what you feel about it, as you hear this word read, but I feel I want to take my Lord in a new character. I have taken Him as my Saviour, and I love to think of Him as saving me. I

have taken Him as Friend, and I love to think of His loving me. I have taken Him as my King, and I love to think of His ruling me. But I want now and for ever to take Him as the Breaker who shall go before me and break down every obstacle and every difficulty. "The Breaker is gone up before them." He has not gone alone, for it swiftly follows, "they have broken up." Christ has gone up on high, and taken His people with Him. We are seated with Him, not merely in this Conference Hall, but in heavenly places. The obstacles may be mighty, indeed they may be great, and seem to be invincible, but He who is with me is mightier still, the Lord Jesus Christ shall break through them all. But if He is breaking up new ground, then wheresoever He clears away the forest trees, as the mighty Pioneer, we as settlers after Him may go, and wheresoever He is pressing forward, as our Captain of Salvation, we, the least and lowest of us, the common soldiers, down to the very drummer boy of His regiment, may follow on. We have the Lord with us as Captain, the Lord with us as King, and following in His wake no service can be too arduous, and no sin too assailing. "Let us therefore run with patience the race set before us, laying aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith," the Breaker and King, who has gone up before us.

The second address was given by the

Rev. H. W. WEBB-PEPLOE, M.A.

We were told this morning by the second speaker that he would endeavour to commence where the first had left off; so I will commence where our brother has just left off. He left us in heavenly places in the person of Jesus, sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, because accepted of God in the Beloved. The special line of thought for to-day is, that there can be no true service, no service such as God will accept, till every man and woman has taken his or her place by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is now at the right hand of God. That is where service commences, however unlikely it may seem to some. The Gospel has been often declared to be one great paradox; to human sense it seems to contradict itself at every turn. But when we are translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son we see that what men call contradictions are

only various aspects of truths assimilated to one another in a glorious and orderly system.

So here Sonship on the throne is the starting-point of service. It was there that our great Pattern and Leader and Guide commenced His service; and exactly where He began we must commence. You remember one of the proudest utterances, as man would term it, that ever proceeded from human lips; at all events, from a slave to a king. Moses was standing yet before Pharaoh. The king was demanding that, if he let Israel go, certain things (the flocks and the herds) should be left behind. But Moses said, "Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither." Such was the demand of the deliverer and mediator, because he knew that deliverance would give sonship, and sonship realized would bring obedience. And when God of His infinite mercy takes the poor bond-slave of sin and Satan, sets him free from all his enemies, and raises him to heavenly places in Christ Jesus, then, and then only, does that soul begin to comprehend what are the preliminaries, the true principles of service. The service which God desires to have, and which we may hope to render while eternity lasts, starts here, even with the realization of sonship. "Let My "Let My son go, that he may serve Me." Only then, when that question of sonship is established, does true Gospel service become possible; for then, and then only, is the soul in a position to offer a freewill offering as one who need not of necessity take the position of a slave or servant. "Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant [‘slave'], but Christ over God's house as a Son." Now by entering into the privileges that are accorded to us in Christ Jesus, we become free, with all the liberty of sons; for the Son is free, and He makes us, His brethren, free for ever. Now then we may present ourselves, spirit, soul, and body, talents, time, and whatever may be committed to us, to Him who has redeemed us; and from that moment it is our delight to follow our Lord and Master, and yield our all to God, whatsoever God has given us.

Thus then we are brought to this position, that one of the first difficulties that stands in the way with many in offering themselves to God is that they have not apprehended the true position of a believer, accepted in Christ, seated with Him in

the heavenlies, and therefore a true child of God. Till that is realized there is no service for us; till we know and rejoice that all things are ours, and we are Christ's, and Christ is God's," we know nothing of what true Gospel service means. From the moment we are made partakers of the Christ life, from that moment sonship is ours; and when we know this our souls are flooded with delight in the contemplation, for the first time, of peace and pardon, deliverance and security, present blessing and future glorification. And now, recognizing the fact that we exist for the glory of God, and that here below our truest blessing is to serve and glorify, and thus enjoy God upon earth, even as through all eternity we hope to serve, glorify, and enjoy Him in heaven; we should seek to consecrate our lives wholly to Him. For from the moment we understand and translate into our lives the Gospel, we not only enter into freedom, but we understand further the privilege of offering back to God the life and the powers which He has bestowed on us; and as we begin to learn from God how to use what He has bestowed upon us, from that moment we become servants by our own free will.

"Thine only, Thine utterly,
Thine evermore to be."

Christ consecrated Himself for service as a Son. It was the Son who said, "Let a body be prepared for Me." It was the Son who said, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." It was the Son who was always uttering such words as these, "I do not Mine own will, but the will of the Father who hath sent Me." "I speak not Mine own words, but the words of My Father." "I do always those things that please Him."

There may be many of God's children here to-day who have believed for everlasting life, who have found pardon and peace through the blood of the Lamb, who have accepted justification as an instantaneous gift from God, incapable of amendment or amplification, but who do not understand what it is to be saved for the privilege of serving God. They have taken Christ for their justification, but have not accepted Him for sanctification;

to say, they take Christ for pardon, peace, and position, but do not understand Him as the power of life, whereby it is practicable to glorify God even in this mortal body. They speak of "being saved," and also of "serving;" but they hardly understand how one bears on the other, or the great and