to-do classes laughed it to scorn. The second edition of it was bound in their hides.' It is better to show that it is a gospel which does not contain in it any hope for the poor. Its root vice is that it shuts its eyes to present facts. It assumes that the new society, when it shall have been adjusted by the professors, will be composed of men whose natures will be different from these we know now.

The second gospel, if it may so be called, is the gospel of science. It says that poverty is inevitable. In the struggle for existence the weak must go to the wall. It is a law of nature that in order that a few favorite individuals may live and develop, the great multitude of their kind must perish and decay, and become the soil in which the more fortunate ones flourish. may be true, but it certainly is not a gospel.

This

Now, these two having spoken,—the one mischief and the other mockery,-let us hear what Jesus has to say. In the first place, He makes no misleading promises. He recognizes the facts of the case. He says: "The poor ye have always with you." Poverty is permanent. It has always been in the world and it always will be. What is desirable is to find some method to draw its sting, not undertake to remove it bodily. That cannot be done. Christ accepts it as a permanent fact. He builds upon it and roots virtues in it. Patience, fortitude, sympathy, charity-the whole gracious sister

hood of Christian graces presuppose the existence of a necessity for their existence. His own human excellence is largely referred to this fact. The existence, then, of this evil, and of the ills which spring from it, would seem to have been a condition prerequisite for His own work. In the second place, He lays the total emphasis upon charity. This is the one word about which practical Christianity revolves. In the secular schemes for the amelioration of the condition of humanity, the idea of charity is as far as possible eliminated. Alms-giving is declared to be a blunder. A charity organization society is inclined to teach that it is better to put a man in the way to secure a cup of cold water for himself rather than hand it to him. It is better to force him to go naked, or compel him to earn his own cloak, rather than to give him a covering for his nakedness.

Jesus saw much deeper into the situation than this. He saw that charity, when it is charity, is an action which proceeds from real love for one's fellow-man-a virtue which is twice blessed,

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blessing him that gives as well as him that doth receive," and therefore cannot do hurt to either.

But probably the most inspiring element of His Gospel is His revelation of the world to come. Let no poor man start at this or be repelled. Let him not say: "I asked bread, and you gave me a stone from the streets of the New

Jerusalem.' Jesus' teaching is that the ills of this world cannot be dealt with in any permanent or satisfactory way, if this life be dealt with by itself. Men's bodies, as well as their souls, are bound not only to the life which now is, but to the life which is to come.

Nothing has ever been so potent to draw the pain out of poverty as has been the hope and expectation of a better life beyond. Those in misery always believe the Creed. It is the rich and luxurious men who doubt concerning the life to come. The poor and suffering always believe in it and look toward it. In point of fact, nothing has done so much to alleviate the condition of humanity as those two sentences that fell from the lips of the Master: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted;" "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It is true that these do not relieve physical ills or provide for physical wants, but they do better than that-they enter into the secret places of the soul. They furnish hope and stimulation, and, having thus set the soul of the poor man at peace, he is in a better and more willing mood to co-operate with society, with science, and with political economy in bringing the outward conditions of life to correspond with his inmost necessities.

XXXIV.

THE SON OF MAN.

"Wbo is this Son of man?"-JOHN xii. 34.

ONE of the fundamental laws of nature is that like begets like. That is the law which prohibits hybridity. It will not allow confusion to be introduced and carried very far within nature. Crosses between living things are only possible when the living things are closely allied. If by accident a cross is effected between creatures more widely separated, the offspring is incapable of reproduction. This principle would seem to lie at the root of Our Lord's habit of speaking of Himself as the "Son of Man" and also the "Son of God." The offspring of God and man must be something which shares the nature of both. It is for this reason that He calls Himself habitually by these names.

I ask you to look steadily at this fact until it sinks into your mind, and, in order that you may do so, to think of a few illustrations. They are not analogies, but they will serve to convey the same idea. For example, the old title of the Dauphin was "The Son of France." The title

conveyed the impression that he was not the son alone of his immediate father, but that he was in some sense the son and embodiment of the whole people. Mr. Lincoln has been spoken of as the "typical American." By that has been meant that he combined in himself in a pre-eminent degree all those qualities which manifest themselves ordinarily in different individuals, but which were in him combined in order to produce the American. You have seen the results of that odd discovery called composite photography. An ingenious artist takes upon a sensitive plate, one after another, a dozen New England manufacturers. On the same plate he superimposes a dozen New England professional men; upon that a dozen New England women, and so following. Each impression fuses with the impression which preceded, until the final result is the New Englander. The picture is of no particular person, but it is something deeper and more true than would have been the photograph of any individual. Would it be an idle fancy to suppose that if all the features of all the men and women of all times and places since the world was, should be superimposed upon one sensitive plate the result would be a picture of the Son of Man?

Whether it be or no, this is clearly the underlying truth in all our Lord's thought about Himself. He refers over and over again to His humanity as the ground of His deep and intelli