Southward or eastward posture is a solemn question. The color and texture of an altar cloth is only something less than a point of saving faith. Or the amount of water in a baptism is a sufficient excuse for a denomination. Or the distinction between a ruling and a non-ruling elder justifies a sect.

But the thought of worship Christ expressed can dispense with religion's childish things. Nay it can dispense with a great deal of the husk which still wraps about the freest of all our Christian lives. The whole earth is the altar of our sacrifice. Heaven's blue canopy is the curtain of our tabernacle. Where we kneel, in every place-by night or noon, on the mountain or in the closet, together or alone there the Shekinah of the presence is, there Christ is with us to the end of the world. For there is first the blade, but at last there comes the full corn in the ear.

Having now considered Christ's symbol, and glanced at some illustrations of its truthfulness in setting forth certain features of the progress of the Kingdom of God in the past, let us turn now, in accordance with our design, to see what instructions for present and future benefit we may gain.

And one instruction is that of Christian anticipation and faith. These words of Christ, "First the blade then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear," suggest a glorious prophecy of future development of the Kingdom of God.

I have, indeed, from time to time in this discourse spoken of one or another feature of religion's present aspect as being the "full corn" for which the past has lived. And so indeed it is, when the past only is taken into view. But the Kingdom of God is not finished yet. There is a fuller corn which is still to gladden the earth. The story of redemption is not yet wholly told. The book of religion has many an unturned

page.

We have seen how the plant of religion has grown and altered hitherto. We saw its feeble upspringing in patriarchal days. We saw its lush and showy growth in the Mosaic ritual. The husk of Levitical forms dropped away with the advent of the Master. But did the development of religion cease with His coming? Did divine truth cast itself in fixed moulds in the preacher's words; understood at once; under

stood fully; understood changelessly? Was the form and image of the church fixed then unalterably, as a fossil plant sealed up in the rocks forever? Were the duties and privileges of Christians then set down in immutable and complete detail? In a word was this promise of the Holy Ghost as a guide into this truth, as a teacher of the church forever, rendered nugatory before it was given?

Let the plainest facts of Christian history answer! How this Body of Christ has altered in garb, and changed in features, and lifted and transformed its aspect as it has traveled down the centuries! Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Luther, Owen, Edwards, saw they the same unaltered form, as they looked on religion in their successive days? Yes, as he who sees a child, and then the man, sees the same form; as he who sees the blade and the full ear, sees the same plant; so, and no otherwise.

Where, for example, do we look for a clear comprehension of one of the plainest of Christ's instructions-the law of universal philanthropy? To Peter whom a thrice-repeated heavenly vision could hardly convince that God "could grant unto Gentiles repentance unto life?" To the church of Constantine, when the arm of State was the instrument of conversion? To the ages of mediæval Christianity-passionate, intense, selfsacrificing willing to lavish treasure and life to fight the Saracens; never thinking of spending a penny to convert them? Has not the plant of Christian love shot upward in the lifetime of some gathered here to-day with a growth unknown before? India, China, Islands of the Pacific, say!

Nor is it practical Christianity only which has unfolded. Doctrinal Christianity has changed as well. Not indeed that the body of divine truth itself-abstractly or as contained in Scripture-changes. This hardly needs to be said. But in these days of theological sensitiveness it may be well enough to say it. God's truth is ever the same and the Bible is always authority upon it. But men's understanding of what is truth, and of what the Bible really affirms, alters inevitably in successive years.

Do any of you, for example, when you meditate on the work your Saviour wrought for you, think of it as the Church

of Origen's day, and onward for seven centuries, thought of it? Do you think your Saviour entered into compact with Satan to become his slave as the condition of your ransom, and then broke his agreement and outwitted Satan in the bargain? Had you lived in Alexandria you would have been excommunicated if you had not thought so; in Rome six centuries later you might have been burned.

Doctrine, duty, polity, and Christian life, all have undergone successive changes from age to age. Men's comprehension of God's eternal plan has altered less or more with every generation which has pondered it. And in the light of so incontestable a truth, why wall we up the doorways of the future? Even if we put the word of prophecy concerning this fact aside, what could be more probable-looking at the analogy of the past-than that the same law will have its way? But when, added to the suggestions of experience, we take into view the bright predictions of God's word, what wonderful unfoldings of divine things may we not anticipate in coming years? Things are not-whatever a Judaizing and pessimistic. pietism may affirm-things are not on the edge of dissolution. and doom. They are growing and ripening still.

Another instruction it seems we might profitably gain is one of humility and trust in watching and working for the kingdom's approach.

Suppose, for illustration's sake, that I am-what we all ought to be a watcher and worker for the kingdom of God. How am I to feel? What am I to do? Let the unfolding of a grain of wheat instruct me. The man who gave me the seed told me certain things of my expectations and partly to direct my behavior. He said, "first the blade, then the ear, afterward the full corn in the

ear."

it, partly apparently to guide

This then is the "blade;" this pale green shoot, showing hourly a deeper green and lifting daily into freer air. But how powerless I am before this young plant! How little I understand it after all. Some things I may indeed do for itgive it light, and water, stir the soil about it, and the weeds. away which threaten its welfare. But how it grows I cannot tell; what its next change will be I cannot foresee. The man

said an ear would follow the blade, but what that is like I cannot tell. I can only wait and see. And while I watch, the ear comes the crown of bristling cones. I can scarcely recognize the plant, and yet it is the same. One single life, through changes manifold. And not a change in vain. no tokens of mistake anywhere. And the man said the corn would come in the ear. I am waiting to see.

I see

And as you and I, my friends, await the coming of that kingdom which the Master said was like this growing of the grain of wheat, we too have some impressive suggestions as to the attitude in which we wait and work.

We are reminded that the kingdom of God is one. A single life runs through it all. Under all its changes works a power which alters not the divine design. And there does not appear to be any arbitrary or sudden break. I see no indication of failure anywhere. The dispensation of the Patriarchs served its day. I do not see how it could have been bettered for its time. The dispensation of Mosaic law and ceremony served its end. We can partly discern its fitness and necessity. And the dispensation of the life of Christ-astounding and ever glorious efflorescence of the plant of the kingdom-this, certainly, could no more completely fulfil its purpose than it did. And the dispensation of the Holy Ghost in the midst whereof we stand,-what a wonderful period is this! I do not like to hear that it has failed, or will probably fail. Does any one know exactly what is the might of the Holy Ghost? any one surely say it is a might adequate to this result, but not adequate to that? It may renew a soul, but may not renew a world? O Infinite and on-moving Power! We fathom not, nor dare we limit thy unexhausted strength. We look with joy and trust to thy might in leading on, surely and apace, the latter day glory of the kingdom of God!

And it is on that power also that we rely in the patient and strenuous endeavor which is our part in this great enterprise. For we have a part also.

What is our part? Our part is not restless struggle to reproduce a by-gone, or to anticipate an unarrived period of the kingdom's progress. Not in plucking apart the unripe ear in haste for the grain. But in watching and cherishing the plant

of God's grace wherever visible in the world. In digging about its roots, and opening the soil for the heavenly rain. In caring for its welfare on the broad fields of Christian enterprise, or in the narrow field of personal devotion.

Gentlemen of this Theological Seminary, and you especially, my young friends, just entering on the work of the gospel ministry, to you is, in a manner, peculiarly given the divine function of the tillage of the plant of the kingdom in this evil world. This high, sacred, benign employment in which so many of the good and great of past generations have found their noblest occupation and most satisfying joy, is to be the employment of your lives. Called to it we trust by the Spirit of God; prepared for it in some measure by study of truth and by experience of grace, set high, I beseech you, the mark of your expectation and endeavor.

Ah, the divinely glorious mission of a true gospel husbandman! Who of us has ever reached an adequate estimate of its exalted privileges, or the dignity of its appointed work?

Suffer the word of exhortation which urges on you a truer conception of its sacred aim. To a complete consecration of yourselves to its objects I entreat you to be personally dedicated. More and more seek to make the ministry of grace in your hands all that it was meant to be for a sinning and suffering world. By individual effort, by united endeavor, by a dedication to it which grows daily more like Christ's, watch and tend, and cultivate, the plant of righteousness; till at last, its appointed changes all fulfilled, whether in the individual or the collective life, the ear succeeding to the blade, the full corn ripening in the ear, in God's set time, the wheat be garnered, and the harvesters rejoice together in the kingdom. of heaven.

GEO. LEON WALKER.

VOL. XIII.

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