Orion chose twelve frail human wills to inaugurate the Kingdom of God among men. Unlettered, without social prestige, devoid of political power, lacking the emoluments of wealth, yet these twelve men-bigoted, selfish, sinful-are sent forth to conquer the world. Many times they were without faith in themselves, in man, or God. Apparently doing everything in their power to make it impossible for even God to trust them, yet the Lord Christ goes on believing in them, inspiring them, strengthening them, loving them unto the end, and on across the beckoning frontiers of "the Land of Beginning Again."

God's faith in man is indeed a strong and vital truth, at once subduing and heartening. Have we lost faith in ourselves? Let us be wise men, go to Bethlehem, and witness the epiphany of God in the flesh. Have we lost hope in human governments? Let us climb the Mount of Beatitudes, and consider the things by which nations, as well as individuals, live. Are we convinced that man is hopelessly degenerate, fallen so deep among his own ruins that not even God can clear away the debris? Let us visit, with humility, and awe, and smiting breasts, the Hill outside the city wall; God can touch a forbidding skull into a fountain of cleansing for all uncleanness. Have we yielded our dead into the cold bosom of the last enemy while death's wild, roaring winds have blown out all the candles of man-made hope? Let us make our way to that tomb where death fought his utmost and lost-lost his sting,

lost his victory, lost even his terror. And having gone along these great ways of revelation, and having seen the wonderful sights they hold for men and angels, we may well retrace our steps back to their sublime beginnings, back to that Eden garden wherein God set out His own undying flower of faith, which He has tended and kept green for a thousand ages and will watch over for ten thousand more, because it was He Who originally said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

II

COMMANDING CHRIST

"Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me of the things that are to come; concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me."-ISA. xlv. II.

T

HOUGH my text is taken from that great

chapter in the Book of Isaiah, in which God announces His commission to Cyrus, the sermon is to be on neither the Persian, nor, specifically, the prophecy of which he forms a part. Rather do I desire that the passage should serve as an open door to that palace of Christocentric glory in the seventh chapter of St. Luke's Gospel. The centurion's faith, John the Baptist's doubt, the sinful woman's gratitude and forgiveness, the Nain widow's restored son, all figure in that chapter. They are occasions on which the redemptive power of God in Christ is so majestically released, that we feel the sovereign Godhead of the prophet is graciously disclosing itself in the history of the evangelist. "Concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands," said the Holy One of Israel, "command ye Me." Thus I want us to consider how Christ, the incarnate God, was commanded by various people in the Gospel chapter; how, in

deed, He is still commanded by certain great forces and undying needs in the souls of men and

women.

I

This surprising centurion suggests that the sense of need, inspired by love, invariably commands Christ. He was a man of authority, a good citizen, a greatheart, and yet he was conspicuous for this he was burdened with a sense of need that could be met by God alone. And is not this one of the secrets of life's holiest enrichment? No man can become spiritually great without a vivid sense of need-the need that Christ supplies. But just as certain as man's passionate need of the divine asserts itself, Heaven rushes swifter than thought to his aid. God is ever watching for opportunities to help His children; and oftentimes He watches most anxiously when we least suspect His presence and interest. The Moon system for the blind is known everywhere. But how was the awful need of these multitudes of blind people brought home to the heart of humanity? Why, by one man going blind. William Moon was an English youth, with his heart set on the Christian ministry. At twenty-two he was compelled to give up his ministerial education because of total blindness. For him the fair universe suddenly turned dark, the heavens were clothed with blackness and covered with sackcloth. There was chaos, rebellion, disorder everything had seemingly gone wrong, because trouble individualized makes us aware

of the trouble in the world. Driven in upon himself, young Moon began to think of his blind comrades. He started a school for blind children; he invented an embossed type of nine letters, less complicated than the old system, whereby millions are enabled to read; he became an evangelist of the Everlasting Goodness unto all lands. Was not the last wave of light entering Moon's dying eye an unvoiced prayer to God to come and help his blind brothers? And the Christ of God came came through Moon's affliction for the deliverance of multitudes. God gave one man the talent of blindness that He might give tens of thousands the privilege of reading through sightless eyes. Our Christ can be commandednay, He loves to be commanded. When the voice of need cries aloud in the human soul, and that voice is wet with the tears of unselfish love, God bends over His child as yearningly as a mother bends over the cradle. A friend on the Park Slope said to me: "I had a rather unusual experience this week. I send one of my boys, located in the West, a monthly allowance. I don't know how to explain it, but in sending his check for this month, I had a feeling that he was in need of a little more than his customary allowance, and I sent him a larger check. Now just think-here is my boy's letter, saying he is hard pressed financially, and asking me if I will not please send him more money for this month. Well," said the happy father, "our letters crossed on the way, but I think mine reached him first.”