of the Holy Spirit, and so becomes a new creature. . . he cannot see, that is, enjoy, the blessings of the kingdom of God.' Or, as another expresses himself : He cannot discern either the signs of the Messiah, or the nature of his government.'1

Our Redeemer was equally explicit in pointing out the several steps which a renewed man must take for full enrollment and induction into his kingdom. As preachers, his Apostles were to be witnesses' to his death and resurrection, and they were to Preach repentance and remission of sins unto all nations.' Preach the Gospel to every creature.' 'Disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.' Here he makes preaching, repentance, faith and baptism, of perpetual obligation. By preaching repentance and the remission of sins, they were to attempt the 'discipling' or conversion of every creatThen, those who believed on the Saviour were to be baptized into his kingdom, and after that, they were to be instructed in all that related to the Christian life.

ure.

The Apostles were not instructed to baptize the nations en masse, simply because each person was an integral part of the whole; for, as it has been said with great force: It is one thing to make disciples in all nations, and another thing to make all nations disciples.' They were to baptize those, and those only, who had the above-named qualifications for baptism. Countless millions in the nations' would remain unbelievers, blasphemers, atheists, idolaters and debauchees, after every attempt had been made to save them. These were to be condemned.' Neither were babes to be baptized simply because they were a part of the nations, till they could be 'discipled.' The word 'disciple' carries with it the idea of instruction, and therefore, here, of gaining converts to Christ, by bringing them over to certain fixed principles and practices. Babes are no more capable of obedience in baptism, than they are of repentance and the forgiveness of sins, or of exercising faith on Christ for salvation. And, what is more and better, they need none of these, so long as they are free from voluntary and personal transgression; for Jesus has procured their salvation without these. When once they reach responsibility and become actual sinners, then they may avail themselves of all these, if they will become believers in Jesus. Mark calls the subjects of baptism believers,' and Matthew, 'disciples,' plainly meaning the same persons. Our Lord here excluded infant baptism of design, and the commission cannot be tortured into the support of this injurious practice; thus, we cannot wonder that no case of such baptism is mentioned in the New Testament. On the contrary, such conditions are every-where imposed on those who are baptized, as to unavoidably exclude all who either cannot or do not voluntarily obey Christ's commands. So Jerome interprets this commission: They first teach all the nations; then, when they are taught they baptize them in water; for it cannot be that the body should receive the sacrament of bap

tism, unless the soul have before received the true faith.' And again he adds: 'The order here observed is excellent; he commands the Apostles, first to teach all nations; and after that to dip them with the sacrament of faith; and then to show them how they must behave themselves after their faith and baptism.'

Then, did Jesus make no provision for children in his kingdom of grace and glory? Yes; and the amplest that infinite love could make. He is the only great Teacher who ever pressed them to his bosom, as the subjects of saving care. The Jewish religion protected and accounted them precious. Yet, it subjected its males to a severe and bloody rite, for the purposes of national identity and privilege, without vouchsafing any special revelation as to their future state, when dying in infancy. Roman grossness regarded children as a misfortune, and freely practiced infanticide. The Carthaginians offered them in sacrifice to Saturn. Diodorus Siculus mentions the sacrifice of two hundred of their noblest babes at a time. Molech, the ferocious god of Ammon, did not stand alone, for all the Syrian and Arab tribes had their fire-gods, before whom their little ones were presented as burnt-offerings. But Jesus looked upon these helpless ones as the most fragrant flowers of earth-he longed to silence the wail of their sufferings in these cruel rites, and to perfect praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.

To this end, he vouchsafed salvation for all children, before he tasted death on their behalf, enwrapping them in a free redemption, without conditions of any sort. They could bear no yoke, and he put none upon their necks. Parents coveted his love for their offspring and brought their little ones for his 'blessing.' In keeping with the spirit of those times, his disciples would drive them away; a fact, which in itself, shows that they knew nothing about infant baptism. Their par ents did not bring them to be baptized, but that he would 'lay his hands upon them and bless them,' as Jacob had blessed the sons of Joseph. As Jacob blessed' his grandsons without baptizing them, so these infants were brought to Jesus unbaptized, and were taken away unbaptized, but not for that reason unblessed. He rebuked his disciples, wishing them to understand that he came from heaven to save the babes as well as the parents. Then, he took them in his arms and 'prayed for them and gave them his blessing, declaring as his words import, that 'to such belongs the kingdom of heaven,' simply through his benediction and love, without conditions of any sort such as try the loyalty of willful and responsible sinners. As their Elder Brother, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, he then and there, hung a bright lamp over an infant's head, pledging him salvation while in infancy, without repentance, faith, baptism, the Supper, or any other observance. With this display of Christ's love to little children, it is simply heathenish and horrible to suppose that deceased babes miss heaven, under any circumstances. More than half of

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SAVES THEM BY HIS SACRIFICE.

our race, especially in lands where infanticide is practiced, die in infancy; and every true man will rejoice in the Redeemer's plan of saving these precious ones unconditionally. Millions of them pass into the presence of the Great Shepherd whose parents are pagans or infidels, and spurn baptism or never heard of its existence; and it borders on the fiendish to say, that the Christ-loving parent jeopards the salvation of his redeemed babe, because he leaves his salvation to the atoning death and sacrificial love of Jesus, refusing to submit him to a rite which the adorable Lamb of God never imposed upon the unconscious one. In the pre-existence of our Lord, from the death of the first child of Adam's race to the moment of his own birth in Bethlehem, he had been with ransomed children in heaven. When on earth he missed their society, and, to fill their places he drew our little ones to him, for they tenderly reminded him of the Father's house which he had left; hence, in his words and acts he treated them as of the kingdom of heaven.' Bishop Taylor beautifully says: Why should he be an infant but that infants should receive the crown of their age, the purification of their stained natures, the sanctification of their persons, and the saving of their souls by their infant Lord and Elder Brother." The kingdom belongs to them by Christ's purchase and gift, without those tests of obedience which try the fidelity of responsible offenders. They had not sinned 'after the similitude of Adam's transgression,' and he gave them his full blessing without conditions, despite their original taint. Then, he warns willful offenders that if they receive not the kingdom of God as little children, they shall not enter therein. While the phrase 'of such' includes others besides those brought' to him, it also includes all who are clothed with the child-like spirit. With the love of Christ thus displayed to children, it is simply horrible to suppose that a deceased babe misses of heaven because he was not christened on earth, and because here no one had promised that if he had lived he would have repented and believed for himself. Can any thing so rob our atoning Lord of his glory, in part or in whole, as to suppose that this act affects the child's salvation in the slightest degree? As in Adam he died unconditionally, so in Christ is he unconditionally made alive.

These are some of the great principles and practices laid down by the infallible Lawgiver, for the establishment and government of his kingdom in the earth. God gives us in John the Baptist, the specimen man of holiness. Then comes the King in Zion, revealing the Father in his own person, and making Divine provisions for the regeneration of such men to the end of time. After Jesus had cast this Gospel hope athwart the destinies of our race, he took his seat as Mediator at the right hand of God. There, he has proved the acceptance of his sacrifice and the efficacy of his intercession by sending the Holy Spirit to fill his place on the earth. The Spirit now administers his kingdom under these laws, and gathers pure Churches out of all nations, of men created anew by his energies, in Christ Jesus, and kept in his name, unto life eternal.

HE ablest chronologists vary the date of our Lord's ascension from A. D. 29

THE

to 36; possibly the year 33 may be taken as the most satisfactory. Before his death, our Lord had founded his Church, by selecting the Twelve, the Seventy, and many other disciples, by teaching them his doctrines, authorizing them to preach and baptize, and by establishing the Supper. This organic body known as 'the kingdom of God' he also called, 'My Church'-his infant Church truly, but no less his Church, as he was the Christ as much when a Babe in the stable, and a Youth in the Temple, as when a Man on Calvary. His Church was to be endowed with special and plenary powers to increase its constituency, extend its influence and establish new assemblies. Hence, the Church at Jerusalem kept its divine organization perfect by a popular election to fill the place of Judas in the Apostolate, and then waited for the promised reign of the Holy Spirit, to fill the Redeemer's place in the Gospel Church. Ten days after Christ's enthronement at God's right hand, he sent the Spirit to administer the earthly affairs of his Church, to vindicate the

mission which he had finished, to sustain his claims against all foes, and in every way to compensate for his own absence. The Spirit manifested himself on the second Jewish feast, Pentecost, which celebrated the ingathering of the wheat harvest and the giving of the Law.

The first work in the ministry of the Spirit, as in that of the Son, was to attest his own mission by miraculous evidences. These, in keeping with his entirely immaterial character, were to be wrought, not alone on the human frame or on sea and firmament, but on mind; on the mental constitution of man and his powers of speech. At once, therefore, he honored himself and 'glorified' Christ, by qualifying his Apostles to obey his commission in preaching the Gospel to all nations. The babble of tongues was the most stubborn obstruction to the universal spread of the Gospel, and Jesus seemed to have made no provision for the removal of this enormous difficulty, but had committed its preaching to the most unlearned of men. They knew their mother tongue so imperfectly that their uncouth provincialisms were betrayed in the accents of their chief orator as a Galilean.' With their scanty education they could not have mastered the cosmopolitan grammar of the Pentecostal throng in a life-time. If, then, a linguistic miracle were not wrought by the Spirit, their attempt to preach had been a failure, for there was no visible method by which they could reach the world with the new religion. At that moment there were men in Jerusalem from the remotest regions of the civilized world; who, if they could be made to understand the truth, could take it to the ends of the earth. The wide, geographical circuit including the homes of these men, swept from north-east to south-east, and far north, covering seventeen different languages and dialects. Parthia lay north-west of Persia, a powerful kingdom about six hundred miles long. The Medes had come from a westerly point of the compass, and were of a harsh and rude race. The Elamites had come from an ancient Shemite district, east of Persia Proper. Those from Mesopotamia represented the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Idumea, the rugged old territory of Edom, follows the geographical order of Luke, but he breaks from his circle to mention Judea and his own home language. Cappadocia was a stretch of high table-land in the eastern part of Asia Minor. Continuing north, he comes to Pontus, north-east of the Black Sea. Asia, Roman or Proconsular, was washed by the Egean Sea, on its western shore. Phrygia was in the center of Asia Minor, and Pamphylia, farther south, was touched on the north by the Mediterranean. Egypt was in the north-east of Africa; and the parts of Libya, lay on the African coast, west of Egypt. Luke then ascends from these southern lands, to Rome, in Italy; and last of all mentions the Arabians from the East, and the islanders from Crete, now called Candia.

A very limited unity of tongue had been wrought by the conquests of Alexander, in the free use of the Greek, which had been adopted as the language of traffic and of the Roman court; while in the basin of the Mediterranean it was universally spoken. Jews born in Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, or Cyrene, spoke it fluently and