rly define and enter into the meaning of the words we use. When we
say that our Lord Jesus Christ is He "of whom the whole family in
heaven and earth is named," we mean that the very being of the Church
depends on Christ--that it could not be without Him. Now, the Church
of Christ depends upon these three things--first, the recognition of a
common Father; secondly, of a common Humanity; and thirdly, of a
common Sacrifice.

1. First, the recognition of a common Father. That is the sacred truth
proclaimed by the Epiphany. God revealed in Christ--not the Father of
the Jew only, but also of the Gentile. The Father of a "whole family."
Not the partial Father, loving one alone--the elder--but the younger
son besides: the outcast prodigal who had spent his living with
harlots and sinners, but the child still, and the child of a Father's
love. Our Lord taught this in His own blessed prayer--"_Our_ Father;"
and as we lose the meaning of that single word _our_, as we say _my_
Father--the Father of _me_ and of _my_ faction--of _me_ and _my_
fellow believers--_my_ Anglicanism or _my_ Judaism--be it what it
may--instead of _our_ Father--the Father of the outcast, the
profligate, of all who choose to claim a Father's love; _so_ we lose
the meaning of the lesson which the Epiphany was designed to teach,
and the possibility of building up a family to God.

2. The recognition of a common Humanity. He from whom the Church is
named, took upon Him not the nature merely of the noble, of kings, or
of the intellectual philosopher--but of the beggar, the slave, the
outcast, the infidel, the sinner, and the nature of every one
struggling in various ways. Let us learn then brother men, that we
shall have no family in God, unless we learn the deep truth of our
common Humanity, shared in by the servant and the sinner, as well as
the sovereign. Without this we shall have no Church--no family in God.

3. Lastly, the Church of Christ proceeds out of, and rests upon, the
belief in a common Sacrifice.

* * * * *

There are three ways in which the human race hitherto has endeavoured
to construct itself into a family; first, by the sword; secondly, by
an ecclesiastical system; and thirdly, by trade or commerce. First, by
the sword. The Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman, have
done their work--in itself a most valuable and important one; but so
far as the formation of man