kind into a family was the object aimed at,
the work of the sword has done almost nothing. Then there was the
ecclesiastical system--the grand attempt of the Church of Rome to
organize all men into one family, with one ecclesiastical, visible,
earthly head. Being Protestants, it is not necessary for us to state
our conviction that this attempt has been a signal and complete
failure. We now come to the system of commerce and trade. We are told
that that which chivalry and honour could not do--which an
ecclesiastical system could not do--personal interest _will_ do. Trade
is to bind men together into one family. When they feel it their
_interest_ to be one, they will be brothers. Brethren, that which is
built on selfishness cannot stand. The system of personal interest
must be shivered into atoms. Therefore, we, who have observed the ways
of God in the past, are waiting in quiet but awful expectation until
he shall confound this system as he has confounded those which have
gone before. And it may be effected by convulsions more terrible and
more bloody than the world has yet seen. While men are talking of
peace, and of the great progress of civilization, there is heard in
the distance the noise of armies gathering rank on rank: east and
west, north and south, are rolling towards us the crushing thunders of
universal war.

Therefore there is but one other system to be tried, and that is the
Cross of Christ--a system that is not to be built upon selfishness,
nor upon blood, nor upon personal interest, but upon Love. Love, not
self--the Cross of Christ, and not the mere working-out of the ideas
of individual humanity.

One word only in conclusion. Upon this, the great truth of the
Epiphany, the Apostle founds a prayer. He prays, "For this cause I bow
my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you,
according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by
His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by
faith." This manifestation of joy and good to the Gentiles was,
according to him, the great mystery of Love. A Love, brighter, deeper,
wider, higher than the largest human heart had ever yet dreamed of.
But the Apostle tells us it is after all, but a glimpse of the love of
God. How should we learn it more? How should we comprehend the whole
meaning of the Epiphany? By sittin