and righteousness in the world.

We have no right to count any as heroes unless they have courage,
patience, self-denial, great love for their fellow-men, and strength
which they cheerfully employ for something greater than themselves.
The men, in fact, who have something of Christ in them; these are the
only heroes whom God writes down in His book of life, and they are the
only heroes whom we shall exalt in our hearts if we are followers of
the crucified One.

In a Christian land, the beginning and end of all true and healthy
hero-worship, is to set Christ first and above everything else and
every one else in our affections. We shall measure all other men truly
if we have first of all taken the true measure of Him. Love Him with
all your hearts, say of Him, "Thou art the chief among ten thousand,
and the altogether lovely," and you will never give much of your hearts
again to the things and the men who are morally not worth loving. You
will never be carried away again into the worship of that which is
false, common, or cheap. A man who sees _all_ beauty, and the perfect
beauty in Christ, will never say that there is much beauty anywhere
else, except where there is something that resembles Christ.

We have to make our choice to-day, as those men made it long ago. It
is not quite the same choice. It is not Barabbas against Christ, but
it is the poor, coarse, common, frivolous things of the world against
Christ. It is the earthly against the heavenly; it is pleasure and sin
against the service of the Man who was crucified: it is the love of
self, and things baser than ourselves, against the love of Him who died
for us. And everything depends upon that choice. To make Him your
King is to become kingly yourselves, and to be crowned at last with the
true glory and honour. But it is a terrible thing to say, "_Away with
this man, and release unto us Barabbas_."

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA

BY REV. ALFRED ROWLAND, D.D.. LL.B.

"Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for
the kingdom of God."--MARK xv. 43.

The crucifixion of our Lord produced strange and startling effects in
moral experience, as well as in the physical world. The veil of the
Temple was rent from top to bottom as if a hand from heaven had torn
it, in order to teach men that the ancient ritual was done with.
Darkness covered the earth, suggesting to thoughtful minds the guilt of
the world and the mystery of the sacr