importance of His sacrifice from the world's sins, and thinking of
Him, not as the Owner that bought us, but as the Master that teaches us.
You can do it by cowardly hiding of your colours and being too
shamefaced, too sensitive to the curled lip of the man that works at the
next bench, or sits at the next desk, or the student that is beside you,
or somebody else whose opinion you esteem, which prevents you from
saying like a man, 'I belong to Jesus Christ, and whomsoever other
people serve, as for me, I am going to serve Him.' And you can do it,
and many of you are doing it, by simply ignoring His claims, refusing to
turn to Him, not yielding up your will to Him, not turning your heart to
Him, not setting your dependence upon Him. Is it not a shame that men,
whose hearts will glow with thankfulness when another man, especially if
he is a superior, comes to them with some gift, valuable, but nothing as
compared with the transcendent gift that Christ brings, will yet let Him
die for them and not care anything about Him? I can understand the
vehement antagonism that some people have to Christ and Christianity,
but what I cannot understand is the attitude of the immense mass of
people that come to services like this, who profess to believe that
Jesus Christ's love for them brought Him to the cross, and yet will not
even pay the poor tribute of a little interest and a momentary
inclination of heart towards Him. 'Is it nothing to you, all ye that
pass by,' that Jesus Christ died for you? He bought you for His own. Let
me beseech you to 'yield yourselves' servants, slaves of Christ, and
then you will be free, and you will hear Him say in the very depth of
your hearts, 'Henceforth I call you not slaves, but friends.'

BE DILIGENT

'Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be
diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and
blameless.'--2 Peter iii. 14.

As we pass the conventional boundary of another year, most of us, I
suppose, cast glances into the darkness ahead. To those of us who have
the greater part of our lives probably before us, the onward look will
disclose glad possibilities. To some of us, who have life mostly behind
us, the prospect will take 'a sober colouring from an eye that hath kept
watch over man's mortality,' and there will be little on the lower
levels to attract. My text falls in with the mood which the season
fosters. It directs our onward look