epends
upon my relationship with Him. And if I am already estranged from Him,
and if there be no Mediator by whose good offices a reconciliation may
be effected, then am I of all men most miserable.

'_One God--but no Mediator!_' cried Job in despair.

_'One God--and one Mediator!_' exclaims Paul, in delight.

IV

'_One God--and one Mediator!_'

It is the glory of our humanity that it needs both the one and the
other. We need a God and cannot be happy till we find Him. The instinct
of adoration is in our blood, and we are ill at ease until we can find
One at whose feet we can lay the tribute of our devotion. We need a
Mediator, too, and are at our best when we recognize and confess our
need of Him. It is, I say, the glory of a man that he can yearn for
these two things. The most faithful and intelligent of the beasts feel
no desire for either the one or the other. We know how Dr. Davidson
died. I said that his conversation with Drumsheugh was his last. I was
mistaken. His last conversation was with Skye, his dog. When John, the
serving-man, paid his usual visit to the study before he went to bed,
the doctor did not hear him enter the room. He was holding converse with
Skye, who was seated on a chair, looking very wise and deeply
interested.

'Ye're a bonnie beastie, Skye,' exclaimed the doctor, 'for a' thing He
made is verra gude. Ye've been true and kind to your master, Skye, and
ye 'ill miss him if he leaves ye. Some day ye 'ill die also, and they
'ill bury ye, and I doubt that 'ill be the end o' ye, Skye! Ye never
heard o' God, Skye, or the Saviour, for ye're just a puir doggie; but
your master is minister of Drumtochty and--a sinner saved by grace!'

Those were his last words. In the morning the doctor was still sitting
in his big chair, and Skye was fondly licking a hand that would never
again caress him.

Skye, the noblest dog in the world, had no sense of sin and no sense of
grace, no need of a God and no need of a Saviour!

Dr. Davidson, Skye's master, is a sinner saved by grace. And it is his
sense of sin and his sense of grace, his need of a God and his need of a
Saviour, that remove him by whole infinities from the faithful brute on
the chair. 'A sinner,' as our fathers used to sing:

A sinner is a sacred thing,
The Holy Ghost hath made him so.

When the soul feels after God, and the heart cries out for a Saviour, it
is proof positive of the divinity that dwells within us.

V

'_One