thing about creeds, insisting upon the importance of belief, as in the well-known passage"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." Now it is evident that believing in a person is something very different from mentally assenting to certain professions regarding Him. And Christ Himself explained very definitely what He meant by belief. "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." This, as I have explained to you, is a vehement metaphor to express the absorption of His nature into our own. For such a union the word belief is not an adequate expression, or to say the least it is apt to be misleading. It suggests to us as a general rule rather an intellectual altitude of mind than a state of heart and a mode of feeling. However, when you do use the word belief in reference to Christ, you must remember that the only belief He recognised was a belief which involved feeling, emotion, enthusiasm, love, self-surrender, passion.

And even this Christ insisted on, not for its "If ye

own sake, but as a means to an end. love me," He said, "ye will keep my commandments." He wanted men to love Him, because He knew that a strong personal attachment is the best stimulus to conduct. And conduct, according to Christ, was the one thing needful. Conduct alone, according to Christ, would determine a man's fitness for heaven or for hell. In His description of the last judgment He represents Himself as receiving men, not because they had "thought" in a particular way of the Trinity or of anything else, not even on account of their personal attachment to Himself, but because they had been kind. And He never suggested that, if their conduct were right, it would matter by what motive they had been impelled; or rather, perhaps, I had better say, He constantly assumed that for right conduct the motive was practically always the same. "Your father Abraham," He said, "rejoiced to see my day." In other words, all the good in all ages, whether they know it or not, are con

strained by the love of Christ, do eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man. Many of the best and noblest men now living are Agnostics,-what Dr Wace would call infidels. The real Christ has been obscured by theology, and for the theological Christ they feel no admiration or sympathy. And yet, if Christ's account of the last judgment be correct, the same welcome in the future will be accorded to them, as to those who have been consciously following the Nazarene. They may say, "Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee?" But the reply will be, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me. Come, ye blessed of my Father."

Christ's salvation then-and indeed the only possible salvation-is salvation by conduct. If we would be saved, it is above all things necessary that we believe in the paramount importance

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Christ's Plan of Salvation.

HE word salvation, as you know, is derived

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from salus, which means, primarily, health or wellbeing in general; and secondarily, only one particular form of wellbeing,- safety from external danger. These two meanings of the word salvation will serve to classify the religions of the world. They all come under one or other category. Many religions—all early and barbarous religions-mean by salvation merely safety, safety from the anger of the deities. The rites and ceremonies of these religions are intended to propitiate divine wrath. The gods of savages, you know, are always in a chronic state of rage, which nothing but liberal bribes can allay. There is a spurious form of Christianity which comes under the same head. I daresay you have

all, in your youth at any rate, heard the Christian scheme of salvation described pretty much as follows. The first pair of human beings did something which the Deity had forbidden. In His anger He determined to visit them-and the myriads upon myriads of their unborn descendants as well—with eternal torment. But the Son of the Deity interposed and offered Himself as a sacrifice. The torture of Christ appeased to some extent the divine indignation, and so far satisfied His requirements, that a certain number of the human race are to be saved—that is, rescued from hell.-In this scheme you will observe it is all a question of external danger. Nothing is said about the personal wellbeing of the saved, except in the sense of the freedom from pain. There is not a word concerning character. Some of those who believed in this scheme have maintained that character was of no consequence at all, that the Deity let men off simply and solely in virtue of the compact between Himself and Christ. Others have asserted that the righteousness of the Saviour was "imputed" or transferred to believers, and that in this way it was possible

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