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tion to him. The deification of Jesus is not a theorem to be maintained; it is a fact of contemporary history to account for and to adjust one's self to, that Jesus is de facto God. He. is enthroned at the right hand of the Supreme Majesty, and you can no more talk him up or down than you can talk the sun into or out of the firmament. I shall not go out of my way to prove the divinity of Jesus to any one. Whoever desires it I will leave to the logic of events. Neither am I afraid that any one will dethrone Jesus by investigating him. I would as soon think of the geologist demolishing Pike's Peak with his hammer. I have myself an absorbing interest in making as complete a study as possible of the nature of that divinity, and of the course of history by which the Son of Mary was enthroned beside the Ineffable; and since I was born with the hunger, not only to receive, but to impart knowledge, I count myself among the most favored of men, because I have the opportunity, with sufficient leisure and unlimited freedom, not only to pursue, but to help others to pursue this wholesome, this saving truth. I am firmly convinced that nothing can make this beautiful city of Denver a city of God but a more universal and genuine knowledge of Jesus.

"Loyalty to him is poverty stricken in its expression for want of adequate and real knowledge concerning him. Hortatory discourse about him

has a frequent falsetto ring because it does not spring from or is not addressed to sufficient knowledge. Of so much importance do I deem it that this city know Jesus as a basis for the solution of the issues of its life, that I shall turn to discuss current questions only occasionally and incidentally, as by way of paying my tax as a citizen for current expenses. These things, however, for the most part I shall leave for those who have not been called, as I think I have, to the high mission of interpreting Jesus. As soon as I have time to resume and complete the special preparation which was interrupted by my removal to Denver, I propose to begin to speak systematically and exhaustively upon the life and person of Jesus. There is nothing else to preach about to-day. There is no question any longer of the divinity of Jesus. The philosophical revolution of the last quarter century has brought it about that what question there is is about the divinity of God. The days of deism are gone; and those of philosophical theism, except as it crowns the worship of Jesus, are numbered. No man hath at any time seen a God worthy of worship; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed Him. The curricula of our theological schools which are arranged with a view to making men believe in God the first year, and in Christ the second, will have to be set to grind the other way. The name of Jesus everywhere commands homage. Those

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who imagine they worship nothing actually worship that name. The world idolizes Jesus. For once it has an idol the worship of which does not degrade or lead astray. The great discovery of this age is not electricity. It is Jesus. This recovery of the historical Christ,' as Dr. Fairbairn calls it, is the last and ripe fruit of the Renaissance. It could not happen until the new historical sense had developed a critical method and tested and perfected it in other departments. The first firm and constructive use of that method was by Niebuhr in his history of Rome. It is only now beginning to be employed for the recovery of Hebrew and early Christian history, but already it is yielding results richer than can be computed. We can never think again as we did, any more than we can travel with ox-carts. We are in the age of the spirit, and the spirit is life and action. The next score of years is to witness such an increase of knowledge concerning Jesus as will fitly crown the discoveries of the last score in material science. It is a glorious thing to be alive to-day and the knowledge of him is life."

These last preached words of our beloved seem sent back to us by him, a clear beckoning testimony from that life upon which he has entered, the life whose richest part is larger "Knowledge of Him."

GEORGE A. GATES.

THE IMPERIAL CHRIST.

I.

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN DUTY.

AN ADVENT SERMON.

The Lord is at hand.- PHIL. iv. 5.

Behold I stand at the door and knock. REV. iii. 20.

TO-DAY stands in the calendar of the Christian year as the first Sunday in Advent. That calendar, older than the divisions of Protestantism, older than Protestanism itself, older than the schism between Rome and Constantinople, belongs to all Christendom, which, dating its era from him, ought to divide its year also with reference to Jesus, who has been exalted to the right hand of Him who sits upon the circle of the heavens and rules the seasons. It is therefore rightly called not so much an ecclesiastical as a Christian calendar, as this is the Christian era. Between the church, as representing ecclesiastical dogmas and systems, and the personal empire of Jesus Christ the distinction must sometimes be emphasized.

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