The reiterated emphasis with which the Master had rebuked "covetousness," and His solemn assertion that discovery would surely come in due course on all things hidden, could only have borne one meaning to the Traitor. Christ saw through him, read his secret thoughts, perceived his hypocrisy, and prophesied his exposure. That brazen question, "Is it I, Rabbi ?" was the climax of a long course of resentment against Christ's warnings, a final breach with the thought of repentance, a banishing for ever of the purpose of restoration. 4. With the habit of sin rooted in the past, binding his soul, with the gains of sin clutched in his hands as he faced the Master, Judas was going into the future with the conscious and definite project of further sin. When Christ gave him the revealing token, at once a last appeal to his better self and a judgment on his present course, he had his last chance, and he knew it. "After the sop, then Satan entered into him. He then, having received the sop, went out straightway, and it was night." So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear; Evil, be thou my good: "Despair is very often used like the bolts and bars of hell gates: it seizes upon them that had entered into the suburbs of eternal death by an habitual sin, and it secures them against all retreat." Repentance came to him, but with no power of recovery in it. His was not that " godly sorrow" which "bringeth no regret," but that "sorrow of the world" which "worketh death." He "perished by the most infamous hands in the world, that is, by his own." Here then, in an extreme case if you will, and yet one that is truly representative, we have the portrait of the "unworthy" communicant. To be in some habit of known sin, to hold fast to the profits of unrighteousness, to have the purpose of further sin in our minds, these are disqualifications for Holy Communion which cannot be dispensed by any authority whatsoever. Ignorance need be no barrier, nor stupidity, nor the distraction of manifold anxieties, nor weakness of faith, so only it be true faith which we have; nor coldness of devotion, so only we have love in our hearts; nor sins committed in the past, so only we "take sanctuary in the arms of the Lord" against them; nor temptations besetting us even as we kneel to pray, none of these need make us " unworthy' of that holy Sacrament, for all these may be compatible with a genuine discipleship, and out of them all the Grace of God can bring us; but sin indulged, sin used for gain, sin purposed, these change the holy Sacrament into guilt, and fear, and threatening of ruin. A penitent murderer may draw near the Altar a dishonest shopkeeper may not; an adulterer, who has broken, at whatever cost, the chain of his criminal attachment, may come: an unforgiving child may not. “But let a man prove himself, and so let If him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup. we discerned ourselves, we should not be judged.” None other but yourselves can do this work; we who are Christ's Ministers can, at most, advise and pray; but the solemn inquisition into conduct, the stern purgation of conscience, the momentous final decision, are incommunicably yours. Y XXI CHRIST CRUCIFIED1 WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIed, unto Jews A STUMBLING-BLOCK, AND UNTO GENTILES FOOLISHNESS; BUT UNTO THEM THAT ARE CALLED, BOTH Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and THE WISDOM OF GOD.-1 Corinthians i. 23, 24. PERHAPS, of all the commemorations of the Christian Year, Good Friday is that which least lends itself to preaching, and yet strangely compels it. Το speak about the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and not to wound the sensitive heart of Christian devotion by the impertinence of conventional rhetoric, is a difficult task; to speak at all on a theme so awful and so moving, and not to offend the Christian conscience in some particular, is perhaps beyond our reach. And yet the Cross of Christ is still what it was when St. Paul addressed himself to the Greeks of Corinth, that element in the Christian Message which is richest in saving power. There has, indeed, 1 Preached on Good Friday, April 1, 1904, in St. Margaret's, Westminster. passed over the opinions of civilised men a strange and significant change since the Apostle had to defend his preaching against critics both Jewish and Gentile. No one now, with the long commentary of Christian experience to guide his judgment, would describe the "Word of the Cross," the Gospel of the Crucifixion, as "a stumbling-block," or " foolishness"; for all the world knows now that the assertion of St. Paul has been wonderfully confirmed through all the ages since, and is being confirmed among men still: "Unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Perhaps the extraordinary power of St. Paul arises from the fact that he fastened on the Crucifixion and proclaimed it as a religious fact of supreme importance. We may criticise his theory of the Atonement, and trace its sources in the Rabbinic Schools, where he had received his training, but we cannot mistake the true strength of his teaching. The Word of the Cross was that version of Christianity which had gone home to the personal experience of the Apostle; it brought Christ into direct relation with his conscience, and with his heart. He was crucified with Christ" by the power of a faith which worked by love, a faith which was an enthusiasm of gratitude and a passion of devotion. There is |