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and as such it must be got rid of at all costs; stamped out and utterly destroyed. The converse of these passages are, "Keep thyself pure, that ye may be blameless and harmless; the sons of God without rebuke." "As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy." Be without offence till the day of Christ, that ye may be presented holy and unblamable, and unreprovable in His sight;" "Put off the old man which is corrupt put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness; ""Keep yourselves unspotted from the world." Nothing can be more clear than these passages. They cannot mean less than the absolute absence of all sin, and the "perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord." This is the standard held up to us in the Word of God. To be always absolutely pure, "without spot, or wrinkle, or blemish, or any such thing." As we lay aside a worn-out garment, and replace it with a new one, so we are to put off sin and put on Christ, who is fair and spotlessly white. This righteousness is not merely imputed to us, but it is implanted within us; and so we are commanded to "Be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect."

Looking at ourselves, we may well say that "Such holiness is too high for us; we can never attain to it." With "men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." We may live in the world and not be of it; we may walk amid the corruptions of the "world, the flesh, and the devil," and escape them all; we may "grow up into Christ, our living Head, in all things." Our Lord dwelt on this earth as a man among men, and "was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." Walking about amid the defilements of earth, He yet contracted no stain, even as the sunbeams touch the squalor and filth of courts and alleys, and lose none of their brightness. From the beginning to the end He wore the "white flower of a blameless life." There is the writing, and you can read it as you run: "No fault in Him." "He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." "As He is, so are we in this world." Do you say this is impossible? Listen, not to my words, but to the voice of Inspiration: "Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it." God "hath raised up a horn of salvation for us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him, without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life." Does not this passage teach us to expect entire deliverance from sin, and do not the words, "all the days of our life" plainly show that this deliverance is here and now?" Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost." Surely this must mean to the uttermost of our need, to the utter

most of time, as well as to the "uttermost" of eternity. Only let a Stronger than the strong enter our hearts, and He will bind His enemies and ours, and cast them out, and utterly destroy them, Sinless Himself, He makes and keeps His people sinless, if they will but let Him :

"Sprinkle us ever with Thy blood,
And cleanse and keep us clean."

Another class of passages represents the oneness of believers with Christ. Our Lord Himself prayed "that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us." "Know ye not your bodies are the members of Christ ?" "The Head of every man is Christ." "Ye are complete in Him." "The Head from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God." "Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all one for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." It is not by the reception of any doctrine, however grand, that we are made one with Christ, but the reception of Christ Himself, that makes us partakers of the Divine nature." "We are members of

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His body, of His flesh, and of His bones."

Well might the Apostle add, "This is a great mystery." But it is not mysticism, it is a glorious reality. "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me and I in him." As the parasite fastens upon some neighbouring plant, and feeds on it, until it loses its own root, so we may feed on the Lord Jesus Christ, until the roots of sin are utterly destroyed, and, losing ourselves, be found again in the being of another. "Your life is hid with Christ in God;" "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Again, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." As the vine is to the branches, so is Christ to the believer, the same vital force existing in each. Sever the branches from the vine, and the branches, having no sustaining life in themselves, shrivel and decay. If the passages just quoted, mean anything at all, they must surely mean that believers enjoy communion with Christ as real and vital as that existing between the head and the body in physiology, and the vine and the branches in vegetation; in head and body the same vital fluid; in vine and branches the same hidden sap. Nothing can dissolve this union, or sever this connection, except sin

sages, and I have done. They are those
as being dead unto sin and alive unto
to read the sixth chapter of Romans in a
ming to the conclusion that it is both our
live without sin. "How shall ye that are

A

dead to sin, live any longer therein? For he that is dead is freed from sin." "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but now that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Here the believer is required to regard himself in the same relation to sin as Christ is to death. In the sense in which Christ is free from death, so entire freedom from sin is promised to us in Christ. As He is never again to die, so we are never again to sin. And as He was raised from the dead, we are to walk in "newness of life." "The body of sin must be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve it."

If this be not the plain teaching of these passages, I know not the meaning of words. "Dead indeed unto sin." What is death? A ceasing to be, a parting of the soul from the body; cessation of and separation from life. And so to be "dead indeed unto sin," is to live no longer therein, to be separated from it. As before our "members were servants unto sin," so now they are to be "servants unto righteousness." The ruling passion may be strong within men up to the moment of dissolution, so up to the very moment of our "baptism into the death of Christ, sin will be alive within us." But when the "old man is crucified the body of sin will be destroyed." To be dead is to be pulseless, passionless, powerless. The dead cannot think, the dead cannot speak, the dead cannot feel, the dead cannot act. Go to the sepulchre of your fathers and speak to them of things which once interested and excited them. No fire gleams from their dull eyes, no glow of warmth o'erspreads their pallid cheeks; the frozen blood refuses to flow, and motionless are the "weary wheels of life." They are dead. Thrust the sword into the warrier's bony fingers, and let the trumpets sound forth their clarion notes. It is useless. He can no longer wield the shimmering blade, or strike terror into the breasts of his foes. Place the mallet and the chisel and the marble block before the lifeless form of the artist. No breathing statue grows out of the shapeless mass, for the sculptor himself is dead. "I feel the flowers growing over me," said Keats as he lay dying. Take away the cold earth and fill his grave with flowers, fragrant, fresh and fair. In vain. Neither their delicate tints nor their honeyed sweetness can charm and fascinate him as before. He is dead! dead!! dead!!! Such is the bold and striking figure employed by Scripture to set forth the fact that he who is dead to sin can take no further interest in sin, or live any longer therein. Only when we are dead to sin can

That is the

we, in the highest and truest sense, "grow in grace." point at which growth begins. It is when "we lay aside every weight and the sins which easily beset us that we are able to stretch every nerve in the heavenly race. It is only by "leaving the things that are behind" that we can reach forth to those that are before. Only when we are crucified with Christ and buried with Christ can we with Christ arise from the empty tomb, and sit with Him in the heavenly places.

"The holy to the holiest leads,

From thence our spirits rise."

If we will, we can wash our robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb; we may be indwelt by Christ, as He was indwelt by the Father; we may be "saved to the uttermost," "sanctified wholly," and "preserved blameless." We may be reproductions of Christ-living over again on this earth the life of the Lord Jesus. Do not let us be content to grope in the lowlands of Christian experience; the Alpine heights are before us, the "mount of transfiguration" even. If we will we may climb those sunlit peaks, and be transfigured on that holy mount. Do not let us soil our pinions in the dust, when we may cleave the skies. Do not let us bring down to our low level the great Apostle of the Gentiles, by saying, with apologetic air, "By the grace of God I am what I am." When we can say it as he said it, then we may go a step further, and say, "By the grace of God" I may be, and "by the grace of God," I will be what He is, "holy even as He is holy." God grant that we may be so faithful to the grace given unto us, that it shall be proclaimed in the skies of you and me and all our loved ones, "They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy."

Notices of New Books.

By

Consecrated Culture: Memorials of Benjamin Alfred Gregory, M.A. BENJAMIN GREGORY, D.D. London: T. Woolmer. Crown 8vo., with Portrait. 5s.

It is not uncommon for a son to write the biography of a distinguished father, but very seldom does the duty devolve upon a father of giving to the world memorials of a departed gifted son. In this volume, however, Dr. Gregory, the accomplished editor of the Wesleyan Magazine, has taken upon himself the mournful duty of writing an extended memoir of a son who was removed by death from the ranks of the Methodist Ministry at the early age of twentyseven, and who from his earliest days had given evidences of the possession of intellectual powers of the highest order.

The subject of the memoir in the course of the volume is allowed to speak largely for himself, by his letters and conversations, and by quotations from

his diaries, and essays, and sermons. We must, however, say the whole arrangement of the book is choice, and the pages, and occasionally, chapters, written by Dr. Gregory, to explain and illustrate and connect certain points and periods of his son's life, are characterised by great tenderness and beauty. A mind replete with information, a facile pen, and a loving, chastened spirit, have all been brought into requisition to produce this fascinating book.

We cannot worthily set forth such a life, and indicate the lessons to be learnt from it, in the limited space at our disposal. So we must content ourselves with giving a brief sketch, in hope that it may induce some to purchase and peruse the volume for themselves.

Benjamin Alfred Gregory was born at Rochester in the year 1850. Moving from place to place with his father, who was then in circuit work, tended to give a breadth to young Alfred's mind and a vividness to his imagination which those do not usually possess who remain always in the same place. As a boy he showed his fondness for books, but this did not check the flow of fun with which he was so largely endowed. As his intellect seemed much stronger than his physique, his parents endeavoured to check his mental development. For this reason he was sent to two ladies' schools, then his father had him under his own tutorship for about a year and a half; and though Dr. Gregory speaks of it as merely a "nominal tutorship," we are disposed to think a great part of his success in his intellectual career is traceable to the general guidance he had at this time in the course of his studies. He was made familiar with the greatest living masters of the English of the present day, his attention being especially directed to such writers as Whateley, Ruskin, J. H. Newman, Spurgeon, and Richard Cobden. This had much to do in the cultivation of his taste and in the formation of his own clear, forcible style of writing.

When he went to a public school he soon made his way to the head of his class, though he had to compete with boys two or three years older than himself, and at the examinations managed to carry off some of the best prizes. This naturally exposed him to the evil of conceit, but failing occasionally to win prizes for which he competed checked its rising, and, as he was aware of the danger, and resisted it, he was preserved from its marring effects. While attending the Manchester Grammar School he highly distinguished himself, winning important prizes. In consequence of the marked excellence of his divinity papers in the Oxford Local Examination, he received through the secretary, the Rev. J. W. Burgon, M.A. (now Dean of Chichester), a letter, urging him to set himself apart for the functions of the sacred office, and asking him to communicate with him. This led young Alfred to open his mind to his father, and declare his purpose of devoting himself wholly to the service of God, in connection with the church of his parentage. Above all earthly things, he wished for a University education, but if it could only be obtained at the expense of his Methodism, he should relinquish the idea without a moment's hesitation. This certainly showed sound judgment in a lad of fifteen. Though he was reared among Christian influences, and attributes the first rise of religious desires to home influence, a crisis came in his spiritual experience. Through the reading of "Bleak House" spiritual feeling was brought into play. The character there drawn of Esther Sommerson had that effect upon him. Towards the end of 1864 a student from Didsbury College preached a sermon in Altrincham Chapel from the text, “O Lord, revive Thy work," and that was the finishing stroke towards confession of Christ before men. Having been aroused from his slumber, and having seen that "God is love," he entered upon the active life of a Christian. It was at this period that the two streams of intellectual and spiritual life met and blended. He