keep up its spiritual vitality. Its liveliness-the evidence of life, as the leaves and flowers and fruit are of the tree,-is the effect of intelligent and unceasing dependence on the Spirit of Christ. This is what the Christian means when he says, "For me to live is Christ." There must be the inward experience before there can be an outward expression of life, the personal before the relative, the actual before the reflective. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Thus it was that our Lord spake so emphatically to Nicodemus: "Ye must be born again." No national privilege, spiritual profession, or outward excellence, could avail instead of this. Life comes only from the Quickener. Has the reader this life? If so, you are born again, and of the Spirit of Christ. You can say with the apostle, For me to live is Christ." You "live in the Spirit." You may say, "The life which I live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

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The life of the

It is life in the image of Christ. The seed produces its own copy. The parent is revealed in the child. Likeness betrays relation. The family declare their ancestry. The life of a Christian must therefore be like Christ. It is Christ's Spirit who develops his form, and he does so according to the approved pattern. Christ is in that divine artist's eye when he draws the believer's portrait. Christ is in that sculptor's view when he makes his image. Redeemer is the believer's model. No doubt, owing to indwelling sin abiding in the soul, the perfect image is not fully developed at once. There is a struggle in its transformation; the flesh resists the Spirit. Christ-likeness is a progressive growth. Its lineaments do not all burst forth at once. They grow, and gradually cast off the cerements of the body of death before they are seen. But whether sooner or later, in a lower or in a higher degree, the life of a believer is the

image of his Saviour. Jesus is exhibited in all the beauty, purity, and blessedness of the graces that adorn the renewed soul. It is a law now being revealed by our greatest naturalists, that the leaf and the branch are miniatures of the tree to which they belong, and act out its form to angular exactness. In like manner, though with the exceptions before stated-exceptions such as are in nature—the members of Christ's body are miniatures of himself. From a few fossil bones, comparative anatomists can construct a skeleton of the entire animal whose species is now extinct in our world; so, from fragments of character, as seen in the individual Christian, may be understood the character of the Lord Jesus. “The life of a Christian,” said a thoughtful German, "is the best picture of the life of Christ."

Applying these figures to the reality, to say, “For me to live is Christ," can mean nothing less than the endeavour to be Christ-like. “We all,” said the apostle, “with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." It is the attempt to make the regenerated man reflect his Saviour. This is a purpose of noblest ambition, worthy of a life of faith upon the Son of God. It is the most befitting offering to God, the best testimony to men, and deserves the energy of a soul filled with the Spirit of Christ. To give evidence of this is one of the great objects of redemption. Thus does it repair the evil of the fall. Sin destroyed the image of God in man, distorted it, and made it produce a caricature. Sin ever produces its own image. But union to Christ restores the image of God, which He is in human nature. The life of the believer displays it by means of the circumstances into which he is brought in the world. These are necessary to its development. Abraham was tempted to offer his son by the com

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mand of God; and though the ordeal was severe, the likeness of God was depicted on his soul in the very furnace. The Refiner saw in the molten silver the image of himself. Joseph was incited by his lascivious mistress to commit a sin which is fatal to many youths like him. It was a crisis in his life. What character will he disclose? At first he is too modest to yield. The attempt is renewed day by day, that he may become familiar with the siren voice. He resists, he argues, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" The image brightens in his character. He flees away. How Christ-like does he seem! He suffers rather than sin. "Hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for sin, leaving us an example that we should walk in his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself unto him that judgeth righteously.”

"For me to live is Christ." "I am the vine," said Jesus, "ye are the branches." The one is part of the other. They have the same root, the same stem, the same sap, the same foliage, the same fruit. The branches could not be without the tree, and the tree would lose its symmetry without the branches. Thus is Christ the believer's life. The same Spirit pervades them, the same graces characterize them, the same portion belongs to them, the same glory awaits them, and the same God is their all in all. The one is in the other. They are members of the same body. The same life animates them, and the same blood circulates through them. "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ." St. Paul declares unequivocally that all the members of the body are indispensable to its unity and completeness. Christ is the head. "Now ye are the body of

Christ, and his members in particular." When the believer says "For me to live is Christ," he lives as a member of that body of which Christ is the head. Wondrous union! The guilty sinner made part of a holy Saviour! A worm of the dust joined to the everlasting God! Pause, O my soul, at this inscrutable mystery of grace: "For me to live is Christ.” This is the Christian life. It was so in the early church. When the Lord put to Saul of Tarsus the awakening question, "Why persecutest thou Me?" and said, "I am JESUS whom thou persecutest," he revealed how much the Redeemer and his suffering saints were one. The Pharisaic zealot saw nothing in the objects of his vengeance but the Nazarene, and therefore he haled them to prison and to death; but to reveal the truth and glory of that identity, Jesus appeared from heaven.

In the days of the Covenant in Scotland, an aged widow and a youthful maiden were condemned to be tied to stakes within the flood-mark at Wigton, to be drowned by the tide, for their adherence to the truth. "The stakes," says the historian, "were driven deep into the oozy sand. That to which the aged widow was tied was placed farthest in, that she might perish first. The tide began to flow-the water rose around them-the hoarse rough billows came rolling on, swelling and mounting inch by inch over limb and breast, and neck and lip, of the pious and venerable matron; while her youthful companion in martyrdom, still in shallower water, gazed on the awful scene, and knew that in a few minutes more her sufferings would be the same. At that dreadful moment some heartless ruffian asked Margaret Wilson what she thought now of her fellow-martyr in her dying agonies? Calmly she replied, What do I see but Christ in one of his members wrestling there." She saw the life of Christ in the struggling martyr. For them to live was

Christ. So is it with all members of his body. Christ is our life. "I live; yet not I, but CHRIST LIVETH IN ME.” Professing Christian! is this your earnest endeavour and constant witness? Are you in Christ? Is Christ seen in you, that men may take knowledge of you that you have been with JESUS?

It is life for Christ. "For me to live is Christ;" that is, you live by him, like him, in him, and for him. The same principles, pursuits, and motives which Christ had, ought to be the exercise of your life. Yours is a life which he has redeemed, animated, and endowed with spiritual gifts, in order to be spent in his service. It is not merely for existence, or character, or privilege, that this life was imparted, but for action. The apostle did not mean by his glowing confession that he was a spiritual man in the likeness of Christ, and a member of his body; but especially that as such he laboured for Christ and evinced his life divine. The life of Christ was revealed in His labours of love, when he gave himself for us. Our lives are manifested in their highest and purest character when they are spent in the service of the Lord in doing good. Then do we most strikingly reflect the Saviour. The love of Christ's life made him most conspicuous, and the same grace makes you declare him. He can truly say "For me to live is Christ," who makes that love his ruling passion, and carries it into practice by selfdenying, philanthropic labours. "No man liveth unto himself." Every one exists for others, both in the domestic, social, and political circles. The believer is solemnly bound to live for Christ and his cause; to sanctify himself for the sake of others, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. This was the Redeemer's own course. world ever had was spent for others. Paul, and this made him hesitate so

The highest life this Thus acted the apostle much to die: "I am in