tine, from Savonarola to Sir Thomas More, every age has dreamed of its ideal republic, its city of God.

Right here we find the pre-eminence of Jesus. In the method, the program, nay rather the very spirit, logic, philosophy, of his political economy, the secret lay. Most reformers have undertaken to proceed from without and by social machinery. Christ proceeded from within and by personal influence. Savonarola, driving out the Medicis whose vileness had rotted the heart and corrupted the whole city of Florence, crowned Jesus king of the Florentines in the public square. They burned their vanities that day with good will and well-meaning sincerity, but nevertheless Jesus was not king of the Florentines because he had no real place in their individual characters and their personal life; and as they had burned their vanities one day, so on a later day that fickle populace burned Savonarola himself.

Jesus, then, would build his kingdom by first building individual character. He will bring heaven on earth simply by making men and women heavenly in spirit and in purpose. This kingdom of Jesus cometh not with observation, with blare of trumpets or public crowning in the market places, but silently, as here a man and there a woman "enters in," in solemn soulconviction deliberately following Jesus and willing to pay any cost of such discipleship. Yesterday that

kingdom was one man! to-day it is a group!-and thus are born the "people of peace" to bless, albeit unconsciously, and build, albeit undiscovered in each community, the kingdom of heaven.

"As far as lieth in you," then, is the sweetly solemn call of Jesus to the people of peace. It is the call of one who well understands the stress and strain of life, the fret and friction which makes the "if it be

possible" of this thing of peace.

This is no fancy of some idle dreamer; this is no utterance of some poetic idealist. These are the words of a man of strong passions who has come into daily contact with the rush and the fierceness of life.

"As much as lieth in you." Not what the world, society will bring to you, but what you will bring to them. It is the deliberate essaying to a fearful task. It is God's call for volunteers in a fearful emergency. What he needs now most of all is peace men; not men whose souls are blazing in the fires of hate, but men whose souls are glowing in the light of love; men who are enrapt with the spirit of a holy brotherhood; men who seek not their own in the mad rush of business; men who will not easily be provoked by the weakness, and selfishness, and petulance, and passion of the human; men who will think no evil in the sad spirit of criticism and backbiting that plagues society to-day; men who, when reviled, will revile not again, but bear in meekness of love the wrongs of life. These are the men that Jesus needs, needs most of all to-day, these "the people of peace."

Beloved, will you be one? Remember I have not deceived you; I have told you it was hard. Is your heart hot or heavy with its burden? Do you think that you have been deeply wronged? Do you resent it and are you hard and unforgiving? I cannot blame vou,how dare any of us who must need fight so hard ourselves to keep the spirit sweet, blame you? I do not blame you but Jesus calls you, calls you to deliberately bury it all; all the anger, all the resentment; to bury your feelings, your pride, yourself; to let it all go unto the uttermost of humiliation, if need be-and deliberately, at every cost, take up the task of peace. Will you do it? He and he only can give you strength.

Will

you do it? The poor, sad world, despairing almost, waits your reply! Angels wait the answer of your courage! Jesus stands waiting! God himself waits! It is, indeed, an hour of crisis in the world's tumultuous strife, and the whole creation waits, longing and yearning for the people of peace!"

..

THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.

BY REV. GEORGE W. BARLOW, D. D.,*

*

Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Caro.

Text: "He went up into a mountain apart to pray; and when the evening was come he was there alone." Matt. 14:23.

Jesus was Emanuel, God with us. But he was also a man. "He took upon himself our nature, and became one of us."

There was a little babe in the manger at Bethlehem; there was a little boy playing in the streets of Nazareth; there was a young man standing on the banks of the Jordan, about to be baptized. He slept, waked, ate, drank, sorrowed, rejoiced, just as we do. To-day I wish to speak of his human character, or rather of one peculiarity of his human character; I wish to show how lonely his earthly life was.

The disciples have sailed away to cross the Lake of Galilee; the people have gone to their homes; the sun has set; Christ has ascended into the highlands, on the east side of the lake, to spend the night in prayer. As I think of him kneeling amid the still solitude of the

* Rev. Geo. W. Barlow was born Jan. 3, 1838, at LaGro, Ind. He was educated at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, and Lane Seminary, Cincinnati. His first charge was at Mason, Mich., where he remained 12 years. His second, Calvary Church, Detroit, which he served 13 years. His third, at Lapeer, Mich., where he labored two years and a half. His fourth and present charge, Caro, Mich., to which place he came July 1st, 1895.