lect to the intellect. Education is not only the impartation of knowledge and of intellectual discipline; it is also inspiration. And the effective preaching of the gospel is an inspiration to the hearer. But he who inspires another must live and breathe himself. All inspiration is vital. It is from the heart to the heart. The soul itself is the only vehicle which will convey spiritual truth from man to man. Even God, making his love a power in human history, brings it in a human soul. Preaching is not a mere intellectual process; it is not a mere thinking; it is an action the action of the whole man on his fellowmen. Lecky notices"the extremely small influence of definite argument in determining the opinions either of an individual or of a nation." It is faith, love, service, life, rather than argument, which convey the truth as a power of life to human hearts. Lord Bacon says: "Truth prints goodness." One cannot easily read lead types; an imprint must be taken off. Goodness is the imprint by which truth is read. The power of the primitive church was not merely the power of convincing argument and eloquent speaking; it was rather the power of the Christian life of faith and love.

III. The Progress of Christ's Kingdom is not to be promoted by Force.

Our Saviour says: "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Institutions founded on force shall be overthrown by force. Institutions that are to be permanent must be founded on truth and right. Institutions resting on force must fall before superior force. If Christ's kingdom rested on force, it would be subject to the same law, and in some great convulsion of society would be sure to pass away. But it is founded on truth and love. Force moves in a different sphere from these, and cannot destroy them. Therefore it is a kingdom which cannot be moved. It can decay only when Christ's redeeming love falters, and justice and love die out of the heart of man. The history of the world has been a continuous demonstration of the

truth of our Saviour's words down to the overthrow of American slavery. There is no real progress except so far as truth establishes itself in men's convictions, and love rules in their hearts.

The state itself may not use force for the propagation of religion and good morals. Admit in any instance the duty or even the right of government to propagate religious and moral ideas by the sword, and you admit all that is terrible in persecutions and crusades.

IV. The Progress of Christ's Kingdom is without Observation. The growth of the kingdom is not manifested merely in the organization. Statistical tables of the number of churches, of communicants, and of ministers are but imperfect indications of the extent and power of Christ's kingdom. Its growth is in the inward experience of the soul. Whenever any human soul is quickened to penitence for sin and faith in Christ, it is a growth of the kingdom of God. And in society, every Christian truth which establishes itself in human thought and begins to control the life, every removal of an unchristian custom, every elevation of human sentiment, every transformation of an institution into accordance with Christianity is an advance of Christ's kingdom. Thus the progress is in its nature without observation. Souls are born into the new life; Christian ideas take their place in human thought; and men, intent on their worldly schemes, take no note of them; just as the workman, plodding homewards his weary way, takes no note of the stars which come out, one by one, and take their place in the evening sky. The kingdom is in the world, transforming the world into itself, as the mustard-seed is in the soil, transforming it into its own substance, and organizing it into the silently growing life and beauty of the plant. Thus pass years, of the results of which the statistician can make but a meagre report; but when they are gone we are surprised at the extent and power of the advance of Christian thought.

V. The Progress of the Kingdom is Providential.

God does not leave his truth to go out alone to its conflict with error; he goes before it in his providence. Indeed, it is not merely that his providential working in history is parallel with his work of redemption; it is rather that his work of redemption is his work in human history, and what we call his providential action in history is only incidental thereto.

God goes before and with Christian workers now, in his providence, as he used to go before and with his people in miracles. The Christian may work in obscurity; but God notes his work with loving interest. He may be opposed by men; but he is a laborer together with God. A providence silent and unseen works with him while he works, and for him while he sleeps; corrects what he does imperfectly, and completes what he leaves unfinished, and so gives to feeble beginnings a strange success, to obscure endeavors a worldwide emblazoning, and on counsels of faith and love which had seemed foolish and rash brings out at last the stamp of a wisdom beyond the age; and schemes at which contemporaries had sneered, posterity honors as evincing insight and inspiration from on high. It is common for Christian workers to find the way strangely prepared before them through obstacles seemingly insurmountable, as to the Israelites through the Red Sea. Even the beast of whom it was said: "The Lord hath need of him," had its way strewn with garments and palm-leaves. Where there is God's work to be done, there is God to do it. A little church in Scotland, harassed by persecution and ready to despair, wrote to Rutherford for advice whether they should give up. He answered: "So long as there is any of the Lord's lost money in your town, he won't put out the candle."

God's providential action is a perpetual proof of his continued redemptive action. Even miracles are scarcely so decisive proofs of his presence, or so lasting in their influence. Elijah brought fire from heaven, and consumed the priests of Baal; but the fire had scarcely ceased to burn when the

idolatry was resumed, and Elijah fled in despair to Horeb. Luther did not bring fire from heaven; but the Protestant Reformation as really demonstrated the divine presence, and its influence has continued to this day. Moses opened the Red Sea to the Israelites. No miracle-working rod was stretched over the ocean when the Pilgrims came to Plymouth; but the presence of God with them working in the interest of his kingdom is scarcely less evident than at the Red Sea.

Equally significant God's providence in removing seemingly immovable obstacles. American slavery vanished like a cloud in the presence of the very generation who were declaring its removal impracticable. The temporal power of the Pope scarcely arrested attention when it passed away. The great men of the world do still, as a prophet declared of an Assyrian king, accomplish God's plans, though they intend it not: "He meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few"; but he is "the rod of mine anger and the staff in the hand of my indignation."

God's hand is revealed not merely in great epochs, but also in the quiet advancement of his kingdom. This is exemplified in the growth of what is called the spirit of the age; so that the leaders in any great historical movement seem not so much the authors of the movement, as the mouth-piece to utter the common thought, and the hand to execute the common purpose of the age. All history shows that the great epochs of history are not instantaneous in their origin. Though their coming is sudden and startling, yet it is the result of growth-the opening of a flower which for a century has been maturing the bursting from its chrysalis of the winged Psyche which in all its transformations has been silently preparing its birth of beauty. Every great change attempted for which God's providence has not wrought a preparation will be but a new patch on an old garment. The silent preparation for the great epochs which burst on the astonished world is as decisive a proof of God's presence in history as the epoch itself; as the

growth of the bud reveals God's power not less than its opening into blossom.

Another example is the growth of interests, customs, and institutions incidentally favorable to the growth of the kingdom. When the first American missionaries went to India, the British power seemed the greatest obstacle. But it has exerted influences essential to the missionary work which it was entirely impossible for the missionaries to exert. It is said that Constantine embraced Christianity for reasons of state polity; but how had it come to pass that it was politic for him so to do? It is said that Luther could not have succeeded without the aid of the German princes; but how came it to pass that the German princes found it expedient to aid him? As the lictors with axes and staves went before the Roman consul to open a way for him, and to enforce his commands, God in his providence compels princes and all secular agencies to open the way for Christian truth. It has been said that the Puritans came to New England not for religious interests, but to engage in fisheries. Suppose the allegation to be true, what then? Then God in his providence disclosed valuable fisheries in the interest of his kingdom to bring to New England a Christian, Protestant, and republican civilization; "the earth helped the woman"; providence worked with redemption. Then these Puritans, while intent in all simplicity on getting an honest livelihood by fishing, were so full of Christian truth and life as to send out incidentally, as sparks fly from hot iron simply because it is hot, the education, political liberty, and religion of New England. It would enhance our estimate of their piety and intelligence, if they were so full of spiritual light and life. that these were but the unpremeditated and spontaneous results of their living and working for secular ends, and so the salvation of the world was a second time connected with fishing; just as it would enhance our estimate of the fulness of miraculous power in Peter to know that his shadow would heal the sick on whom it fell, when he without thought of exerting that power was going to the baker's to buy his