manifest in Christ, vindicates the offended law by paying to the last farthing all that was due to it. The blood on Christ's vesture is his own blood. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, that by his stripes we might be healed. Oh, stupendous cost of justice! Thus is the question answered, "How shall God be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly? And that other question, "How can a man be just with God?" This is the red vintage of our salvation:

The winepress! The winepress! The voice is from God:
The floor of his fury is now to be trod;

The sins of all nations are full to o'erflowing,

And the blast of th' avenger from heaven is blowing;
In the red robe of vengeance triumphant he stands,
And blots out our sentence with blood in his hands.

The third of God's moral attributes, namely, his Goodness, is apparent in the personnel of the army that follows Christ, clothed in fine linen, white and pure. Who are they?

These are the saints triumphant, whom the dreamer saw in a former vision, standing before the Throne, clothed in white robes and with palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice, "Salvation unto our God!" They are the redeemed in heaven, who "have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

It would be another mistake, however, to think of the redeemed as having nothing to do but to encircle the throne and sing the praises of the Lamb. They go forth to war with him. In that White Battalion are, no doubt, many of our own beloved who have passed on before us. For "are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?" They have blessed work to do as "laborers together with God." They are enlisted in the Holy War under the Captain of our Salvation in his crusade against the beast. As Havelock went out to the relief of Lucknow, so do the glorified saints march to the deliverance of those who are beleaguered by the hosts of sin.

But the Captain of our Salvation has still another name: "He hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

In this we have the sure token of his power to save. "He

is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him."

But more than this, here is the token of his final triumph. On his head are many crowns or circlets. He is the King of Kings; for the kings of the earth do bring their glory and their honor unto him.

On the lonely island of St. Helena the exiled Napoleon said, "Tell me, Bertrand, how you account for the great abyss between my misery and the eternal reign of Jesus. I am forgotten; so it is with Cæsar and Alexander. Our exploits are given to pupils in school who sit in judgment upon us; but behold the destiny of Christ! His kingdom extends over the whole earth; and there are millions who would die for him." The reason for the difference is plain. The name of Napoleon, "Imperator," was written on a sword-hilt; while the name of this King of Kings was written on his vesture and thigh, as upon an empty scabbard. The swords of Cæsar and Alexander were ever ready for bloody uses; but the sword of Jesus is the pacific speech of Shiloh, Prince of Peace. His right of conquest is not in slaughter, but in self-sacrifice. His ultimate triumph is by "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!

In lowly pomp ride on to die!

Bow thy meek head to mortal pain;

Then take, O Christ, thy power and reign!

The crowning day is coming! The dreamer in Patmos saw an angel standing in the sun, calling to the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven to come and feast upon the banquet of slain sin. Then he heard the voice of another angel calling out of heaven, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men: and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God!"

Then the Hallelujah Chorus! All angels and archangels join with the innumerable company of saints redeemed in the shout, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!"

IX

HOW PAUL SAW HIM

THE most important event, apart from the Atonement, in the opening century of the Christian era, was the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. As chief inquisitor of the Sanhedrin he had been the foremost figure in the persecution of the followers of Christ. And this he did with a good conscience: as he says, "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus." He was acting under the strict compulsion of duty when he "desired letters to the synagogues in Damascus" for the arrest and imprisonment of the Christians there. It was on this journey that the whole tenor of his life and character was changed. "Suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven; and he fell to the earth." A moment later he arose another man. He was so utterly transformed that the things which he had previously loved he now "counted but loss," and the things which he had hated he now loved better than life itself. From that hour he was as zealous in following Christ as he had been in denouncing him and in persecuting those who loved him. By what power was this sudden transformation wrought? There is no effect without a cause. How are we to account for it?

As a citizen of Jerusalem, and probably a member of the Sanhedrin, he must have been familiar with the singular life of Jesus. He had heard the common rumors of his wonderful words and miracles: but he shared in the opinion of his associates that Jesus was an impostor, claiming to be the Messiah but with nothing to support his claim. The power of the wonderful life did not convince him.

He must have been familiar also with the circumstances attending the death of Jesus. It is more than possible that

he had a voice in the Council that passed sentence upon him. To many minds the Cross is the great argument in demonstration of the gospel. The infidel Rousseau confessed that it baffled him: "If Socrates died like a philosopher, then Jesus died like a god!" But Saul of Tarsus was proof against all this. The power of the wonderful death did not convince him.

What, then, was it that turned this man right about face? It was "the power of his resurrection." He had supposed that Jesus was dead and disposed of; but here, on the Damascus highway, a living voice calls, "I am Jesus!" This voice, with the attendant circumstances, carries conviction with it. The conclusion is instant and inevitable: "He whom I supposed to be dead is risen and alive! The story of the resurrection, which his followers have been telling far and wide, is no empty tale!"

Now Saul was distinctly a logician. He was the most distinguished controversialist of his time. He knew the force of an argument when he saw it. To this voice in the sunburst he could find no rational reply but immediate and unconditional surrender: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

The power of the wonderful life had been ineffective: the power of the wonderful death had been equally so; but the power of the resurrection of Jesus was sufficient to convert Saul of Tarsus into Paul the Apostle. The thought of the living Christ became, then and there, the dynamic of all his plans and purposes; and, from that hour on the Damascus highway up to the moment when his head fell from the block beneath the walls of Rome, his constant ambition was to live up to it.

Let us inquire as to the significance of this argument, the argument based on the resurrection of Christ as its postulate, which so profoundly influenced the character of this man.

First, it was to his mind a demonstration that Christ, by virtue of his indestructible life, was very God of very God.

The primal attribute of God is self-existence. He is not only the living God; he is the Source and Fountain of life. "In him we live and move and have our being"; but he "sits on no precarious throne nor borrows leave to be." His name,

Jehovah, suggests pure, underived, essential, self-sustaining life. The same truth is involved in the name by which he declared himself at the burning bush, "I AM THAT I AM" or "I am because I am."

Jesus claimed to be the only-begotten Son of God; not created, nor born, but begotten, and therefore partaker of this primal attribute. "In him was life." He said, “I am the life." He also said, "I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again"; in other words life was his in such wise that he could do what he pleased with it. When Pilate said, "Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee?" his answer was, "Thou wouldest have no power against me except it were given thee from above." If his life were taken from him it was because he chose to surrender it: and in that case he had "power to take it again." What a stupendous claim! No mortal man could make it. If he could prove that assertion he would vindicate his Godhood. Could he prove it?

It is recorded that when the chief priests and Pharisees came to Pilate asking that the sepulchre of Jesus might be made sure, "lest haply his disciples come and steal him away," he answered, "Go, make it as sure as ye can." They went accordingly and made the sepulchre sure. They rolled a massive stone before it whereon was affixed the great seal of the Empire, and stationed guards round about to defend it. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh! As well might Pilate undertake to imprison the beams of the ascending sun!

As the night wore on the sentinels were pacing to and fro, when suddenly the ground began to tremble. A crash! The rocks were reeling and tottering! A vivid light from heaven! The seal was broken; the stone was rolled away; the guards were lying prostrate as dead men! Then from the shining heights a troop of angels came gliding down and the Prince of Life arose from his tomb, wiping the death-dew from his brow; and the angels thronged his chariot and bore him aloft to the glory that awaited him. Listen! Voices from the distance: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory will come in!"

So Jesus "was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead." He rose not at the behest