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portant things involved in truly believing on Him.

1. The true believer must be consciously in his whole life keeping our Lord in view as the Aim and End of everything for him. He attends faithfully to his worldly duty, but with the constant thought of thereby glorifying Christ. He delights in the service of God, and counts himself most fittingly occupied only when engaged in worship and in prayer. He never permits himself to lose sight of the fact that he exists only that he may please God and honour Him.

2. Furthermore, the true believer must manifest his heart's-desire of serving Christ by a diligent effort in all things to obey Him. It is not enough to say that we are trying to live up to what we think right; we are called upon by our Christian profession to be faithful to everything enjoined by our Master. It is amazing to perceive how many things there are explicitly commanded by Christ, which are deliberately set aside by believers as of no importance, or else impracticable. We are bound to follow simply and loyally everything which is clearly taught us in the Church by our Lord's authority.

3. Yet again, the true believer must ever give

proof of implicit confidence in Christ. He may not be anxious concerning the future, nor fear any present evil. Those who are disquieted about worldly matters; those who murmur because of their troubles; those who are morbid and sad; give proof at once that they do not believe on the Son of God. Doubtless all of us fail under such a test, sometimes at least, but our failures should only make us the more determined to manifest in our lives a truer discipleship.

Second Thought.-To the question of the man that had been blind, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?" The Master replies, "Thou hast seen Him." One cannot but feel that there is an allusion here to that conception of the Lord which the blind man must have formed of Him just so soon as His gracious hand had spread the clay upon the sightless eyes, and His heart-moving voice had said, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." So distinct was that image in the grateful mind of the healed one that he could not but recognize at once the Master on looking into His face, even if the clearly-remembered voice had not been heard again. And every true-hearted believer has within his soul a cherished image of his Lord. Who has not seen Him when the sacred

Scriptures have portrayed for us His life upon earth? Who has not beheld Him as the story of Gethsemane was read in the Holy Week, or that of Calvary? Who has not seen Him in ecstatic moments of meditation or rapturous worship, when the Host was lifted up at the altar, or when the Benediction was being given? One needs not outward eyes for this sort of vision. In our times of doubt and darkness we should strive to recall such moments of vision. We know very well that they were no delusions. We have seen the Lord.

Third Thought.-Not only have we seen Him, but He has also talked with us. There are many ways in which the Master speaks to His faithful ones without the sound of outward words; as when we meditate upon holy Scripture, and seek to bring home to our souls its wonderful lessons; as when we read the Psalms, and recognize the very voice of the Master in them. Very heart-movingly does He talk with us in our using of the sacraments, when the Holy Body is laid in our palm and we raise it, pausing for a moment, to our lips-what blessed words are whispered then by the Lord in the hearing of the heart! And in the confessional how gracious is His speech, "I absolve thee from all thy sins." Then there are very

helpful things spoken to the believer by his Lord in the answers which are ever coming down from heaven to devout prayer. Often those answers are utterly different from that which one had looked for, utterly different from that which seemed the only solution of the matter; nevertheless they are unmistakably answers, and evidently, as we get more light, the very best answers, the only answers worthy of God. Not less truly does our Master talk with us in all the ordering of our lives, if we will but hearken to what He is saying in that still small voice of His "Not that way, O child greatly beloved, but this way; that way would be thy perdition, this way is thy salvation."

LXXXI.

"And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and said unto Him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth."-St. John ix. 39-41.

Exposition.-St. Augustine says: "This work of discrimination He here calleth judgment, when He saith, For judgment I am come into this world; by which judgment He discerneth the cause of them which believe and confess Him, from the proud, who think they see, and are therefore worse blinded; as if it should be said unto Him by a sinner who confesseth himself and seeketh the Physician, Judge me, O God, and discern my cause from an unholy nation; to wit, of them which say, We see, and their sin remaineth. The judgment, however, which He hath brought into the world, is not now that wherewith He shall judge the quick

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