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The Homilist, though taking a fresh start, will run on the old lines, and under the same catholic skies, freighted, as for the past quarter of a century, not with heavy timber, but with seeds and saplings, act with manufactured metal, but with virgin ore.

The Homilist will only have space on its pages for condensed and suggestive thinkings. For though we are enabled to reckon on the valued help of some of the ripest Scholars and Leaders of Religious Thought of our times, we shall prize all articles just as their pith and point may serve our readers. Ever our aim, cherished earnestly if humbly, will be the storage of spiritual and intellectual force,-such a storage of force as shall, under God, contribute to the light and life and progress of souls. Redland, Bristol. URIJAH R. THOMAS,

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All contributions, which if in accordance with the preceding note, will be thankfully welcomed, to be forwarded to the Editor, as above.

All correspondence on ordinary business or advertisements, and all Books for review, to be addressed to the Publisher.

Advertisements or Bills for insertion in The Homilist should be sent, not later than the middle of the Month, to Mr. C. WILKES, Advertising Agent, 60, Old Bailey, London, E.C., or to the Publisher, Mr. W. MACK, 28, Paternoster Row, London; or 38, Park Street, Bristol.

PROBLEMATA MUNDI. Third Edition, with Compendious Index. Price 108. 6d. An Exegetical and Homiletical treatment of the Book of Job, by DAVID THOMAS, D.D., critically revised, with Introduction by S. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D. The Fourth Volume of "THE HOMILISTIC LIBRARY," which is to contain a re-publication of all the author's works which are out of print.

"Dr. Thomas has put his great power of generalisation to its full strain. Most strikingly suggestive."-Dr. H. Reynolds, Cheshunt College.

"Dr. Thomas has a genius for writing books of suggestive thoughts. Earnestly recommend it for freshness, independent thought, and happy ingenuity."-Dr. Angus, President of Baptist College.

"Superior to all the popular Commentaries on Job."-Dr. Gregory, ExPresident of Wesleyan Conference.

"It is full of fine thought, graphically and powerfully expressed."-A. B. Davidson, M.A., D.D., Professor of Hebrew, New College, Edinburgh, and Author of a "Commentary on Job."

SMITH & ELDER, LONDON.

Volume V. of the current (Eclectic) series now ready. Price 7s. 6d., cloth, red edges.

The previous four volumes also in stock.

"The British Quarterly" says, of the New Series, "It is v. ried, vivacious, instructive. True to its title; almost everything bears on the pulpit. Throughout it is strong, suggestive, useful; the best of its class."

The

Leading Homily.

THE GREATNESS OF THE PRESENT.

"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS COME UPON YOU."-Matt. xii. 28. (R.V.)

HATEVER may have been the first and direct meaning

of these words, they clearly imply that the great realities of God's moral government are now present. The tokens of His control are not merely matters of history or of prophecy. The actual existence in the living present of such great realities is not only the implication of this sentence that rang like solemn music from the Divine lips of Jesus, but finds distinct and emphatic declaration in many other words of His, and of His holy apostles. For instance

"Now IS THE JUDGMENT OF THIS WORLD.”—John xii. 31.

"HE THAT BELIEVETH NOT ON HIM HATH BEEN JUDGED ALREADY."-John iii. 18.

"THE HOUR COMETH, AND NOW IS, WHEN THE DEAD SHALL HEAR THE VOICE OF THE SON OF GOD; AND THEY THAT HEAR SHALL LIVE."-John v. 25.

"HE THAT BELIEVETH ON THE SON HATH ETERNAL LIFE."John iii. 36.

"LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAY."-Matthew xxviii. 20.

Not ignoring for even the passing hour that in the future. there will be a clearer and fuller apocalypse of The Christ, of resurrection, of judgment, of retribution than we may have now, it is of vital importance that we should not be blind to such manifestations of The Christ, of resurrection, of judgment, and of retribution as belong to the present. For as to the manifestation of The Christ, it is one of the elemental doctrines of Scripture that there is no impenetrable barrier between the seen and the unseen; and as to the development of character, and so of destiny, Scripture and reason alike teach there is no abrupt breaking off between the present and the future. The future is the harvest, the outcome of the present. In the present we are sowing the seeds of that future, building up the edifice of the future; we ourselves are "growing up" into that future.

We cannot, therefore, even as heirs of the future, too eagerly enquire what are the greatest realities of the present; what may be involved in the incisive statement, "Now is the kingdom of God come upon you," and in such other Scriptures as we have just read.

Very pithily has a well-known preacher (Mark Guy Pearse) recently put some aspects of this truth: "Now what is heaven? Is it wearing white robes? No. Is it walking golden streets? No? It is the eternal harmony of God's will and man's will flowing on together. 'Why I can have that down here, you say.' So you can. What is hell? I don't know. It is the greatest of all mysteries; but of all mysteries the most fearful. I can only think of it as man's will rising against God's. 'Why I can have it up here, you say.' So you can." Such words hint the lines I want to pursue in this meditation. For let no contemplation of long periods of time induce us to think lightly of this brief life of ours. There are long periods that challenge devout contemplation, great spaces that the history of the Old Testament, and still greater spaces that many yet unfulfilled prophecies of both Old and New Testaments cover, unimaginable æons, ages upon ages. But

"We should count time by heart-throbs, not by figures on a dial."

The present is crowded with tremendous realities, the present is charged with awful possibilities. Just as oculists have to treat two dissimilar infirmities of the eye, so we have to deal with two opposite imperfections of mental vision. There are some whose near sight is clear, but whose far sight is hazy and obscure; some whose far sight is good, but whose near sight is very imperfect. Both are great defects. The one that illustrates the evil we are now combating is the sight that descries clearly the distant mountain and star and tree, but cannot read the type of a book in his hand, or recognise the features of a friend by his side. Such infirmity in mental or moral vision leads to a sickly and sentimental dreaming about the future, and a guilty indifferentism to the present.

What are the great realities of the present? Are they the accumulations of wealth, the gigantic institutions, the material occupations of men, or even their pleasures, their vices, or their calamities that bulk out in such colossal proportions before our eyes? No! Behind, and beneath all these, influencing them, and influenced by them, but far more actual, more enduring, more intimate to humanity, are the great realities of character, and of God's relationship to character. "The things which are unseen are eternal." Yet these things are not wholly unseen. They give evidences of their existence and presence, so that they become not only matters of faith, but of experience to men. Let us in such a vein of thought consider—

I. The present JUDGMENT.

That there is "a judgment to come" we may not forget. The almost universal forebodings of human hearts, of the wronged and of the wrong doers also, the unnatural contrasts that are common between men's character and their circumstances, and the unexhausted prophecies of Holy Scripture, all predict "a day of judgment."

But there is a present judgment. Scripture declares it. Men have been "judged already." "Some men's sins are evident, going before unto judgment." There are many instances in human experience. Already and always we are before "the great white

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