in him alone could he now put trust. And Rustem replies: "O Shah, since the day when mine arm could wield a mace I have ever fought the battles of Iran, and it would seem that rest may never come nigh unto me. Yet since I am thy slave, it behooveth me to obey. I am ready to do thy will." And with the coming of the great Pehliva the Iranian armies took new heart, and they overcame the allied hosts of Chinca, and India, and Byzantium with tremendous victory, which is known to this day as the Vengeance of Chosroes.

Said Napoleon to La Place, "I see no mention of God in your system of theology." "No, sir;" was the answer, we have no longer any need of that hypothesis." A half century of anarchy and social disorder in unhappy France was the result—the awful "reign of terror." How much wiser was Montesquiei, who said, "God is as necessary as freedom to the welfare of France!"

Yes, you cannot have freedom for nation or individual without God as its author and finisher. Real life finds its source in God. That is the Gospel. It is not a method of repair. Its process is not one of mending, moral or spiritual; tinkering or cobbling is not salvation. The divine principle is one

of new life, a constant environment of the life of God. He creates new character, new creatures in Christ, and keeps them there. That is the only possible redemption of the slums and the depths of society. Calvary was not an order to move. It was an invitation to live. Salvation is a new creation, not a moving-van. It is the greatest miracle. It is God at first hand. It is the conqueror of all other environment. Our progress in civilization has been marvellous. Inventive genius has almost revolutionized the world. Thirteen great inventions have been made within the last one hundred years, while in all previous human history only seven have been made of equal rank, and even that is questionable, but what avail for us if we do travel sixty miles an hour if we are not any more satisfied or any better when we reach the station. A stagecoach is just as effective for this purpose as an express-train. If we cannot talk any better and more Christlike when we talk from New York to Boston, what character value is there in it. This is one of the modern delusions, and even a snare.

Amid all these achievements, and changes, and straining activity, and killing rush, and peril to sanity, there is a supreme need. That is what

Nicodemus could not understand but experienced. A life with God as its environment.

Memorable is that celebrated siege of Acre on the coast of Palestine. On one day they had broken all their swords. They had crossed their swords until both sides had broken every blade. They then voluntarily withdrew each from the other, admiring each other's bravery. Into the city went the besieged and secured new swords. Outside the city a wise old Mohammedan said: "Don't fight to-day nor to-morrow. I will need time to temper your swords." And so, with an added temper, put in by one flash of fire, the Mohammedans had swords that would bend like a Damascus blade; and it was impossible for the Christians to defeat them. The Christian blades broke as before, and the only reason why the Mohammedan in his chivalry won that battle, which entitled him to the respect of Christians, was because he added just a little more temper in the Damascus blade.

Pause, man, just one factor will change defeat into victory.

Philanthropists and moralists have no hope. All history is against them. Permanent victory has not been and cannot be the result of their work.

The world will never be saved by philanthropy or surface changes. Mosquitoes infest every shady nook, and crocodiles are where they have perennial summer. Give the drunkard or his family more money, and you increase drunkenness. Poverty ought not to exist, but charity oftentimes only increases it. So far as circumstances or even the laws of the world are concerned, evil has just as bright a hope as the good. They seem to be balanced. Some weight must drop into the side of the scales called the good. That extra element in a man's life is God. With Him he can be master, and at least become like God Himself. He who lives in the life of God must pass through a process of transformation. In Christ all this becomes reality with increasing sweetness and power.

In every human being is the germ which demands this as its environment, if it is to live, and grow, and become perfect. Take two seeds, and place one in a box on the shelf. Place the other into the soil, and then the sunlight, and moisture, and air. Any child knows the result. One shrivels up, and becomes worm-eaten, and dies. The other pushes its arms out in a hundred directions, and is the king of the forest for a hundred years, and lives

in a hundred generations, and whole forests yet un

seen.

Man needs God. Without Him it is death, even eternal death. With Him, what marvellous development and transformation.

In 1832, Charles Darwin, the celebrated naturalist, and, even then, renowned scientist, went around the world on a tour of circumnavigation, which is one of abiding interest. He touched at the coast of Tierre Del Fuego in South America. His description of the people is one of horror. He declares he never saw such people, nor would he have believed they existed. They were of the very lowest type, and almost, if not quite, inhuman. practices and appearance were shocking. Their habits were too vile and low to permit description. He left a line in his diary which says they were beyond the reach of civilization. That was the cold and convincing testimony of a great naturalist, not a missionary, but rather a skeptic.

Their

In one of the ordinary days of the world, a babe was found lying helpless and alone, and crying in the streets of Bristol, without known father, or mother, or friend, a foundling crying in the night, and with no answer but a cry, until one heart list