this language, 'Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judæa and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.'

A third instance is in the breviate of the summarist at the end of Mark's Gospel. 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to the whole of Creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.' This, like the first quotation, though it looks as if it belonged to the transactions of the first evening, is plainly a summary of what was said altogether; and more especially a gathering up of what was meant by the words spoken on the royal occasion to which our thoughts are summoned now.

The missionary directions in the present instance begin with the words, 'Make disciples.' Disciples will not be likely to fall out as to the meaning of the term 'disciples.' When we read in this book about the disciples of Moses, or the disciples of John the Baptist; when we read in other books about the disciples of Plato, or of Aristotle, or of Galen, we feel no great perplexity as to the word; of course we are the disciples of any one to whom we trust ourselves for instruction in any given department of knowledge; and of course we are the disciples of our Saviour when we trust ourselves to Him

that we may be taught by His Spirit and His Word all that belongs to our salvation. He gives, not only the lesson to study, but the faculty to learn. Under His discipline His disciples come to know what it is to have repentance, what it is to have remission of sins, what it is to have eternal life-to know, not merely words about eternal life, but eternal life itself. Disciple' is a term that we are to apply to the youngest as well as to the oldest learner in Christ's school; it belongs to the little one who has just 'been suffered to come' to Him, and whose new life is in its first secret, mystic moment, as well as to the saint who has reached celestial maturity; to him in whom grace is but germinal, and to him whose life shows grace in its full flower. So, while Christ fills them with His Spirit, and holds them in His hand, while to Him alone belongs the executive, to them alone the instrumental part of the operation, disciples are to make disciples.

The Lawgiver of the Church goes on to say, 'Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' It will be here sufficient to say with Pressensé, 'This is neither the baptism of Jewish proselytes, nor that of the forerunner administered in the name of the coming Messiah; it is baptism in the name of a finished salvation; it is the sacred sign of a renewed life, the sacra

ment of conversion, which buries us with Christ crucified for us, that we might rise with the risen Christ, as the Lord's Supper is the sacrament of a holy life, which is only conversion continued and confirmed. The commission,' says Dr. David Brown, then sets forth 'the pastoral department: "teach them;" teach these baptized members of the Church visible, "to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you."'

2. The starting-point of operations is remarkable. 'Beginning from Jerusalem.' When Napoleon was once urged to visit this city, he answered, 'Jerusalem does not come within the line of my operations.' Passing in thought from earthly to heavenly things, let us remember that Jerusalem was the starting-point and centre of Christ's operations when He began the conquest of the world. Think of this as furnishing one of the evidences of Gospel truth. Imposture, shunning the focus of unpopularity, and the place where its refutation would have been easy, would have commenced operations from a distance.

Think of this as in harmony with the Divine order by which the first place had always been given to the Jews in the history of Revelation. The principle of it is thus explained by the Apostle Peter in one of his early appeals to a Jewish audience, Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made

with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first, God having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.'1

Think of this as intended to test and prove the efficacy of the Gospel, as the instrument for bringing all nations into subjection to Himself. 'At the village of Bersham, near which I reside,' remarks Williams, of Wren, there is a foundry for casting cannons. After they are cast, they are tested by the founders, who first of all put in a single charge, and if they can bear that, then a double charge, and if they bear that without bursting, they are pronounced fit for the battle-field or the deck of a man-of-war. The casters act wisely and safely; for should there be a flaw in these engines of war, it is better it should be detected in the foundry-yard than when in the act of being fired against the foe. The Gospel was a new and untried instrument. It was first to be tested; and where on the face of the whole earth was there a more fitting place than Jerusalem for making the first experiment? If the Gospel proved itself to be instrumentally equal to the conversion of the sinners of Jerusalem, no misgivings could afterwards be entertained of its fitness to do execution in the

1 Acts iii. 25, 26.

lands of the Gentile. Peter was the man appointed to test this new gun. He charged and fired it. Three thousand were converted in one day. After this triumphant trial, the fishermen of Galilee went forth everywhere, "boldly to preach the word," fully assured that in no quarter of the globe were there to be found more hardened sinners than those who had stoned and killed the prophets, and who had reached the climacteric of guilt by putting to death the Heir of heaven Himself. Well might the great Apostle of the Gentiles declare his readiness to preach the Gospel in Rome, knowing it "was the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth." He was not ashamed of what had so often proved itself a power.'

Think of this as giving the rule for the commencement of Christian missionary enterprise through all time. In many cases, the idea of mission work is exclusively connected with that of some foreign station, and a passion for missions is understood to imply a resolve to leave England at the first possible moment. But this Divine charity does not begin at the antipodes, it begins at home.' The Jerusalem of Londoners is London. Change of place will work no change of spirit, and a man who has not a missionary spirit while living on the banks of the Thames would not have it if set down on the shores of the Congo.