Our Master | Page 6

will make a great change in
his manner of life--his conduct; the acceptance of the truth, and acting
upon it, in the other, will make a great change in the man _himself_--in
his tastes and motives, in his very nature.
Again, I say, this is what we shall need for the new Century. Not good
laws only, but the power to observe them. Not beautiful and lofty ideals
only, but the power to translate them into the daily practice of common
lives. Not merely the glorious examples of a pure faith, but the actual
force which enables men to live by that faith amid the littleness, the
depression, the contamination, and the conflict of an evil world.

VIII.
Atonement.
The new Century will demand an atonement for sin.
The consciousness of sin is the most enduring fact of human experience.
From generation to generation, from age to age, amidst the ceaseless
changes which time brings to everything else, this one great fact
remains, persists--the condemning consciousness of sin. It appears with
men in the cradle, and goes with them to the tomb; without regard to
race, or language, or creed it is ever with us. It was this robbed Eden of

its joys; it is this makes life a round of labour and sorrow; it is this
gives death its terrors; it is this makes the place of torment which men
call Hell--for the unceasing consciousness of sin will be "the worm that
never dies."
All attempts to explain it away, to modify its miseries, to extract its
sting--whether they have come from the party of unbelief, or the party
of education, or the party of amusement, have failed--and failed utterly.
No matter what men say or do to get rid of it, there it is--staring them in
the face! Whether they look amongst the most highly civilized peoples
or amongst the lowest savages; whether they look into the past history
of mankind or into its present condition, there is the stupendous fact of
sin, and there is the incontrovertible fact that everywhere men are
conscious of it.
It is going to be so in this twentieth century. If God, in His mercy,
allows the families of men to continue during another hundred years,
this great fact will still stand out in the forefront of life. Sin will still be
the skeleton at every feast, the horrid ghost haunting every home and
every heart, the spectre, clothed with reproaches, ever ready to plunge
his dripping sword into every breast.
Sin. The world's sin. The sin of this one generation. The sin of one city.
The sin of one family. The sin of one man--my sin! Ah! depend upon it,
the twentieth century will cry aloud, "_What shall be done with our
sin_?"
Yet, thanks be to God! there is an atonement. The MAN of whom I
write has made a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for
the sins of the whole world. He stands forth the ONLY SAVIOUR.
None other has ever dared even to offer to the sin-stricken hearts of
men relief from the guilt of sin. But He does. He can cleanse, He can
pardon, He can purify, He can save, because He has redeemed. "Thou
wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by Thy blood, out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
Will you come and join in our great world-mission of making His
atonement known? Will you turn your back on the littleness, and

selfishness, and cowardice of the past, and arise, in the strength of the
God-Man, to publish to all you can reach, by tongue, and pen, and
example, that there is a sacrifice for men's sins--for the worst, for the
most wretched, for the most tortured? As you set your face with high
resolve towards the unknown years, take your stand with THE MAN
FOR ALL THE AGES; and let this be your message, your confidence,
your hope for all men-"_Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world_!"

II.
The Birth of Jesus.
"_For unto you is born . . . a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord._"
--Luke ii. 11.
"The firstborn among many brethren."--Romans viii. 29.
The birth of Jesus is one of the great signs of His condescension; and,
no matter how we view it, is perhaps scarcely less wonderful than His
death. If the one manifests His glorious divinity, then the other exalts
His wonderful humanity. If Calvary and the Resurrection reveal His
power, does not Bethlehem make manifest His love? And did not both
the former come out of the latter? The infinite glory which belongs to
the cross and the tomb had its rise in the gloom of the stable. If the
Babe