Note of s sermon preached by the Rev, C.E. Darwent in Union Church, Sunday morning, February St. John XVII 4. "I have glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given me to do."
To all Christian people these chapters at the end of St. John's Gospel in human life to the completed work accomplished by Jesus Christ. If there is not, then His life would be of little uso to us in the conduct of our lives, as an example. Now when we come to think of it, we can see that there have been men who have done a work that never needed doing again; men who have once for all done a work which has lifted humanity by most decided and definite stages forward: and from these advanced stages it can never are peculiarly sacred. They are the] altogether recede. There will be last words and conversations offfups- and down in the history Jesus Christ with his intimate but certain steps forward friends. All last words are affecting once taken mankind can never if they fall from the lips of earnest back on them. Tet us take some people.
Eternity gives a restraint] ojoar illustrations. Take mechan-and, at the same time, a stimulus to) ical traction. As soon as the thought. While, therefore, we may railway was introduced it. was be reminded that there are critics an epoch in history. Man who doubt whether these are the kind will never go back to actual words of Jesus, we may be the condition of civilization when surely reassured when we remember the quickest modes of locomotion what human nature does in such circumstances as those in which the were a horse's legs. The antiseptic method! We cannot imagine any disciples found themselves. Men remember the last words of the social revolution or any backward good and great: why, then, should set of civilization blotting out al! the disciples not have done so? knowledge of this method. No poor Consequently then, we take this creatures will ever be operated on one of the wonderful things Jesus with the wounds open to the anid: 'I have glorified Thee on the bacteria in the air. Never. When earth, having accomplished the work Marconi sent a message hurtling which Thou gayest me to do." It through the air without wires there iv an astonishing statement for was another step in advance. We young man to m cannot conceive of wireless being about thirty yer entirely forgotten even if Jock through the ranks of great men tion fell back many degrees. is there another who could say be things I have named have come to had done his life's work at thirty stay. And so I might go back years of age Most men have only to the time when the first man, who-just begun their work at thirty. ever he was, found that he could Wesley had not, St. Augustine would maintain himself on water: that hardly have been heard of, nor St. was the beginning of the conquest Francis. Yet here, Jesus Christ of the sea, of shipping. It added says Ho had accomplished the work the water to the land as a sphere that had been given Him to do. of human activity. We can see "We live in deeds not years" most quite well that the history of man-certainly, if this be true. We can kind has progressed by irretraceunderstand Him saying that He had able steps, as the result of all glorified God in His wonderful these inventions and discoveries. works and mission—but that He had Once made there has been no going actually completed His work is a back. The pace has been set: the most marvellous statement. Of in-standard of excellence and progress dividual persons converted there has been d, the whole of civil were very few: yet He had come to ized life would have to be engulfed "bring the whole of humanity to in cannibal barbarism for the re-"Himeelf." Of nations there was sults of these forward movements not one thst He could call His: His to be obliterated. own nation least of all. Yet here in this most solemn farewell ad-Itake it, was just what dress He describes His' work as fin-Jesus Christ meant when He said to ished. His life was a full success at his disciples that He had accom-thirty years of age. He knew that plished the work His Father had He was soon to appear to touch the given him to do. He knew perfect-lowest depth of miserable failure, ly well—and surely this is the most for He certainly knew He was to ready evidence of His extraordinary be crucified: and yet for all that He divine nature—that in His life, soon is serene, calm, confident: He had to be ended in the cross, He had "accomplished the work given Him carried the moral and spiritual life by His Father to do." We may of mankind so far forward that notice that it must have been some-mankind could never recede to the thing that He could look back upon old level. He knew that He had at the time He was speaking, for set an example, pitched an ideal, He had not yet died. set a standard, that men What then had Jesus up to thie of all races and of all times point in His life accomplished that would recognize as the highest. He never needed doing again? There did not mean that He would easily must have been something. Well, win every individual in every na-there must after all be some analogy|tion, but He did mean that whatever individuals in any age should seek to express their life in ite highest terms, they would be compelled to follow nm and be like Him.
He knew it. There were not many men, just when He spoke, who did follow Him: but He knew that He had 90 lived in the most perfect relation with God, with man, with his own soul, that He and His life would remain the type the standard for ever and ever. That work was done. He had lived in perfect fellow ship with God and man without sin: and He could say "I have accomplished the work that Thou hast given Me to do."
Here is a wonderful thing: but it so. In His short public life of three years, when He was thirty sears of age, He had carried mankind forward to a stage back of which man has never fallen. Jesus Christ stands here to-day. You and I know—after these 2,000 years—that if we want to please God, we must be more like Jesus Christ than we are. We know that if this world of ours is to be saved from its problems and sins it must fall this Man's feet, and instead of learning of pride and force and money and the lusts of the flesh, it must "learn of Him," as He said, There have been times when He has seemed antiquated and outworn: and men have turned to marvellous new teachers who have reckoned to be wiser than He; but He has come to his own again. Going back to the world's wise men is like going back to Pharoah's chariot after an autocar: i absurd. As John Stuart Mill said: the church did not make a bad choice when it pitched on Jesus Christ as an ideal. Certainly it did not. Only the truth is, it was He who chose us, not we who chose Tim: but there it i, When we "come to ourselves" we come to Him. All Europe fell away from Him in the Eighteenth Century nto: rivouty, rationalism and secu lary, but it came 3 Britain did under Wesley. It always so. Nothing is the same as before He came. The old classical world of Rome and Greece is as dead as a hammer. Clever men try to galvanize their ideals with life, but it is no use: they have no more life in them than had those dancing figures that we used to have when boys, fixed on a boiler, the issuing steam of which made them dance. Agnosticism, Supermanism—all the isms—we have seen them go tramping like cripples seress the stage and vanish. He remains. If we want to find God, to live with God we must come to Him, and find God in Him.
There are four things in which He accomplished this work once for all. In the revelation He made of God His Father. Jesue found the truest illustrations of the character of God in human rela-inal fror
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.