Notes of a Sermon Preached by the Rev. C. E. Darwent in Union Church, Tientsin, on Sunday Morning, May 18 rows I, 7 and And of the angels he saith, th his angels winde, ig ministers a flame of fire: but of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; And the sceptre of uiprightaess is the sceptre of thy kingdom."
This author, whoever he may have been, is writing to members of the Jewish race, who had become Christians. They seem to have been scattered about the world. And for some reason or other they were in a very depressed and doubtful state of mind, There may have been persecution by the Roman authorities and likely enough by their own countrymen, In any case they were scattered, low-spirited and depres sed, and likely enough they were not sure, that they had taken the right step'in abandoning their ancestral faith, This, one would think, must often happen. to converts, both in ancient times, and in countries like China to-day.' When times of stress and trouble come, there must be "great searchings of heart" to men who have changed their religion, 'Therefore the problem for this writer, indeed it is the main purpose of the' Letter, is to find some point of view which will cheer them up, get them up out of the mud of depression, out of all their doubts and fears and pessimisms. And no doubt, he thought well as to the line of thought he should take. We are often wrong in thinking, that because these men's books are in the Bible, they were thrown off with inspired cage and almost without effort. Nothing can be more er-roucous. When, for instance, Paul says, that he "had determined to Know nothing among men but Christ and Him crucified," it docs not mean, that he made up his mind in s stupid obstinate way to make the death of Christ for sin the chief subject of his ministry, "It means that he had gone over all he knew of Christ, and after mature reflexion on all the aspects of life and the teaching, of the Gospel, he had come to the conclusion, that His atonement for sin stood first. So this writer must have thought well as to the line he should take in attempting to pick up, and set them on their feet imagine the world can do better without it, We see what it so often comes to. In a world of men, like this, would there be any people at all?' I should imagine that after a ease like this, "loving wives" will prefer that their husbands should be the most orthodox of orthodox Christians.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.