entitled to give a reply to such questions than Christians themselves?
They alone can know by what motives, they have been actuated, by what
strength supported, and by what hopes animated. Ask them, then, and
what will be their reply? Each and all will but echo the words of
Paul, as expressing the secret of their life: "I live, yet not I,
but _Christ liveth in me_; and the life I live in the flesh I live
_through faith in the Son of God_, who loved me, and gave himself for
me." "The _love of Christ_ constraineth us," "I thank _Christ Jesus,
our Lord_, who hath enabled me." "The _Lord_ stood with me, and
strengthened me." "_The Lord_ shall deliver me from every evil work,
and preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, _to whom be glory_ for ever
and ever!" "I can do all things _through Christ_, which strengtheneth
me." This is the experience of the living Church of Christ, of all
lands, and of all time,--the creed of each genuine believer; of the
early martyr and mediaeval saint; of the pious Protestant and Papist;
of the cultivated Christian philosopher and the half-taught Christian
negro; of the young man who has overcome the wicked one, and of
the old patriarch who departs in peace, because his eyes have seen
salvation; of the Christian Greenlander who died yesterday, and of the
sweet Christian girl who died to-day, leaving the bosom of her mother
for the bosom of her God; of each and all the ten thousand times ten
thousand who have so lived and died, with one conviction of truth the
strongest in their minds; that whatever strength, peace, or good they
possess as true _life_, they owe all to the One source of life,--_the
Lord Jesus Christ_! What are we to conclude from these unparalleled
facts, which can no more be denied than the realities of human history
or of human experience? Have all Christians been deceived? Have they
been believing a lie, and has this great life of life in them been
sustained by a delusion? Is there no such person as Jesus Christ, the
Lord of life, the living Saviour of sinners? Is this not a fact but a