contempt rather than of admiration on their lips. And even those of us,
who have got beyond thinking that it is a title of honour belonging
only to the aristocracy of Christ's Kingdom, are too apt to mistake
what it really does mean. It may be useful to say a word about the
Scriptural use and true meaning of that much-abused term. The root idea
of sanctity or holiness is not moral character, goodness of disposition
and of action, but it is separation from the world and consecration to
God. As surely as a magnet applied to a heap of miscellaneous filings
will pick out every little bit of iron there, so surely will that love
which He bears to the people, when it is responded to, draw to itself,
and therefore draw out of the heap, the men that feel its impulse and
its preciousness. And so 'saint' means, secondly, righteous and pure,
but it means, first, knit to God, separated from evil, and separated by
the power of His received love.

Now, brethren, here is a question for each of us: Do I yield to that
timeless, tender clasp of the divine Father and Mother in one? Do I
answer it by my love? If I do, then I am a 'saint,' because I belong to
Him, and He belongs to me, and in that commerce I have broken with the
world. If we are true to ourselves, and true to our Lord, and true to
the relation between us, the purity of character, which is popularly
supposed to be the meaning of _holiness_, will come. Not without
effort, not without set-backs, not without slow advance, but it will
come; for he that is consecrated to the Lord is 'separated' from
iniquity. Such is the meaning of 'saint.'

'All His saints are in Thy hand.' The first metaphor of our text spoke
of God's bosom, to which He drew the people and folded them there. This
one speaks of His 'hand.' They lie in it. That means two things. It
means absolute security, for will He not close His fingers over His