of our death by His life, and made partakers of His life by His
death, may yield our hearts to Him, and so pass from out of the
hostility and mistrust of a godless world into the friendships and
peace of the sheltering Vine. And then we 'shall esteem the reproach
of Christ' if it fall upon our heads, in however modified and mild a
form, 'greater riches than the treasures of Egypt,' and 'have respect
unto the recompense of the reward.'

May it be so with us all!



THE WORLD'S HATRED, AS CHRIST SAW IT

'But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake,
because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and
spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no
cloke for their sin. He that hateth Me, hateth My Father also. If
I had not done among them the works which none other man did,
they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both
Me and My Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be
fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated Me without a
cause.'--JOHN XV. 21-25.

Our Lord has been speaking of the world's hostility to His followers,
and tracing that to its hostility to Himself. In these solemn words
of our text He goes still deeper, and parallels the relation which
His disciples bear to Him and the consequent hostility that falls on
them, with the relation which He bears to the Father and the
consequent hostility that falls on Him: 'They hate you because they