At a recent meeting for the "remembrance " of our Lord, a sentence in a brother's prayer deeply impressed me. It was this:" How good, our God, it is to know that, as we are gathered here, we do not come to bemoan our failures, but to remember a living Christ, who laid down His life for our sins."

Had there been no failures, then, through the past week ? Had there been no coming short in the things of God ? Had there been no neglect of His service ? Had there been no sin in our ways ? Had there been naught in us but perfection and holiness ? Had our every thought, word and deed been fit for the searching eye of a holy God ?

Who that knows his own heart and examines himself before God, and in the light of the perfections of Christ, but must confess how true the statement of Scripture that, " In many things we all offend? " Who that is honest before God will claim perfection in himself ? Who that knows the human heart can think of it as fit for the eyes of that holiness before which the seraphim bow and cover their faces ?

We dare not go into God's presence with unconfessed sin in our hearts, especially when we come there to make remembrance of what His adorable Son passed through on account of sin. The spirit of self-judgment becomes us at all times, and especially before we come to partake together of that which proclaims loudest of all the holiness of God.

In that lowly mind, however, we do not come together to bemoan our failures, but to remember a living Christ who died for our failures. We come not to remember our sins, but the Sin-Bearer; not to remember our imperfections, but His deep and glorious perfections; not to think of ourselves, but of Him, the living Christ, who died for us, who rose again, who is there before God our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption-all we have need of to present ourselves before God in the Holiest, with hearts full of praise, of thanksgivings, of worship.

The world may celebrate its dead hero, but he is not there to receive their praises. Ours is there, the living Christ, to receive the homage of our hearts. Yes, living; now no more to die. A living Christ, at whose feet the myriads of heaven bow, and at whose feet we bow, with a knowledge of His love that the angels cannot know, for they cannot sing with us, "Unto Him that loveth us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood." They stand before God in creation-perfection. We, in redemption-perfection-the perfection of Christ.

"I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore," He says to us. It is this living Christ we celebrate; the coming again of this living Christ we wait for to take us out of this scene of sin and death, to be with Himself forever. F.