To the Christian no subject for consideration can afford more pleasure than that of the deep love of Christ.

It is with this theme I would engage your thoughts for a little. May our occupation with it refresh and energize both writer and reader.

John 13:1 is the first of the scriptures to which we shall have to turn in the course of our meditation:

"Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having LOVED HIS OWN WHICH WERE IN THE WORLD, HE LOVED THEM UNTO THE END."

The hour of all hours was nearing. That for which our Lord has come was about to be accomplished. He was to suffer and to die, and the path of life led through death to the Father for whose glory He had come into the world. He would be "out of the world" while His own were still treading their pathway through it. He would be with the Father in all the delights of that home of joys eternal, but they would be left in it for His pleasure.

"Out of the world," "With the Father." The two expressions give His place both with regard to the place of our journeying and with regard to our home. He is not here. One of the Christian poets has said:

"There has one object been revealed on earth Which might commend the place, But now 'tis gone-Jesus is with the Father."

Let us not forget it. We are in the world of our Saviour's rejection and murder. He has been cast out and crucified. And the call to those who love Him sounds both loud and clear, "Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest, it is defiled." The world seeks to hide the fact by its pleasures and its pursuits; it attracts by its inventions and developments, but it is only a judged scene; it is as in a condemned cell awaiting execution of its sentence, and the hour of its doom is at hand. In longsuffering God waits in order that He may save and bless all who repent and believe the gospel, but the time of its judgment tarries not.

On the other hand Jesus our Lord is "with the Father." He is there for His loved ones. He has won for them a place of nearness and of dearness measured only by His own place. His Father is our Father. His God is our God. His Home is our Home. And already He would have us to enjoy the position of favor into which He has introduced us. With this end in view the Holy Ghost is given to us, the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, "Abba Father." And in order that we may be able to enjoy the fellowship with the Father which is our privilege, the Lord while on high serves His own in His glorious Advocacy, Intercession and Priesthood.

Yes, "having loved his own which are in the world, He loves them unto the end." His is a

PERMANENT LOVE.

He loved, He loves, He will love. As Jehovah said of His earthly people Israel, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." And what joy this is, that His love continues unto the end. It abides perfect until all that it set itself to do shall be carried out. He is what a little colored boy once described Him to be, An "Ail-the- way-home Saviour." He will never cease to love and care for His own. When in the home to which He has gone and to which He is guiding them, His love will take a different character in its expression. It will be in rest then, and He will "rest in His love, and joy over us with singing" then, as later on He will over Jerusalem. Now it is in activity because the objects of it are in a world of contrariety, and their need calls for ceaseless attention and service. And this is given "unto the end."

Blessed indeed it is to be numbered among the company thus called "His own." This is an elastic term embracing every one who believes upon Him in this glad gospel day. Wherever in the world there is one of these, there is His love finding an object of its tenderest thought and solicitude. "His own… .in the world" were but few in number in the time spoken of in John 13:1, but they are daily being added to, and the love to each is as great as ever. His love is infinite, inexhaustible, eternal. And all His own are the objects of it (let us remember this), and will be until the last step of their pilgrim journey has been trodden and the threshold of the Father's house is crossed and they go no more out for ever.

Now let us turn to Romans 8:34:

"It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."

Here we find what we may call the

PERSISTENT LOVE

of Christ. As we have seen, He loves for ever and for ever. Here we are shown that His love unchanged persists with its objects amid all that opposes and threatens them in all their earthly course.

We should dwell in this Love Square, for there the sun is ever shining. It is this 34th verse to which I refer. There are four sides or parts to it. Each presents an expression of the love of Christ.

1.-"It is Christ that died,"

2.-"Yea rather, that is risen again,"

3.-"Who is even at the right hand of God,"

4.-"Who also maketh intercession for us."

He died for us, He lives for us, He is on high for us, He makes intercession for us.

Love marked Him in death, He suffered for us to clear us from all that was against us.

Love marked Him in resurrection, He hastened to send to His disciples the tidings of the spoil He had won for them, telling them, "I ascend to my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God," and on that same day in the evening coming into their midst and saying unto them, "Peace be unto you," and showing unto them His hands and His feet, the marks of His suffering when He "fought the fight alone" to secure eternal blessedness for them.

Love marks Him now at the right hand of God, He has sent thence the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to guide His own into all truth and to empower them for walk and for service here, uniting them to Himself by an eternal bond.

And love marks Him in His occupation with His own as He makes intercession for them unceasingly. In this He never slumbers nor sleeps, and never forgets the weakest and most wayward of those who have received Him as their Saviour and Lord.

Dwell there in Love Square then. Let the sunshine of His love fall upon you. Keep yourselves in it. Do as an old Christian used to exhort his Christian friends to do, "Sit still, and let the Lord love you." Revel in His love. Think not of your love to Him. That is variable as the weather. At times it may wax a little warm but soon it chills off. It can never be depended upon for a single hour. It is not worth troubling about. It is His love to us to which the Spirit of God ever directs our gaze.

Who shall separate us from that love? The apostle Paul challenges all creation, in the words of our Scripture:Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height, depth, and any other creature. All are thought of, and all are declared as unable to affect the persistency of the love of Christ. Nothing can divert its flow, nothing can deflect it from its purpose. Inglis Fleming

(To be continued, D. V.)