for some supplementary manifestation; so that, when the Star of Bethlehem shone out in the sky of Palestine, there were men looking heavenward with expectant eyes at midnight.  From that hour to this, and among pagan tribes of the lowest moral perception, the heralds of the Great Revelation have found the thought of another existence active though confused.  They have found everywhere a platform already erected, like that on which Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill, and on which they could stand and say to heathen communities, “Him whom ye ignorantly worship declare I unto you!  That future life and immortality which your darkened eyes and hungry souls have been groping and hungering for, bring we to you, bright as the sun, in this great gospel of Divine Love.”  Had the Star of Bethlehem appeared a century earlier, it might not have met an upturned eye.  If the Saviour of Mankind had come into the world in Solomon’s day, not even a manger might have been found to cradle His first moments of human life; no Simeon waiting in the temple to greet the great salvation He brought to our race in His baby hands.

Here, then, commences, as it were, the central era of the soul’s training in time.  Here heaven opened upon it the full sunlight and sunwarmth of its glorious life and immortality.  Here fell upon its opening faculties the dews and rays and spiritual influences which were to shape its being and destiny.  Here commenced such co-working to this end as can find no measure nor simile in any other sphere of co-operative activities in the world below or above.  Here the trinity of man and the Trinity of the Godhead came into a co-action and fellowship overpassing the highest outside wonder of the universe.  And all this co-working, fellowship, and partnership has been repeated in the experience of every individual soul that has been fitted for this great immortality.  Here, too, this co-working is a law, not an incident; most marvellously, mightily, and minutely a law, as legislatively and executively as that which we have seen acting upon the development of the flower.  Had not the great apostle, who was caught up into the third heavens and heard things unutterable, spoken of this law in such bold words, it would seem rash and irreverent in us to approach so near to its sublime revelation.  Not ours but his they are; and it is bold enough in us to repeat them.  He said it:  that He, to whose name every knee should bow, and every tongue confess; to whom belonged and who should possess and rule all the kingdoms of the earth, “was made under the law,” not of Moses, not of human nature only, but under this very law of CO-WORKING.  Through this the world was to be regenerated and filled with His life and light.  Through this a new creation was to be enfolded in the bosom of His glory, of grander dimensions and of diviner attributes than that over which the morning stars sang at the birth of time.  Said this law to the individual soul, “Work out your salvation