action, and does not bow itself before Him, and wherever there are hands that labour, or feet that run, at tasks and in paths self-chosen and unconsecrated by reference to our Father in heaven, no matter how great and beautiful subsidiary lustres may light up their deeds, the very heart of them all is transgression of the law of God.  For this, and nothing else or less, is His law:  ’Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.’  I do not charge you with crimes.  You know how far it would be right to charge you with vices. I do not charge you with anything; but I pray you to come with me and confess:  ‘We all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’

I suppose I need not dwell upon the difficulty of getting a lodgment for this conviction in men’s hearts.  There is no sadder, and no more conclusive proof, of the tremendous power of sin over us, than that it has lulled us into unconsciousness, hard to be broken, of its own presence and existence.  You remember the old stories—­I suppose there is no truth in them, but they will do for an illustration—­about some kind of a blood-sucking animal that perched upon a sleeping man, and with its leathern wings fanned him into deeper drowsiness whilst it drew from him his life-blood.  That is what this hideous Queen does for men.  She robes herself in a dark cloud, and sends out her behests from obscurity.  And men fancy that they are free whilst all the while they are her servants.  Oh, dear brethren! you may call this theology, but it is a simple statement of the facts of our condition.  ’Sin hath reigned.’

And now turn to the other picture, ‘Grace might reign.’  Then there is an antagonistic power that rises up to confront the widespread dominion of this anarch of old.  And this Queen comes with twenty thousand to war against her that has but ten thousand on her side.

Again I say, let us understand our terms.  I suppose, there are few of the keywords of the New Testament which have lost more of their radiance, like quicksilver, by exposure in the air during the centuries than that great word Grace, which is always on the lips of this Apostle, and to him had music in its sound, and which to us is a piece of dead doctrine, associated with certain high Calvinistic theories which we enlightened people have long ago grown beyond, and got rid of.  Perhaps Paul was more right than we when his heart leaped up within him at the very thought of all which he saw to lie palpitating and throbbing with eager desire to bless men, in that great word.  What does he mean by it?  Let me put it into the shortest possible terms.  This antagonist Queen is nothing but the love of God raying out for ever to us inferior creatures, who, by reason of our sinfulness, have deserved something widely different.  Sin stands there, a hideous hag, though a queen; Grace stands here, ’in all her gestures dignity and love,’ fair and self-communicative, though a sovereign.  The love of God in exercise to sinful men:  that is what the New Testament means by grace.  And is it not a great thought?