at the state of the church, and may God give us grace to mourn before Him.  And when we begin to confess the sins of the church, we will begin to feel our own sins as never before.  In five of the epistles to the seven churches in Asia the keynote was “Repent;” there was to be no idea of overcoming and getting a blessing unless they repented.  Let us on behalf of the church of Christ repent, and God will give us courage to feel that He will revive His work.

THAT GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL.

XIII.

1 Corinthians 15:  24-28.—­“Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power.  For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.  For He hath put all things under His feet.  But when He saith, All things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under Him.  And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him, that God may be all in all.”

This will be the grand conclusion of the great drama of the world’s history, and of Christ’s redemption.  There will come a day—­the glory is such we can form no conception of it, the mystery is so deep we can not realize it, but there is a day coming, when the Son shall deliver up the Kingdom that the Father gave Him, and that He won with His blood, and that He hath established and perfected from the throne of His glory.  “He shall deliver up the Kingdom unto the Father.”  The Son Himself shall be subject also unto the Father, “that God may be all in all.”  I cannot understand it—­the ever blessed Son equal with God, from eternity, and through eternity; the ever blessed Son on the throne shall be subject unto the Father; and in some way utterly beyond our comprehension, it shall then be made manifest, as never before, that God is all in all.  It is this that Christ has been working for; it is this that He is working for to-day in us; it is this that He thought it worth while to give His blood for; it is this that His heart is longing for in each of us; this is the very essence and glory of Christianity, “that God may be all in all.”  And now, if this is what fills the heart of Christ; if this expresses the one end of the work of Christ, then, if I want to have the spirit of Christ in me, the motto of my life must be:  Everything made subject, and swallowed up in Him, “that God may be all in all.”  What a triumph it would be if the Church were fighting really with that banner floating over her!  What a life ours could be if that were really our banner!  To serve God fully, wholly, only, to have Him all in all!  How it would ennoble, and enlarge, and stimulate our whole being!  I am working, I am fighting, “that God may be all in all;”