picture; and if I might take such a metaphor, like a
man in a gallery who is displaying some masterpiece to the eyes of
the beholders, we have to keep ourselves well behind it; and it will
be wise if not even a finger-tip is allowed to steal in front and
come into sight. One condition, I believe, of real power in the
ministration of the Gospel, is that people shall be convinced that
the preacher is thinking not at all about himself, but altogether
about his message. You remember that wonderfully pathetic utterance
from John the Baptist's stern lips, which derives much additional
pathos and tenderness from the character of the man from whom it
came, when they asked him, 'Who art thou?' and his answer was, 'I am
a Voice.' I am a Voice; that is all! Ah, that is the example! We
preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord. We must efface
ourselves if we would proclaim Christ.

But I turn to another direction in which this theme demands
exclusiveness, and I revert to the previous chapter where in the
parallel portion to the words of my text, we find the Apostle very
clearly conscious of the two great streams of expectation and wish
which he deliberately thwarted and set at nought. 'The Jews require a
sign--but we preach Christ crucified. The Greeks seek after wisdom,'
but again, 'we preach Christ crucified.' Now, take these two. They
are representations, in a very emphatic way, of two sets of desires
and mental characteristics, which divide the world between them.

On the one hand, there is the sensuous tendency that wants something
done for it, something to see, something that sense can grasp at; and
so, as it fancies, work itself upwards into a higher region. 'The Jew
requires a sign'--that is, not merely a miracle, but something to
look at. He wants a visible sacrifice; he wants a priest. He wants
religion to consist largely in the doing of certain acts which may be
supposed to bring, in some magical fashion, spiritual blessings. And
Paul opposes to that, 'We preach Christ crucified.' Brethren, the
tendency is strong to-day, not only in those parts of the Anglican
communion where sacramentarian theories are in favour, but amongst
all sections of the Christian Church, in which there is obvious a
drift towards more ornate ritual, and aesthetic services, as means of
attracting to church or chapel, and as more important than
proclaiming Christ. I am free to confess that possibly some of us,
with our Puritan upbringing an