the metaphor of corner-stone and building will
fail to express the reality of our relation to Him, for our corner-stone
has in it an infinite vitality which rises up through all the courses of
the living stones, and moulds each 'into an immortal feature of
loveliness and perfection.' So it shall be for each individual, though
here the appropriation of the perfect gift is imperfect. So it shall be
in reference to the history of the world. Christ is its centre and
foundation-stone, and as His coming makes the date from which the
nations reckon, and all before it was in the deepest sense preparatory
to His incarnation, all which is after it is in the deepest sense the
appropriating of Him and the developing of His work. The multitudes
which went before and that followed cried, saying, 'Blessed is He that
cometh in the name of the Lord.'

'THE WHOLE FAMILY'

'The whole family in heaven and earth.'--Eph. iii. 15.

Grammatically, we are driven to recognise that the Revised Version is
more correct than the Authorised, when it reads 'every family,' instead
of 'the whole family.' There is in the expression no reference to the
thought, however true it is in itself, that the redeemed in heaven and
the believers on earth make up but one family. The thought rather is,
that, as has been said, 'the father makes the family,' and if any
community of intelligent beings, human, or angelic, bears the great name
of family, the great reason for that lies 'in God's paternal
relationship.'

But my present purpose in selecting this text is not so much to speak of
_it_ as to lay hold of the probably incorrect rendering in the
Authorised Version, as suggesting, though here inaccurately, the thought
that believers struggling here and saints and angels glorious above 'but
one communion make,' and in the light of that thought, to consider the
meaning of the Lord's Supper. I am, of course, fully conscious that in
thus using the words, I am diverting them from their original purpose;
but possibly in this case, open confession, _my_ open confession, may
merit your forgiveness and at all events, it, in some degree, brings me
my own.

I. Consider the Lord's Supper as a sign that the Church on earth is a
family.

The Passover was essentially a family feast, and the Lord's Supper,
which was grafted on it, was plainly meant to be the same. The domestic
character of the rite shines clearly out in the precious simplicity of
the arrangement