could achieve its destiny only if He led it, only if it
yielded itself to His mind and ways. And those who are attracted to Him,
and see reason to believe that the hope of the world lies in the
universal adoption of His mind and ways, are formed into one solid body
or community. They labour for the same ends, are governed by the same
laws, and whether they know one another or not they have the most real
sympathy and live for one cause. Being drawn to Christ, we enter into
abiding fellowship with all the good who have laboured or are labouring
in the cause of humanity. We take our places in the everlasting kingdom,
in the community of those who shall see and take part in the great
future of mankind and the growing enlargement of its destiny. We are
hereby entered among the living, and are joined to that body of mankind
which is to go on and which holds the future--not to an extinct party
which may have memories, but has no hopes. In sin, in selfishness, in
worldliness, individualism reigns, and all profound or abiding unity is
impossible. Sinners have common interests only for a time, only as a
temporary guise of selfish interests. Every man out of Christ is really
an isolated individual. But passing into Christ's kingdom we are no
longer isolated, abandoned wretches stranded by the stream of time, but
members of the undying commonwealth of men in which our life, our work,
our rights, our future, our association with all good, are assured.

2. It is a _universal_ kingdom. "I will draw _all_ men unto Me." The one
rational hope of forming men into one kingdom shines through these
words. The idea of a universal monarchy has visited the great minds of
our race. They have cherished their various dreams of a time when all
men should live under one law and possibly speak one language, and have
interests so truly in common that war should be impossible. But an
effectual instrument for accomplishing this grand design has ever been
wanting. Christ turns this grandest dream of humanity into a rational
hope. He appeals to what is universally present in human nature. There
is that in Him which every man needs,--a door to the Father; a visible
image of the unseen God; a gracious, wise, and holy Friend. He does not
appeal exclusively to one generation, to educated or to uneducated, to
Orientals or to Europeans alone, but to man, to that which we have in
common with the lowest and the highest, the most primitive and most
highly develope