ive, their only rivalry who
shall first carry the tidings of salvation to heathen lands, I dare to
say those holy women never took such bounding steps, nor sped on their
way with such haste before. And never, I fancy, did angels leave the
gates of heaven so fast behind them, pass suns and stars in downward
flight on such rapid wing, as when they hasted to earth with the
tidings of great joy. May we be as eager to accept salvation as they
were to announce it! May the love of God find a responsive echo within
our bosoms! Would that our wishes for His glory corresponded to His
for our good, and that His good will toward us awoke a corresponding
good will toward Him--felt in hearts glowing with zeal for Christ's
cause, and expressed in lives wholly consecrated to His service.

In studying this, we shall now consider the persons to whom good will
is expressed.

XI.

THE PERSONS TO WHOM GOOD WILL IS EXPRESSED.

It is expressed to men--to all men; so that if we are finally lost,
the blame as well as the bane is ours. God has no ill will to us, or
to any. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; nor is He
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to Him, and
live. His good will embraces the world.

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful
of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him?" So said the royal
psalmist. And, in a sense, time should only have deepened the
astonishment which this question expresses. For man's ideas of the
magnificence of the heavens have grown with the course of ages; and
though the stars in the transparent atmosphere of Palestine shone with
a brilliancy unknown to us, our conceptions of the heavens are grander
and more true than David's--thanks to the discoveries of modern
science. As navigators, so soon as by help of the mariner's compass
they could push their bold prows into untravelled seas, were ever
adding new continents to the land and new islands to the ocean, so,
since the invention of the telescope, science has been discovering new
stars in the heavens; filling up their empty spaces with stellar
systems, and vastly enlarging the limits of creation. And since every
new orb has added to the lustre of Jehovah's glory, another world to
His kingdom, another jewel to His crown, these discoveries, by
exalting God still higher, have added point and power to the old