July 19

He have known the Father. — 1 JOHN ii. 13.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. — JOHN xvii. 25, 26.

SO ends the tender intercessory prayer of our Lord. First it was the "Father," then the "holy Father," and now it is the "righteous Father" to whom the appeal is made, — righteous to condemn the faithless and to justify the believer, — ready to impute his righteousness to those who rely on the atonement of his Son, and to implant that righteousness in those who seek conformity to his image.

But the unbelieving world knows not God as the fountain of forgiving love. This knowledge can be communicated only by one who knows the Father as the Son knows him, in the riches of his grace and glory. Christ comes bearing a royal commission, and what he is sent to do he will surely accomplish. To all who receive him he will make immediate and continued revelations of what is implied in the Father's saving, sanctifying, glorifying name, — once a name which the trembling worshipper scarcely dared to pronounce, but now a name inspiring confidence, love, and joy; once a name expressive of eternal being only, but now of eternal love. God, therefore, may be known, not as "the power without us that works for righteousness," but as a personal Father, revealing himself to our consciousness and to our affection.

Moses S. Hoge

Regard thine own eternal prayer, And send a peaceful answer down. To us thy Father's name declare; Unite and perfect us in one.

C. WESLEY.