December 1

For this cause he is the mediator of the new testament. — Heb. ix. 15.

It is finished. — JOHN xix. 30.

WITH these words Christ closes his work of sacrifice. He had offered himself as "a lamb without spot and without blemish;" and thenceforth, wrote one to whom that one offering was the spell that at once broke his hard heart and transformed his life, "this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God." And yet his work had not wholly ended. We turn from the scene on Calvary, and a little later hear him saying to his disciples, "Go ye," build, preach, and suffer, "and lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." The work of sacrifice is ended only that the work of founding, inspiring and transforming shall begin. "Ye shall be witnesses unto me," he says; and then we read, "And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them."

So he means it to be with us. Ah! how often, when the burden is heavy and the way lonely, we would fain say of all that makes life a labor and a pain, "It is finished." And so we shall; but not, surely, to pass on into an inglorious ease. As with the best lives and the noblest powers competency rises side by side with the task, so it will be with us and with our work. One day the cross-bearing will be done, and we shall be privileged to say, "It is finished."

Henry C. Potter

"It is finished!" Oh, what pleasure

Do these precious words afford!

Heavenly blessings without measure

Flow to us from Christ the Lord.

JONATHAN EVANS.