The writer to the Hebrews affirms that Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." Paul exclaims to the Corinthians, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." Christ was the same; yet before the generation that he left upon the earth had passed away his relation to the earth had changed. Thus does the work of Christ shape itself afresh to meet the needs of every generation. Compare together the Christ of the first century, the Christ of the thirteenth, the Christ of the sixteenth, and the Christ of the nineteenth centuries, and you would hardly think they all represent the same personality. Christ is always the same. His work is always substantially the same; but because the ages change, the method of this work changes. The same needs always exist in the heart of humanity, but in different ages these needs manifest themselves in different ways, and are to be met by different instrumentalities. And, further, it is not merely because the needs of humanity continually change their aspect that the work of Christ is ever changing. No age is a recipient alone. There is no action without reaction Each age contributes something to the work of Christ. It adds new forces, new methods, new machinery. Its spirit, and by this I mean its real, vital, energizing spirit, becomes united with the spirit of Christ, as it is present and active in the world. In considering the relation of Christ to the present age, we have then to consider it under two aspects. We have to consider each as a giver, and each as a receiver. We may help to make this double relation clear by saying that Christ is present to this nineteenth century at once as a problem and as a power. No questions have stirred more deeply the heart of the age than those which have to do with the person and the office of Christ. The answers to these questions shape the aspect in which he stands to the age, and become therefore parts and elements of the power by which he acts upon the world. But this statement does not exhaust the twofold relation of which I speak. That which the age gives to Christ is not merely its thought about him. The secular thought and life of the age bring their contribution, they are themselves a contribution to him. They furnish one part of that complete organism of which Christ furnishes the other. If the age, in any fundamental forms of its thought and life, seems to stand in opposition to Christ, this apparent opposition is only the antithesis of elements which belong together. If what we call the spirit of the age seems, in any respect, to stand in opposition to the spirit of Christ, this only shows the need that each has of the other. The spirit of this nineteenth century needs the spirit of Christ, and the spirit of Christ needs the spirit of this nineteenth century. It is not then merely that the thought of the age clears away something of the obscurity and the misconception that have gathered