We too have forsaken, sometimes denied, the same Master and Friend. We too with true repentance have returned, and are struggling to take up the old allegiance. What is the proof, where is the assurance for which we long more, perhaps, than for anything else in the world, that our repentance has been accepted, that we are once more in the number of those whom He calls His friends? There is one decisive test. Upon all His friends He lays some task. If we have anything to do for Jesus Christ, then we may assure our hearts. Our desertion has been forgiven. He has spoken to us the words of peace, "Behold thy mother, thy brother, thy son." For, let us not forget, all work for others, for the bodies, the minds, the souls of our brethren in the family of God, is capable of being raised from the level of professional drudgery, and of becoming the direct service of Jesus Christ. To work for Christ is the real foretaste of heaven, far removed from the sensuous imagery of some modern hymns. "Be thou ruler," there is the supreme reward, "over ten cities." If we are doing any work for Christ, i.e. for others for Christ's sake, and as part of our service to Him, willingly and cheerfully, then we have the final and convincing proof that we are indeed forgiven, that the offer of renewed allegiance has been accepted, that we have been restored to His Friendship. V THE FOURTH WORD "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani."--ST. MATT. XXVII. 46; ST. MARK XV. 34. There are three peculiar and distinguishing features of this fourth word which our Saviour uttered from His Cross. 1. It is the only one of the Seven which finds a place in the earliest record of our Lord's life, contained in the matter common to St. Matthew and St. Mark. 2. It is the only one which has been preserved to us in the original Aramaic, in the very syllables which were formed by the lips of Christ. 3. It is the only one which He is said to have "shouted" ([Greek text]), under the extremity of some overpowering emotion. In fact, we are here at the very heart of the Passion. In this dread cry I see something of the height of the Divine love, something of the depths of my own sin. The meaning of this dread "cry" is not perhaps so difficult to understand as some have thought. It is to be found in the entire reality of that human nature which the Son of God assumed--not merely a human body, but a human consciousness like our own; in the thoroughness with which He identified Himself with every phase of our experience, the knowledge of personal sin alone excepted.