This is a deeply solemn matter. It concerns us all, because we are all prone to slip away from communion with a living Christ and sink into dead routine. Hence the practical power of the words, "Go forth therefore unto _Him_." It is not, Go forth from one system to another--from one set of opinions to another--from one company of people to another. No; but, Go forth from every thing that merits the appellation of a camp, "_to Him_" who "suffered without the gate." The Lord Jesus is as thoroughly outside the gate now as He was when He suffered there eighteen centuries ago. What was it that put Him outside? "The religious world" of that day; and the religious world of that day is, in spirit and principle, the religious world of the present moment. The world is the world still. "There is nothing new under the sun." Christ and the world are not one. The world has covered itself with the cloak of Christianity; but it is only in order that its hatred to Christ may work itself up into more deadly forms underneath. Let us not deceive ourselves. If we will walk with a rejected Christ, we must be a rejected people. If our Master "suffered _without_ the gate," we cannot expect to reign _within_ the gate. If we walk in His footsteps, whither will they lead us? Surely, not to the high places of this Godless, Christless world. "His path, uncheered by earthly smiles, Led only to the cross." He is a despised Christ--a rejected Christ--a Christ outside the camp. Oh, then, dear Christian reader, let us go forth to Him, bearing His reproach. Let us not bask in the sunshine of this world's favor, seeing it crucified, and still hates with an unmitigated hatred, the beloved One to whom we owe our present and eternal all, and who loves us with a love which many waters cannot quench. Let us not, directly or indirectly, accredit that thing which calls itself by His sacred name, but, in reality, hates His Person, hates His ways, hates His truth, hates the bare mention of His advent. Let us be faithful to an absent Lord. Let us live for Him who died for us. While our consciences repose in His blood, let our heart's affections entwine themselves around His Person; so that our separation from "this present evil world" may not be merely a matter of cold principle, but an affectionate separation, because the object of our affections is not here. May the Lord deliver us from the influence of that consecrated, prudential selfishness so common at the present time, which would not be without religiousness, but is the enemy of the cross of Christ. What we want, in order to make a successful stand against this terrible form of evil, is not peculiar views, or special principles, or curious theories, or cold intellectual accuracy: we want a deep-toned devotedness to the Person of the Son of God, a whole-hearted consecration of ourselves--body, soul, and spirit--to His service, an earnest longing for His glorious advent. These, my