If we would understand the blessing of the Gospel, we must begin with the conviction that the one great object for which this whole dispensation of human society exists is that complete righteousness, the glory of the Divine righteousness, may be established in it, and that nothing but this can promote either the glory of God or the happiness of man. Read the Psalms with this consideration in your mind, and I think you will be deeply impressed with the fact that every prayer to God embodies a prayer for the establishment of right against wrong; so that the Psalmist only dares to pray for himself so far as the deliverances and successes he prays for are in harmony with the righteous will and purposes of God. Every prayer is in the spirit of the exquisite Psalm of this evening: “Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: for I flee unto Thee to hide me. Teach me to do the thing that pleaseth Thee, for Thou art my God: let Thy loving spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousness.” We have no right to ask or expect help on any other condition than that; for the one supreme work which God is working day by day, and year by year, and century by century, is the realization in human life of what that righteousness and judgment are, which are the foundation of His throne. Advent reminds us, in the first place, of this grand and simple fact, and bids us make it the starting point of all our Christian thought and hope; but it gives us the further assurance that God is not only carrying forward that work of righteousness now, but that He will complete it hereafter. It repeats that message which St. Paul proclaimed to the world at large, through the Athenians, that “God hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man Whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” That was the culmination of St. Paul’s Gospel to the people of Athens. That is the culmination of the message of the Gospel to ourselves at the present day. What do we need more than all at this moment? What are our minds full of but the dreadful spectacle before us of the whole earth filled with violence, of an awful outbreak of hatred, unrighteousness, injustice, wanton cruelty, and barbarity? The words of Isaiah read this morning are exactly applicable to the spectacle of Belgium and France at this moment: “Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.” Might not our hearts almost fail us as we contemplate such a volcanic eruption of injustice and violence after nineteen centuries of Christianity? But our hearts will not fail us, any more than the heart of Isaiah failed him in his day. And why? Because of this assurance--an assurance deep down in our souls--that