ing-in acts which will move the world. Let us advance! Advance! God calls to advance in close columns, advance touching shoulders, heart touching heart, and ever with hand in the hand that was pierced.

"Arise, Let Us Go Hence"

BY THE REV. DR. B. B TYLER

I have been requested to speak in the place of the beloved Dr. Potts, of Toronto, Canada, the efficient chairman of our International Lesson Committee. By reason of illness Dr. Potts is unable to be with us to-night. I will not be guilty of the unpardonable impertinence of assuming that I can fill the place of Dr. Potts. I simply will stand where he was expected to stand and recite the text which he had decided to recite and make emphatic at this point in the Convention.

The text to which I refer is a part of the thirty-first verse of the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel according to John: Arise, let us go hence.

These are the words of the Master, as you know, to his disciples on Thursday night of passion week, the time at which he gave to them his farewell address, and uttered the prayer for his glorification, for the unity of his immediate friends, and for the oneness of all who would believe in him, and this that the world might believe that God had sent him.

Those of us who came to Rome on the steamers "Romanic" and "Neckar" had experiences such as never before were enjoyed-probably never again will be passed through. We have had twenty-eight days of Sunday-school and missionary conferences and convention almost without interruption-morning, noon, and night. From the time we left Boston and New York until this solemn moment of separation we have been thinking, speaking, praying, and quietly conferring with each other concerning matters of supreme moment to us, to the church, and to the world. In Rome our experiences have certainly been without a parallel. In the city of London, some years ago, on a single Sunday

I heard Charles H. Spurgeon in the morning, Canan Farrar in the afternoon, and Phillips Brooks in the evening.

Lord's day, May 19, 1907, I heard in Rome, F. B. Meyer, at 8:30 in the morning, on "The Glorification of Christ by the Holy Spirit;" at 11:15 I heard Bishop Hartzell, in this room, on "The Divine Purpose Concerning Man;" and at 4 o'clock I heard G. Campbell Morgan, on "The Little Child in the Midst."

of

If you doubt that this great Convention was inspired of God and directed by the Holy Spirit, let me remind you these topics and what they ought to signify to us.

"Arise, let us go hence." On this mount of privilege we have tarried long enough. We have been baptized anew in the ocean of Divine Love. May this prove to be to all of us a veritable "bath of regeneration." It is now time for us to "arise and go." The emphatic word in our Lord's last commission is the word "go."

I marvel that as Bible students and teachers, I marvel that as Sunday-school workers, we have not seen nor heard this little word as we now see and hear it. In a designated mountain in Galilee the risen Lord said to his ambassadors to be, "All authority is given unto me." All authority legislative, all authority judicial, all authority executive, "in heaven and in earth," and because of this, therefore, "go." "Go and make disciples of all the nations."

In obedience to this supreme mandate of the Master let us "Arise and go." And as we go the Holy Spirit will hold before us the glorified Christ. As we go we will carry with us the Divine purpose in respect to man. As we go we will keep the Child in the midst. And by God's help we will train the millions of boys and girls in our Bible schools around the globe to believe that the one great and gracious purpose of the infinite Father, of the ever-present Christ, and of the sustaining Holy Spirit is to bring the world back into the Divine fellowship.

Nor will we go alone, beloved. "Lo, I am with you

always" is the word of the victorious Christ. Let us "arise and go" back to Asia, back to Africa, back to Europe, back to Australia, back to North and South America, back to China, Egypt, India, and Japan, back to the islands of the seas-let us go arm in arm with the loving Christ, the Holy Spirit breathing into us the heavenly inspiration, full of confidence that whatever the experiences may be here, there, yonder, the purpose of the All-Father will be executed. Africa will be redeemed, Asia will be brought home, the Islands of the Sea will be made glad by the Divine presence, China, Egypt, India, and Japan will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the birthplace of Christianity will become again the garden of the Lord. Of this there can be no doubt, God hath promised it.

The Bible is the greatest missionary book. Read the Old Testament and underscore the promises of universal spiritual blessing. Through the seed of Abraham all nations are to be blessed. The earth is to be full of the knowledge of the Lord. Nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. The little stone of Daniel will become a mountain, filling the earth. The kingdom of the prophet's vision will break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms. Jehovah has promised to give to his Son the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for his possession. And the God of the Old Testament says, “Look unto me all the ends of the earth and be ye saved." These are but samples. The law, the prophets, and the Psalms are full of the missionary spirit.

Open the New Testament. The first four books contain the life story of God's great Missionary. God had one Son and he made a foreign missionary of Him! Jesus Christ was the first and the peerless missionary. The book of Acts is a record of missionary efforts and victories. The Epistles of the New Testament are letters written by missionaries to mission churches. The last book of the Bible tells of the

time coming when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

The whole Bible is a record of missionary initiative, missionary progress, and missionary triumphs. We do well in this Fifth World's Sunday School Convention to recognize the missionary character of our text-book and to sound out the missionary note loud, clear, steady, and strong.

For many years I have been attending Conventions, great and small, at home and abroad. I have grown white in the service of our common Lord. This I must now say in these last moments of this great meeting: I never associated with men and women whose goodness, purity, unselfishness, and intelligent consecration was as manifest, without conscious effort, as during these twenty-eight days and nights. I never again can be the man I was when I descended from my mountain home in Colorado to join this pilgrimage and enter into the spirit of this great Convention.

"Arise, let us go hence." You are my personal friends; I would be the personal friend of every man and woman in this audience. I love you deep down in my heart. We separate to-night, never again to meet on this earth, but to meet over yonder in the presence of our loving and loved Lord, to recite throughout eternity the triumphs of his marvelous grace.

God's blessings be upon you every one, here and everywhere, now and evermore, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Architect of the Amphitheatre

WRITTEN BY THE REV. WALTER J. MATHAMS, OF ORKNEY ISLES, TO COMMEM-
ORATE THE DELEGATES' VISIT TO THE COLISEUM

Great Cæsar sent an edict forth
That he would build yet still,

Another amphitheatre,

To please the people's will:

And for an architect he chose,

A youth whose skill and fame,

Had set the streets and homes of Rome
Loud ringing with his name.

With burning pride the young man took
The trust that Cæsar gave,

Raptured that he should be acclaimed
Proud Cæsar's proudest slave:

Then ever at his task he wrought
And ever wrought his best,
From flush of dawn to flash of star,
He knew no stay nor rest.

And as the circle rose and grew

In grandeur, grace, and height,
The citizens of Rome flocked out
To see the wondrous sight;
They praised the splendour of his plan,
The daring of his deed,

They promised that a chaplet fair
Should be his crowning meed.

But in the stillness of the night,
He paced the Appian Way,

To gather with God's hidden saints
To worship and to pray:

For he had learned to love the Christ
Who for his soul had died,

To share the fellowship of such
As served the Crucified.

He passed the hours in holy peace,
With living and with dead,

He sang their simple hymns and heard
The blest Evangel read;

Then backward to his task he went,

A giant in his might,

Like one who had seen God, and still
Was thrilling with the sight.