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Qriginal copias in prii)tad papar covars ara filmad baginning with tha front covar and anding on tha laat paga with a printad or Jlhiatratad impraa- aion, or tha back covar whan appropriata. All othar original copias ara filmad baginning on tha first paga with a printad or lllustratad impras- aion. and anding on tha last paga with a printad or lllustratad imprassion. L'axamplaira filmA fut rtproduit grica i la gf«nirosit« da: . Tin Uwit \^ -'* 1.0 1.1 2.8 3.2 ■ 63 ;*u .■ ■ - 1^ 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 \^ y1Pf=l_IEd IN/HGE jnc 1653 East Main Street Rochester. New York U609 ^7^^y 482 - 0300 - Phone M6) 288 - 5989 - Fax >> . USA •X- {T?* rn .^•■>r X r» 3* 7 tt.v' S 9< m The Gloriqus Gospel : A SERMON- PREACHED AT NEW' LOWELL ON '14th UA RCfU 1886,, - ..-.r' bY LLIAM M ACLAREN, D.D., Profesior of Syitemntic Theolbuy in Knox College,: h- AlToronto. i PUHUSHED BY REQUEST OF THE, SESSION. pREspYTERiAN Printing and Publishing CompanV (C. BbACKBTT ROBINSON). ■■: % a •a^il • M4 It'"' \ ^> • • V, .•?P'<'; » '(Ci .' . «* t > w4, « , '*•'* , * K ,f* ^^ I. %\ 1 r 1 -A ' ■■•-. 1' r J, ' '' - / / ^ * 4 mlil^M.i. a V, y- The Glorious Gospel : ^ /t ♦\ •'*i ■ A S E R M O N PREACHED AT NEW LOWELL ON 14th MARCH, 1886, r BY WILLIAM MACLAREN; D.D., Professor 0/ Systematic Thtt^gy in Knox ColUfie, ^oxonio. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SESSION. • / d TORONTO: .Presbyterian Printing and Publishing Company (C. BLACKBTT ROBINSON). U- 7 ■/ > 5. ■ ^' •■■•'■.,. w>* ■ ^/ THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL: A SKRMON. I Tim. I. II i "Th? glorioas Gospel of the blesied God, which wai committed to my trust." / The gospel must be something very important. When Christ was leaving our world the commission which He gave to His followers was to preach the gospel unto e^cxy creature. In the Apocalypse, we read of an arn^el flying in the midst of Heaven having the everlasting^ gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth. Thfe Apostle Paul made it his boast that from Jerusalem rQlmd about unto iy|j|||etim, he had fully preached the gospel. And when j?8S the, Baptist sent from his prisqJrJ two of his disciples unto Christ to ask, "Art thou he I that should come, or do we look for anqther ? " the answei* returned is memorable : " Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see : the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up," and, last and most wonderful of all, ** the poor have the gospel preached to themJ" What, then, is the gospel? The word, as you are aware, means good news or glad tidings. And the gospel here is the good news of salvation to the perishing thrpugh Jesus Christ. This subject suggests three points for consideration, viz: What the gospel presupposes, the gospel message itself, and the manner in which it is here characterized. I, What the gospel presupposes. It presupposes man's state of sin and ruin. V^^hat is good news to us depends largely on our state and circumstances. The tidings which fill one man with joy, eXcite no emotion m ^^fj^^^^.^^ \ another. The disease is what ogives vahie to t»jc "remedy. They that are whole need nof a physician, but they tHat are sick. It is man's condition as a sinnrr whicli makes the announcement of salvation througli Christ, koocI news to him. The elements in our natural condition of sin ami ruin may he summed up in three words— depravity, guilt, and unrighteousness, i. n By depravity we mean that all men have, naturally a bias towards wrong-doing which leads them to ruji »nto sin, so that there is not a just man upon tjie earth that doeth good and sinneth not. We speak of this corrupt ^ bias as total depravity, not in the sense that men are so bad that they cannot become worse, but tftat they are sa bad that, if left to themselves, . they will never become better. To discover that we are thus depraved and have a corrupt bias towards sin, we do not need the teachings of revelation : we have only to open our eyes and ponder facts which are patent to observation. Our own experi- ence shows that it is easier to do wrong thati to do right. We need not go beyond the testimony of our own con- sciousness. We all find it easier to fall below than t_o come up to our own moral standard. We know what is right, and we do what is wrajig. None of us can deny that we have run into sin. \ ^ \ \ And how is it with your neighbours ? Does not obser- vation show that they too suffer from the same moral disease as reigns in your ow^ heart ? In the entire circle of your acquaintance you cannot find one who^aS escaped the ravages rf)f sin. They all suffer from this terrible Interrogate history, and what witness does it give to the condition of the race in bygone ages ? All down the centuries, the same sad testimony comes tous. AU have i sinned and come short of the glory of God. History makes known no period since man tasted of the forbidden fruit, in which men have not been estranged from God and i defiled by sin. A survey of the conditiqii of mankind in ' our day m other regions of the earth, reveals with equal clear- •%;* ^ •«te ■■'^ ■ ^/ f ■.. ■ ness the depravity of tlic hiiman rac^. We are now prac- tically acquuinttul with almost every variety of the human family. Travellers have vinited the most remote and inac- <:e88ible re^^ions, • and have matle us familiar with races previously unknown. They have made us accjuainted witii peoples of strange manners and customs, speakinj^ un- known langua^'es and . « p ■■ k ;■;.- / ■; . "^••■' ■■■■.,:'■ ■ ■' *' ■■■> ': A -^ III- senses enabled them to speak. We are shut up^ to the conclusion that these events occurred, and that our Lord is risen indeed. In what other way can we account for the testimony of these witnesses ? t , j Shall we suppose that these men were so overwhelmed with the terrible death of their trusted leader and beloved Lord, that they fell an easy prey to some sort of hysterical excitement which led them, honestly enough, to substitute mere imaginations for sober matters of fact? Are we to believe that the disciples were in a condition so nearly bordering on insanity that they were carried away with a hallucination, and truly believed that they had seen their Lord aliv? after His death, and had conversed with Hiin, while there was no foundation for such a belief "J u this insane notion seems to have adhered to them to^the very end of their life; for it is certain that to the end ot their course they preached the de^th a;id the resurrection _ of Christ. But how does this theory harmonize with the facts ? Look at the writings which these men have left us. All persons competent to judge will admit that the entire range of literature suppHes no writings more remark- able for sobriety of language and strong commpn sense. The man who ascribes such writings to persons carrie^d away with an insane delusion, writes himself down as unable to distinguish sober-minded narratives from the v outpouriiigs of a" distempered imagination. But if these men are acknowledged to have been honestly carried away with a delusion, how did those who ;nust have been ht candidates for an asylum impose their hallucitiations on others? This thev must have done with remarkable rapidity. Within a' few weeks, their converts in Jerusalem were numbered by thousands. Many of the priestly order, whose pride and worldly interests tended to array them against the gospel, yielded to the evidence of Christ s resurrection, and we soon find that ?' a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." In a short time Christianity worked its way into every part of the civilized world ; and in three centuries it mounted the throne of the Caesars. Arid at the present momeiit there is no hation s ■,■ ' exerting arty appreciable influence in the affairs of the world which has nof accepted the reality of Christ's death and resurrection. What we are required to beheve is that the honest delusions of a few unlettered men have, by the simple power of moral suasion, apart from worldly influence, been imposed as realities upon all the most intelligent nations of the world. We make bold to afBrm that to represent the triumphs of Christianity as resting on "no more solid foundation, is a libel on the human race. Shall we then accept the alternative supposition ? Must we hold that the founders of the Christian Church . deliberately banded themselves together to impose on the world what they knew to be falsehoods ? They could not have been mistaken when they kjOfirmed that they had seen Christ alive after His crucifixion. They were intimately acquainted with him, arid in every way qualified to testify to His identity. Are we to suppose that'the§e men lent themselves to a great fraud, and that they endeavoured to palm off on the world a. resurrection which they knexy had not occurred? ' V^^ , , i rx Again, we say, stiidy the writings they have lett us. Mark their denunciations of untruthfulness, lying and deceit, their assertion that no Har shall inherit the kingdom of heaven, and ask, Is this the probable language of men whose entire teaching is b^sed on wilful fabrication ? But, if you will have it, that this is mijy the garb of hypocrisy assumed to cover the very thing denounced, then note the high morality in every department which pervades their writings. Nothing higher than the morality of the New Testament has ever been enunciated. It is not too. much to affirm that the world's morality has touched its highest watermark in its pages. Skeptics borrow from it, unac- knowLedged, the morality which they substitute for the gospel system. And we are asked in the name of reason to believe that this matchless ifioral system isjhe product of men whose whole Hfe was a lie, and whose entire preach- ing rested on a wilful falsehood! " Do men gather grapes ofethorns, orfigs of thistles?" We venture to affirm that of all the miracles recorded in the Bible, there is none sq •a^r ,X- ■"'■■ ■ II i ■l"- ■• ■ -'%■:. , ■■ . :'■ '•,.10. ■ • •■ difficult for a thoughtful mind to accept, as it is to believe that such morality could have come from such a source. And it must not be forgotten that the early heralds of Christianity endured bitter and relentless persecution, because they taught the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is believed that only one of the apostles escaped the crown of martyrdom, and he was banished to "the isle called Patmos for the Word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ." As their offence in the eyes of their enemies was that they preached Jesus and the resurrection, they could at any moment have arrested the hand of persecution by/admitting jthat. the resurrect ioh of Jesus Christ had nevec' taken place, fiiit no such admis- sion ever fell from their lips. . They went everywhere, pro- claiming the fact, and took joyfully reproach, persecution and death itself, rather than deny that Christ died fot our sins and rose again for our justification. But it may be said that it is eighteen centuries since Christ is alleged to have died and risen again, and how do we know that the testimony given to these facts has come down to us correctly ? We'answer that the books in which they are recorded have been handed down to us as other ancient writings have been transmitted, and whatever would cast doubt on their purity and authenticity can be alleged with greater force against nearly all the literary remains of the early ages. This, indeed, is greatly under- stating the truth. For these books werer esteemed sacred writings by the early Church, and were preserved with special care. As early as the second and third centuries they were translated into various languages, and they have thus come down to us through Inafiydistihct channels. They have also^een alluded to, qupited and commented upon to such an exteiit by early Christian authors, that some have gone so far as to say that Were all the Bibles in the world lost, the Scriptures could be restpred from the quotations which have found their way ipto literature. "'They have also been quoted and referred to frequently by the ancient opponents of Christianity. There are certainly no jincient writings which have come down to us forwliOse /ii .."la&saBSKS----." .»■ ., ■v- • II authenticity and purity we can adduce evidence, which, in fulness and strenffth,even approximates that upon which we accept the books of the New Testament. We have, moreover, monumental evidence wliich assures us that the death and rfesurre'ction of Christ have been accepted by the whole Christian Church from the beginning as fundamental facts. We may assert, indeed, that the Christian Church is so dependent on these facts that its existence is inconceivable apart from a belief in them; arid the Church itself becomes a monument that the Christian community from the first accepted the reality of Christ's death and resurrection. Paul, writing to the- Corinthians, says, *• For I delivered Hinto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures ;' and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.'' In full harmony with this statement, we find ^ that the death of Christ has been celebrated in the Lord's Supper in all the centuries from the Apostolic age until our own day. At the dawn of the Christian dispensation, the disciples came together on the first day of the week to break bread, and probably scarcely a week has passed since that time in which companies of believers have not met to show forth the Lord's death in this monumental observance. ' And what rneans the Christian Sabbath ? We do not observe our weekly rest, like the Jews, on the seventh day> Immediately after the resurrection of Christ, the disciples ~ began to assemble for religious services on the first day of the week, in memory of their Lord's victory over death ; and before -the close of the New Testament Canon, the first day of the week had become fafniliarly known as **the Lord's day;*' and without the break of a single week, that day ha^ been observed by the Christian Church, all down ^Me digos.' ' ;■■;.■"','..■■■.'■■■ The Lord's - Supper and the Christian Sabbath are monumenta^l evidence that a belief in the death and resur- rection of Christ was not thrust upon the Church in later ages, but has distinguished it from the first> ^ Wherever ■■ ; ■ ■-'■•:' ■ ^.* ■ ■"• ' ■ -. ■■•■' ■ ■ ■ • they have h^hii observed, they proclairri the faith of the ' community observing them, They speak with the same voice in the first, in the second, in the third, in the fifteenth and in the nineteenth century. Wherever they ate observed, they declare the beHet of the Christian Church that Jesus died and rose again. We do not here deal with musty records, or obscure historical problems, but with monumental observances which have coilfessedly come down unchanged from the days of those who proclaimed themselves witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are carried back and placed by them among the origi-- nal disciples of Christ, and mark the conviction which events left on the minds of the earliest Christian generation. But, if Jesus died and rose again ; if we accept as true, - facts lor which such overwhelming evidence is adduced, what follows? God has visibly set His seal upon Jesus Christ, and has sanctioned all tne claims which He put^ . forth for Himself, or which He warranted others to put forth on His behalf. What view do we thus reach of Christ's person and Work ? Who is He, and what has He done? He was truly a man ; He called Himself the Son of Man. He was linked to us by the possession of our nature. He- also claimed to be the Son of God, making Himself equal with God; He could say, *' land my father are one." He is therefore as He was named by the prophet, Inamanuel, God with us. He unites in Himself the infinite, and the finite, and He bridges in His own person the gulf between the Creator and the creature. Such" a person we needed for our salvation, and such a person He claimed to be when on earth, and such a person God declared Him to be, when He raised Him from the dead. He also itttimated that He gave Himself as a Sacrifice for sinners. He came not to be ministered unto, but ta min- • ister, to give His life a ransom for many. He was poiiitetf out by His forerunner as the Lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the world. He declared that His blood was shed for many for the remission of sins. ~' le claims that He came not to destroy, but to fulfil the law. \ He came to fulfil all righteousness. AndHis accre- \ J V V V -p^ v„ ■ • . . -'. ' .dited messengers affirmed that He was " the end of the law for righteousness for ever^ one that beUeved." They , taught that H© was made sm for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the rigptp^ousness of God in Him, I^is evident, therefore, that His sufferings were penal, and His obedience vicarious. j ^ r- u Our Lord also intimate that His departure from earth, by the path of suffering aljd death, which He had marked out for Himself, was linked with the mission of the Holy Spirit, whose special work it is to quicken the dead and sanctify the living. We live now under a dispensation which is characterized^s »* the ministration of the Spirit." The Holy Spirit is now shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Loijd. , r , r t. Observe now wHere we are. Mark the fulness of the provision God has made to meet nian:s. state of sin and ruin. Set over against man's depravity the power ^and grace of the^Holy Spirit ; set over against human guilt the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which cleanseth fjrom all sin, and set over agaipst our entire lack of righteousness, the perfect righteousness of our divine substitute, and ask what element is wanting to complete salvation ? Is it not evident that when God interposed on our behal^He sounded the depths pf our ruin and searched out every element of our misery, and met each fully in the salvation proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ ? In view of these facts, we are warranted in accepting for ourselves, and in oftering to others, three blessings, or rather three categories or classes of blessing : pardon, acceptance with God, and. renovation of heart and life. Pardon may be called one great act of grace. For as / soon as any man accepts Christ by faith, God casts over all his sins the mantle of forgiveness. It covers his entire career from the cradle to the grave, so that *' there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." Btit while pardon is one, it is, as a matter of conscious exp^ri- ence, also manifold as our sins. How numberless are they ! Sins of thought, of word, and of action. Every thought df our hearts and every forthgoing of our activity is tainted «arv' ■:.\ -'!. ■iJ^afe." ' '■J ■A with defilenlent. But no sooner do our sins arise than they are met by the cleansing efficacy of the blood of Christ and blotted out, and so we come not into condemnation. I call aV:cieptance into the divine favour, one act of grace which changes for ever our relations to God. When we believe in ^hrist we are made the righteousness of God in Him, and permanently instated in the divine favour, and the full tide of the love of God is turned towards us^ And as the rising tide, flowing in on the sea- coast, insii^uates itself around every rock, crevice and indentation of the shore, so doth the love of God, turned ii|)dn us in Christ Jesus, insinuate itself around every want (ndl misery of human nature, and it does not leave one /elenjientjof our ruin which it does not in the end reach and tak< Re ray. (ewal of heart and life is at once one and manifold. W^^ntet be either dead or alive. There is nothing inter- mediater\A man must either be dead in trespasses and sin, or aliveiintp God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But while the transitioii frotp death unto hfe is necessarily instantaneous, there tnay be many steps by which the divine Spirit prepares the^w^y for it ; andwhen the great change is wrought, the good work is so imperfect that there are required constant inflows of the divine life into the soul to sustain and develop it. AH these daily communications / of grace by which the Christian is fitted for the presence of God, and the service of a better world are due to the same Spirit who quickened us when we were dead in sins: To all mankind God offers in the gospel thi^ljeritage of blessing, and whosoever will may accept it freiely. He proffers to the chief of sinners pardon, full, :free and ever- lasting. He invites all, through the righteousness of Christ, to a permanent reinstatement in His love, and all that His love can do for them. And through His Spirit He offers to renovate our hearts and transform us into His own glorious image. This is surely glad tidings of great joy to all people. ^^III. The manner in which the gospel isJmre characterized. It is ^^ the glorious gospel of ^'' etc, ^ (i) It is the gospel of God. * >> ..u ■ 1 •■/■ '»f,i,»«/r / / IS " . ■ It is His message. Every statement ami fact in it is vouched for by Him. Its offers, His offers. Its invitations are His invitations. It is not something which we have to reason out for ourselves from certain premises. It is not as if we had been taught the deity and tlie humanity of Christ, and had then been left to reason for ourselves that as Christ was Himself the lawgiver, His humanity, which subsisted in the person of the Son, did not owe any natural subjection either to the precept or the penalty of the divine law, and that, therefore, His obedience and sufferings may be available for others. This reasoning might seem to us satisfactory, or the opposite, but we could not feel perfectly » sure that in dealing with a matter so much above us as the question, how can man be just before God ? we could not be sure that we had not left out of account some element which required to be Considered* But God has saved us from these perplexities. He has taken the reasoning on these lofty themes into His own hands. He gives the conclusion, and glimpses of the steps by which it has been reached. And the gospel hearer does not need to rest his ' soul either on his own reasoning',Qr the preacher's logic, but on the Word of God. The Sinner is called to rest directly on the invitations and promises of the God of truth. :.. We are persuaded that ministers should preach, teehng that they are delivering God's message, and hearers should listen as to God's message. When this is done, the Word will be'Veached with the demonstration of the Spirit and with power. It will need no artificial aids to fix attention. If those called to preach dig into the mine of God's Word and bring forth its hidden treasures, their message will never lack interest. They will need neither doubtful specu- lations nor sensational topics to drive drowsiness from the pews. Let men feel that they are li§tfemngto the gospel of God, and they will jaot sleep. - (2) It is the gosperDj^the blessed God. *This epithet is not here chosen at random. You have observed, in the case of men, that when mind and body are in, their happi- est and best moods, the inward blessedness enjoyedsome- -. 'i .-^I^"-^';- -p- ■|,.-.r'i^-- -^v jB^i^* i^=^^--- i ^7 "■ ":^^ i.- i6 »* how expresses itself in^their every word an(i look and action. And so it seems to. be hinted that in the gospel, the very blessedness of God overflows and expresses itself ,in blessing men. In Christ's memorable words, ♦' Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," He seems to make transfer of the very peace which dwelt in His own bosom, to His disciples, so here we are led to view the gospel as the very channel throuj^h which the blessedness of God flows into our hearts. (3) It is the gospel of the glory of God. This is the literal force of the orijnnal, which is corrqctly enough rendered for popular piitlposes, the glorious gospel. The l(Ospel is so charactcrizcjd, specially because it unveils God's glory in redemptiorb It presents all His attributes in harmonious exercise. ~Mercy and truth Aeet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other. NU^n often glory in what has almost no connection with character, in a wreath, a ribbon, a title or a;i empty decoration. But God's glory is always the manifestation of His real character. We do not glorify God when wp heap up great turgid words of praise, to which we attach almost no meaning, but we do glorify Him, when, by our constant example, our loving deeds, or by words spoken with stam- inering tongue, we are able to give men a gHmpse of His real character, And it is because all the perfections of God shine illustriously in Christ's redeeming work, that the gospel, which makes known the way of salvation to man, is also the gospel of the glory of God. - ^ (4) It is a trust committed to the gospel ministry. It is committedf indeed, to the whc^le Church ; to ministers and to people. "For how can th^y preach except they are sent ?" No one is saved for his own sake alone. We are our brother's keeper. *When the gospel salvation reaches ' us in power, and rolls away the load of guilt, breaks the dominion of sin in the soul, and fills us with joy and peace in believing, it is a priceless blessing^in which we do well to rejoice* But what blesses us is alsp a trust committed to us for our fellow-men. We owe something to our Redeemer, who has bought us with His own blood, and ■« "■ something to our fellowmen who may yet shine with His / imace. It is a sacred trust which is committee to ivm« Christians, and especially to those who are called o the .rospel ministry! God has put into our heart and then into our hands His oHe remedy for mans ruin. Under Him, it depends on us whether this remedy shall be faith- fully applied to the salvation of men, or those arounc us shall be left to perish in tlunr sins. Our position is like that of Aaron when the plague had broken out among the children of Israel. You will remember that Moses com- manded Aaron to take his censer, and put fire therein from off the altar and put on incense, and go quickly unto the conKrecation and make atonement for them. And we are told that Aaron did as he was commanded, and made atone^- ment for the people. - And he stood between the dead and the living ; and the plague was stayed. N»mlj. xvi., 46-48. Brethren, ye who know the gospel have God s one reniedy in your hands, and this day you stand between the dead and the living, that the plague may be stayed. Sometimes we get a glimpse of the piousness of the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and^t such seasons we are profoundly humbled that we have done so little to make it known to men. At such times I can sympathize with the feelings of a venerable father eighty years of age. who, many years ago, was preaching before the Synod of Western New York. He was referring to the trials and privations of the gospel ministry, especially m new and frontier districts, and he told his brethren that, although he probably knew by experience more of these trials and privations than any of them, and although by God s grace he was not afraid to die, yet such was the joy of proclaim- ing the gospel and seeing souls led to Christ that "he would be willing to take a commission to preach the gospel clear up to the Day of Judgment. At such Masons, I think I can sympathize with this venerable father, and I can understand somewhat the emotions with which young Gardiner Spring, about the beginning of this century, listened to a sermon from Dr. John M. Mason, ot New York. Gardiner Spring was then studying law at WF .*». ^% ■WH^ryji , *». I ^'11 iR ■^l i Yale. He led the college choir and sat opposite to the preacher. Dr. Mason preached to an immense audience on the words, •* To the poor the gospel is preached ."jj man. Aged professors and venerable senators w^|>f'^|(i>c p And as that great preacher unfolded the preciousnesa ,, the gospel, the whole of that audience was movec^^aslHi little children. When Gardiner Spring left the cllapel, he -• t could think of nothing hut the gospel. He jvyent home across the college green to his young wife, exclaiming, "The gospel t The gospel!" And from that hour ]ie could get no rest until he had consecrated his fine gift% to preaching the glorious gospel of the blessed God. And would to God, that there jnay be some young man here , to-night whose lips hayQrJpfeen touched with fire from the altar, who, at the call pf^qd, will also respond, *• Here am I, send me." , ' ; * ■V, ^■%.,- 4 ^ J' ■ i. ^w .>4 ♦■ 1L 'ii^. -. If 1 J ^ t .^4 Ig '1 IP ■7; ■ft +/■ V %: U ' ' »*■': l.^. ■ ' ■! '^' !■' ■ \ •i%y v^Ja 'i>\' 'W Wi Ac :j \ ;> i * .*.-■ ■ ^" ■ ■ ■.-■■ ■■ ' . 1 1 >» ■ '} ->.... -', I 1 ■■ » . 'i# /■'''. -' '><: