saints are the men they can most fully trust, and who do their duty best to their masters, because they do it unto God.

Let me add, "Be not soon shaken in your minds.” We feel no consternation whatever respecting the issue of the great conflict which is thickening around us. Inconsiderate good people sometimes exclaim, "Oh! what harm that sad book-Vestiges of Creation'-will do!” Others, "Oh! what mischief Strauss's Life of Jesus' will effect!" Others, "Oh! these geological discoveries, and chronological calculations!-will they not damage the Bible?"

Damage the Bible? No; we have not such an opinion of the Bible. It cannot be shaken. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of God shall not pass away. What! have you no more confidence in Holy Scripture, than to fear that it may be unsettled, than to tremble at the result of any discovery? Afraid we may be of the influence of sceptical sophistry on vain, ungodly, creedless men; but we are not afraid for the Bible itself. It stands like the rocks which buttress our shores. The billows of error, superstition, and infidelity, have dashed against it for thousands of years, but they have only shown on the one hand the impotency of their fury, and on the other the impregnability of the foundation against which they have broken. We have no fear for the Bible. We appeal to the past. There were men, in former days, who fancied that the Bible was nearly overthrown. Paine, in his wretched ribaldry, once said, I have gone up and down, through the Christian's garden of Eden, and with my simple axe I have cut down one and another of its trees, till I have hardly left a single sapling standing." Infatuated boaster! there was one tree against which thy axe had no edge. Thou mightest cut down the trees of man's planting; but against the tree of life, in the midst of the garden-that tree which Omniscience planted, grace waters, and Omnipotence protects against that tree thy wretched axe had no power; thy strokes recoiled on thyself, and thou diedst like the apostate Julian, crying out in effect, "O crucified, thou hast triumphed !"

And then there was another-Hume, the prince of philosophical infidels-he who struggled hard in his lying hour to disguise, by cold, daring blasphemy and miserable trifling, the terrors which he could not escape -for such is the fact on authentic evidence-he vaingloriously boasted, "Methinks I see, and I rejoice to see t, the twilight of so-called Christianity and self-styled Revelation. They are fast fleeting away." Ah! de luded sophist! He did see the twilight, but he was mistaken in its character. It was not the dim twilight of eventide darkening into night, but the rosy twilight of the morning breaking into the glorious and perfect day. We have as yet had but the twilight of Christianity. Dark clouds have hung round it; its false professors have to a large extent obscured it with the mists of their miserable perversions and the vapours of their gross inconsistencies. As yet we have had but the twilight of that glorious latter day which is now drawing nigh! Yes, and welcome the storms which are sweep.. ing away the clouds; for these storms are the harbingers of the outburst of that day when Revelation shall triumph over every conscience and enshrine itself in every heart, and when the God and Saviour of his people shall be confessed by every tongue and adored by every knee.

There was in the last century another miserable infidel, who anticipated the downfall of ChristianityVoltaire, whose devilish expression used to be "Crush the wretch!" He, too, found that the stone which the philosophical builders, as well as the pharisaical builders of former times, rejected, had become the head stone of the corner, and that whosoever fell on that stone was broken, but on whomsoever it fell, it ground him to powder. Let the horrible agonies of the dying blasphemer bear witness-agonies which seemed to forestall the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched. So terrible were they, that the nurse who tended him would never afterwards attend a dying man till she had first ascertained that he was not an infidel.

A word, ere we close, on our national condition. Let us not congratulate ourselves unduly, in England, on the measure of faith which still distinguishes us as a people,

nor point the finger of scorn at hapless France or hapless Italy. Let us not forget that, in regard to Italy especially, our judgment ought to be lenient. Hard mea sure has been dealt to those who are struggling there for their freedom. It should be borne in mind that there is an infidelity which is the result of the repudiation of darkness, and there is an infidelity which is the result of the repudiation of light. The former is guiltless in comparison with the latter. It is the child of ignorance rather than of obstinacy; its cause is negative rather than positive. Now the poor Italians, and to some extent the French, are sceptics, because they have recoiled from a foul caricature of Christianity, without having the pure original on which to recoil; their guilt, therefore, is light when weighed against that of our Anglican infidels. Infidelity with us must generally arise from the rejection of light; for we have Christianity, not as caricatured by priestcraft and Popery, but simple and unsullied, as delineated by the Spirit of God in the pages of his own Word. Thank God, that Word is more than ever prized amongst us; and the ninety-five thousand copies of Holy Scripture bought and purchased by the working men of Manchester, in the course of seven months, tell most nobly-whatever sneering sophists may vauntingly affirm about the religious instinct, as they speak, waxing weak and wearing out, so that Mohammedanism has relaxed its spell, and Hinduism become but a gigantic mummy, and all the various forms of superstition throughout the world are fading away, and Christianity itself, as one of the developments of the religious instinct, must also be expiring-that the pure faith of the glorious Gospel is expanding in our own blessed land. All other religious systems are indeed tottering, because there is no life in them; but simple Protestant Christianity, even amid the storm and earthquake of nations, is striking deeper into thousands of humble hearts, which are preparing for conflict and for victory. We are persuaded that there is more of vital godliness in old England, at this juncture, than there has been at almost any period since the glorious Reformation. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."

66.

Yes,

we do not hesitate to affirm that living religion is gaining ground in Great Britain. God will not leave him self without a faithful host in the evil day. If the devil is mustering his forces, the Captain of our salvation is not disbanding his. And what an illustrious practical exemplification of the benign efficacy of Scriptural religion on the temporal affairs of nations does England present at the present crisis! To what do we owe her calm amid the storm, her stability amid the shock of nations? Why is it that, whilst Italy, Hungary, Austria, Prussia, and France, have all been convulsed, and reeling to and fro like a drunken man, England has sat serene-menaced, but not alarmed-assailed, but not injured? What has been her palladium ? what the secret of her tranquillity? The Bible-the Bible acknowledged as the word of God by the mass of the peo ple-the Bible, which proclaims in their ears, Fear God; Honour the Queen!" Hence, Britons have had no heart to cabal against their sovereign. Hence, they have been bold as lions in the maintenance of law, order, and authority-dastardly as deer when moved to lift their hands against God's ordinance and God's anointed.

Not to our fleets, however matchless-not to our armies, however indomitable-not to our laws, however wise, free, just-not to those, but to the Word of God we owe our peace. Tell it out among the nations, the Bible is England's strength and stay. And has not our beloved Queen given a pledge to the nation, that she owns and honours the Bible as the stability of her times and the pillar of the throne, by allowing herself at this uncture, in the face of Tractarian antipathies and Papal lenunciations, to be announced as patroness of the Windsor branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and as a contributor to its funds? How modestly, how gracefully done! Had she given her name to the parent society, in her capacity as Queen, it might have been interpreted as a merely official act; but doing it quietly and privately, at what may be called her own parochial town, there was more of the woman and less of the queen in the deed. It more unequivocally bespoke her personal sentiments, the feelings of her heart.

Pardon the digression if I add, that prizing the Bible for herself and her people, she naturally desires that others should possess and prize it too; and as a consequence, she, in conjunction with her noble consort, has just presented £100 to the Church Missionary Society: and sure I am there is not a large-minded Dissenter who does not hail the boon as warmly as though it had been bestowed on the London Missionary Society.

Finally, brethren, how glorious it is to behold the Bible converting every thing into fresh evidence of its own truth. Its mockers verify its predictions, and its enemies accomplish its purposes; the revolutions of empires, the madness of the people, the machinations of heresiarchs, and the gates of hell, alike do homage to its authority. It writes its truth on the ruins of dynasties and the fragments of cities. Egypt, Assyria, Jerusalem, Babylon, all avouch the verity of the Bible; and so shall France, and Italy, and Antichrist, and every land and every adversary. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," but "the word of our God shall stand for ever."

SCRIPTURE PRAYER TEXTS,

FOR AUGUST.

SUNDAY.-" O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." (Ps. xc. 14.) Monday." O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee.” (Ps. lxiii. 1.)

Tuesday." My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness: and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips." (Ps. lxiii. 5.)

Wednesday." I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. (Prov. viii. 17.)

Thursday.—“ I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth." (1 Kings xviii. 12.)

Friday." Satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord." (Deut. xxxiii. 23.)

Saturday." I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." (Ps. xvii. 15.)