such a thing could have happened! Nobody ever heard of such a miscreant!

Now, you are the alphabet, and he was the word spelled!

So it is that every once in ten or twenty years the community wakes up to an extraordinary sense of purity and virtue; and the victim who has been struck by their lightnings is considered from that time out to be like Judas or Arnold; and he goes carrying the accumulated iniquity of generations to the day of his death.

Is this in accordance with a just, righteous judgment? Are such things admirable in a high state of Christian civilization? I do not say that bad men are not bad, because they are made so by a large number of bad men behind themthey are bad; but this I do say: think ye that they upon whom the tower of Siloam fell were sinners above all those who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay. Except you repent, you shall likewise perish. If you condemn the representative criminals, remember whom they represent. If men are ministers of falsehood and of peculation, bear in mind that a stream goes no higher than its fountain. In no community is any man a great deal better or a great deal worse than that community. It is laxity of conscience and principle among the thousands and tens of thousands that makes it possible, here and there, for a man to become an eminent sinner in the ways in which I have described; and while he should be punished, it is not for you and me, with unveiled faces, radiant with an indignant triumph, to stand up and say, "How God hates sinners!" It is for us to cover our faces, and to say, "I have laid a stumbling block in my brother's way." It is for us to repent and to reform in our own places, that there may be none found to do so any more.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

WE draw near to thee with humble confidence, with the boldness of love, thou that hast taught us all things: thou that hast in all things sustained us; thou that hast inspired the fathers and the mothers, and then hast taught us out of thy experience to call thee Father. We draw near to thee with confidence inspired by thine own self; by every word which thou hast uttered; and yet more by all those dealings by which we have been surrounded of thee. For thy ways toward us, though they are often dark and inscrutable, have been, as we look back upon them, ways of mercy. The storms come upon us come with bolts and purifying lightnings; and as they go away from us we see the bow of promise; and looking back through the past, we see that thou hast never dealt unjustly nor unkindly with us. Thy chastisements have been merciful. We are witnesses that it is good for us that we have been afflicted. Thou hast taught us a thousand things which no school nor teacher other than thyself could have taught us-not the knowledge of outward life, not the knowledge of the framework of the universe, but unutterable things of the Spirit, and inward experiences which live, and prophesy, and reach forth into a higher and better life. As the outward man perishes, the inward man is renewed day by day; so that we have this token that we are the sons of God-not that thou dost speak to us from Sinai; not that thou dost from the cleft of the rock make known thy power even with the still small voice; but that all which is like thee is growing perpetually in the silence of our own consciousness. We know that we are coming nearer to thee; and though we are not able to discern, though we cannot bring down into human thought and human words the conception of God, cr that brightness which vaguely appears to our vision of thee, yet we who look toward the East know that the morning is coming, that the light is advancing, and that ere long the sun shall pour out its fullness. We know, O Sun of righteousness, that thou art drawing nearer to us. Already we feel the light, we perceive the quenching of the night and the coming of the day, and we yearn with unutterable desire to be the children of the morning, and to look more and more into that light which when once it hath come shall never depart. What to us is exaltation which carries up only the perishable? What to us is humiliation that only casts down that which er6 long must go to dust again? What are mercies that leave us poo1 within? and what are troubles that enrich us within, though they beat upon us outwardly?

Grant that we may awake to a full realization of our sonship and of the blessedness of our inheritance in Christ Jesus. Teach us to put emphasis upon these inward and nobler things, that we may judge of life with a better judgment, and live higher than men around about us are able to live. May we come into that state in which we shall be able to judge from higher things though we are not judged by things below us.

Grant, O Lord, that we may walk humbly with God, and patiently

among men, and be filled with the gentleness that is of Jesus Christ. For who of us is not better provided for than He was? He had not where to lay his head. All that dwelt in the air, and on the earth, and in the sea, were better equipped than he; and yet, how patiently, how cheerfully, he accepted his lot! and how he diffused happiness all around about him! And as he came where there were sorrows and tears and exchanged them for shouts of gladness, grant that we may know that the servant is not better than his Lord. Upon such an one as he came judgment and condemnation; and how much less do they come upon us! We wear his yoke, but not as he wore it. We bear a cross, but not such an one as he bore for our sake. What to us are the troubles of the household, troubles in business, troubles in the concernments of society? What to us are the harrowing vexations that belong to life, and that are troubles only to those who do not know how to subdue them? What to us is that way which is so royal, so full of hope, and so full of testimonies which enkindle courage in us? We walk no strange way. We make no experiments in the darkness. It is the way which the prophets trod. It is the way which the apostles trod. It is the way which thrice ten thousand martyrs trod. The whole church of God through years has walked therein, until that which was strait, and narrow, and difficult, is now widened by the footsteps of those who have beaten it down, bleeding thereon, so that we walk secure. We are helped forward by the drawings, and sympathies, and experiences, and knowledges which have come from those pioneers who are now in glory, having gone before to destroy the wilderness and make it fruitful. The way of the Lord is cast up, and the ransomed of the Lord are returning and coming to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. We walk among them, and are in sympathy with th ́m, and are ashamed when we think of complaints, and repinings, and sorrowings, and all that morbid vanity with which we look upon men, measuring them by ourselves, and ourselves by them. Grant, we beseech of thee, that we may look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, there to intercede for us, sending forth love from his heart, even as the sun sends forth the summer. Grant that, looking unto him, we may, in his Spirit, walk and wait patiently for that manhood that shall be in us when we shall see thee and be like thee.

Grant to every one who is fighting a battle against his natural dispositions, and is seeking to humble his pride, and direct his feelings aright-grant unto every such one thine encouragement. May all who strive against easily besetting sins know that it is the Spirit that strives in them. May they know as they set up a noly war in their own souls, though they achieve imperfect results, that Jesus is their salvation-not an unfeeling and critical judge, but he that for them suffered and suffers, now bearing their burdens and carrying their sins he who is to them as the father to the child. Grant, we beseech of thee, that they may take courage and inspiration. May none seek in the outer courts, and in the wilderness, to-day, the things that are needful. Why should any one attempt to build up alone in himself

that which he lacks, since God is his Helper, from whom come all the tides of sweet influences by which he shall be helped? May there be given every one such faith of God, and faith so enlarged and so personal to himself, that he shall have God to help him in every time of need.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon all the households, and upon all the souls that are represented here to-day. May those who have come in hither bearing burdens find themselves relieved, that they shall seem light though they do not fall off. Grant that we may desire to overcome our troubles rather than to have them moved out of the way. Give us that manliness, that sturdy courage, that faith of God and of the character which we are fashioning for the eternal life, which shall make us superior to our external circumstances. So may we evermore measure with these larger measures which have been handed down to us from above-the golden reed of the sanctuary.

Grant to those who have come in with thank-offerings an open vision of God; and may they bear before thee the gift of holy thoughts and of pure affections for all thy kindnesses toward them.

To such as have feared great evils, and have been spared; to such as have been delivered from great afflictions; to such as have had brought to them unexpectedly tidings of great mercies; to such as have been joined together after long separations; to those to whom the door of the past is open with ten thousand memories that come thronging upon them-to all such wilt thou give grateful hearts.

We beseech of thee if there are those who are in affliction-and there are many-that they may know how to smile in the midst of tears, and how to be strong in weakness; and though their hearts still ache, may they know how to bear pain for Christ's sake, and for their own; and may they rejoice that they are identified with Christ, so that no trouble overtakes them that it does not come to his knowledge. And in the house, at the table, beside the cradle, in all familiar associations, wherever they walk, may they find walking by their side the Saviour of sympathy and of consolation. May those who have been surprised and cast down as trees by the overwhelming tempest be even as the trees that, though they be uprooted, know how still to cling to the soil, and how to go on bearing some leaves and some fruit as best they may. And grant that those who are utterly cast down may be able to say, Cast down but not destroyed! Lift thou upon them, we beseech of thee, the light of thy countenance; and above everything else, may they have a sense that this world is but for an hour, and that life itself is only a dream; and may they wait for their awaking.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon parents. May they more and more value the wisdom which comes from above in the rearing of their children; and may their children be blessed. Grant that they may grow up fearing God and serving him better than we have done. May all the efforts which are made to educate the young in our midst be blessed. Bless abundantly all the efforts in our schools and in our classes for imparting a knowledge of God through the Scriptures. And may those who go forth to teach be

themselves more and more taught of God. May they find the divine life growing in them as they imitate the divine action.

We pray that thy blessing may rest upon all the churches of this city, and upon all the churches of our land. May they be more and more strengthened. May their foundations be more and more estabished in truth, in justice, in love, in purity, and in fidelity. We beseech of thee that they may no longer vex each other. May every one pursue its own work, and seek the things which make for peace, and not the things which make for division.

May the light that has come to us of the truth of God, and that is struggling with the darkness of other lands, have given to it power and victory. May ignorance flee away, may superstition disappear, and may all nations come to their liberty by coming to intelligence and true fidelity. And so may the earth be regenerated. So may the day of prediction come when Christ shall reign a thousand years.

And to thy name, Father, Son, and Spirit, shall be the praise for ever and ever. Amen.