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NOTES OF A SERMON: TO WHOM IS IT SUITABLE?

"I wrote unto the church; but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore if I come I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church."-3 John, 9, 10.

WE are to consider the character of the person here brought to view, and the method in which the apostle dealt with him.

I. The character of Diotrephes.

1. He was a self-important man: "loved to have the pre-eminence." Pride and arrogance are combined. Those who

have such characteristics do thus and so. 2. He was a slanderous creature: "prated against" the apostles and others. What it is to do so.

3. He was malicious. The maliciousness of his nature infested his very "words." How this taints, and poisons, and kills.

4. He was discontented: an uneasy wretch, ever restless, "not content with" all his management and devices. How this agitating spirit agitates, and is yet insatiable.

5. He was uncharitable: a bigot, claiming the real orthodoxy as all his own, would "not receive the brethren." This trait is now, &c., &c.

6. He was despotic: a tyrant, usurping and abusing "the power of the keys," "forbid them who would" receive the brethren. "Lording it over God's heritage" consists in, and is manifested by, &c.

7. He was a persecuting spirit: "cast them out of the church" who had a right there, and were its vigour and life. He in effect excommunicated the apostles themselves: "receiveth us not."

8. In every way a remarkably wonderful man. His name imports "foster-son of Jupiter." And well he answered to it! When he spoke it was terrible, terrible. As it was not piety that gave him power, he probably had some office or position more than a common man ; was perhaps a -, &c., &c.

II. His treatment by the apostles. 1. He called him by name, that it might be known whom he meant.

2. He set his character in its true light. This often fails to be done in similar cases. Enumerating its several particular traits,

3. He publisheth it to the world. 4. He appropriately remembered his deeds.

REMARKS.

1. Trials in churches and abuse of its ministers are not new things under the sun.

2. Any church which has a Diotrephes in it is in a pitiable condition. It is to be hoped the number is but few.

3. Are there in this church any such brethren? Not to be expected that there should be any admitting themselves to have such a character. But "ye shall know them by their fruits."

4. Those who have such a character must be dealt with faithfully. John was mild, dwelt much on brotherly love, would do nothing unchristian or unkind; but he dealt earnestly, faithfully, openly with that Diotrephes, leaving to us for example this mode of dealing.

Lessons by the Way; or, Things to Think On.

THE END OF "GREAT MEN."

HAPPENING to cast my eye upon some miniature portraits, I perceived that the four personages who occupied the most conspicuous places were Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, and Bonaparte. I had seen the same unnumbered times before, but never did the same sensation arise in my bosom, as my mind hastily glanced over their several histories.

Alexander, after having climbed the dizzy heights of ambition, and with his temple bound with chaplets dipped in the blood of countless nations, looked down upon a conquered world and wept that there was not another world to conquer-set a city or fire, and died in a scene of debauch.

Hannibal, after having, to the astonishment and consternation of Rome, passed the Alps— after having put to flight the armies of this mistress of the world, and stripped three bushels of gold rings from the fingers of the slaughtered knights, and made her very foundations quakewas hated by those who once exultingly cried his name to that of their god, and called him "Hanni Beal," and died at last by poison administered by his own hand, unlamented and unwept in a foreign land.

Cæsar, after having conquered eight hundred cities, and dyed his garments in the blood of one million of his foes-after having pursued to death the only rival he had on earth-was miserably assassinated by those he considered his nearest friends, and at the very place the

attainment of which had been the greatest aim of this ambition.

Bonaparte, whose mandate kings and princes obeyed, after having filled the earth with terror of his name-after having deluged Europe with tears and blood, and clothed the world in sackcloth-closed his eyes in lonely banishment, almost literally exiled from the world, yet where he could sometimes see his country's banner waving over the deep, but which would not or could not bring him aid.

Thus those four men who, from the peculiar situation of their portraits, seemed to stand as representatives of all those whom the world called "great"-those four who severally made the earth tremble to its centre, severally died, one by intoxication, the second by suicide, the third by assassination, and the last in lonely exile ! "How are the mighty fallen!"

DEEDS OF OLD MEN.

THERE are some old men who are not to be despised. Some are apt to think that none but young men can do much. I noticed some years since an account of the settlement of a minister, where it was observed that the settlement was interesting for this among other reasons, that the preacher was young, and therefore likely to occupy his post for a long time. I thought that this calculation was quite groundless, as it proved to be in a few years. Had it been said that the preacher was between forty and fifty, and was likely therefore to last well, it would have been more just. Some indeed shoot up like a rocket, and go out like a rocket. Others rise slowly, like fixed stars, and, as they are slow to rise, they are slow to set. But whether men get to their zenith slowly or rapidly, they may be very useful, even to old age. Wickliffe, the morning star of the Reformation, was most active and useful from forty-eight to sixty years of age. The martyr Latimer was, in King Edward's days, a diligent preacher and a hard student. He was at his studies about two o'clock in the morning, summer and winter, though his body had been bruised by the fall of a tree, and he was about sixty-seven years of age. Cromwell was only a captain when he was forty-one, and his greatest deeds were performed between fortyeight and fifty-nine, when he died. Young was an old man when he wrote some of his best poetry, and he was sixty when he began his "Night Thoughts." Thomas Scott wrote as much at seventy as at any period of his life. What a wonderful man Talleyrand was! To eighty years of age he stood at the head of affairs in France under Napoleon, and then under the Bourbons, When the Russians were determined to make a stand, and fight the French before the walls of Moscow, they put old Kutusof at the head of the army in the place of Barclay de Tolly. Old Blucher was seventy when he was defeated at Ligny, and fell under his horse, and the French cavalry rode over him; and yet, a day or two after, he led on his Prussians against Napoleon at Waterloo, After many years of warfare, those old men, Wellington and Soult, stood at the head of the cabinet, one in England, the other in France, preserving, by their talent, the peace of Europe and the world.

Now go back to ancient times, and see the Apostle John writing his Book of Revelation

when he was ninety years old. Isaiah, resembling John in his inspired thoughts, prophesied for sixty years. How astonishing was the energy of old Jehoiada in accomplishing a revolution in Judah when he was about one hundred years of age! And then there is old Moses; he accomplished his amazing labours between eighty and one hundred and twenty. Surely God has honoured old men. Many may become superannuated at fifty, but they may, by the grace of God, do their greatest works between fifty and seventy. I may then be humbled for my infirmities of body, mind, and spirit, but not that AN OLD MAN.

I am

A GREAT MIND.

IN each of the leading denominations of Christians there are truly great minds, capable of overlooking the narrow limits of party or sect, and embracing all who hold the essentials of Christianity. Of this sentiment the following paragraph from the pen of Dr. D'Aubigné, affords striking illustration:--

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Nationality found but a secondary place in the great mind of Calvin; Christ and the church were everything to him. He was neither French, nor Swiss, nor Genevese; he was of the city of God. On leaving France he sacrificed all that was most precious to him; he did not build up new idols to replace his old ones. Doubtless he loved Geneva-it was his adopted country; but the remembrance of his great nationality was above that of all lesser ones. Nothing was so insupportable to him as national egotism. Turning away from these narrow places in which others chose to remain, his eagle eye was continually fixed on the church as a whole. His colleagues in the cantons endeavoured to form a Swiss national church; but this scheme seemed too paltry for his lofty genius, and, passing over rivers and mountains, he constantly aspired to the universal church. He knew none other than the holy nation, none other than the ransomed people."

Let the noble spirit of this great man, and that of his eloquent eulogist, and especially the spirit of their Divine Master, reign habitually in all their admirers; and surely they will find enough in the world of human beings yet to be enlightened and purified fully to occupy all their energies and all their zeal.

But the greatness of Calvin's mind appears still more sublime in the patience and Christlike meekness with which he could endure the reproaches of enemies; and most sublime in the forbearance and quenchless love and esteem he could maintain towards an offending Christian brother.

"I hear," says he, in a letter to Bullinger, of November 24, 1544, "I hear that Luther is lavishing the most cruel invectives upon you and all of us. I scarcely dare ask of you to be silent, but I earnestly entreat of you at least to remember how great a man Luther is; what admirable qualities distinguish him; what courage, what faithfulness, what skill, what power of doctrine he possesses to bring down the reign of Antichrist, and to propagate the knowledge of salvation. I say, and have frequently repeated, that even should he call me Satan, I would not cease to honour him and acknowledge him to be an illustrious servant of God."

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NEGLECT OF THE DUTIES OF HOME.

To bring up their children in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord;" to watch over the spiritual welfare of their servants, with Christian fidelity and love; and to regulate the conversation, reading, pursuits, and recreations of the domestic circle, strictly by the principles of the gospel, and singly with a view to the glory of God; these duties of paramount importance are, we fear, too often sacrificed to the gratification of a feverish thirst for wild novel speculations of a rambling, restless search after religious instruction, which is never digested by meditation, or reduced to practice.

This is to run counter at once to the constitution of nature and the commands of God. By both home is declared to be the proper sphere of the Christian's first and tenderest solicitudes, most watchful care, and most zealous and unwearied labours of love. To the discharge of its duties all others must be made subordinate, if God's blessing be desired to rest on them; and whatever religious excitement may be enjoyed, or instruction be obtained abroad, the neglect of

the duties of home will be unattended with profit to the soul, because unaccompanied with the blessing of God.

A REMARKABLE MAN.

AT a temperance meeting held not long ago in Alabama, Colonel Lehmanousky, who had been twenty-three years a soldier in the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte, addressed the meeting. He arose before the audience, tall, erect, and vigorous, with the glow of health upon his cheek, and said, "You see before you a man seventy years old. I have fought two hundred battles, have fourteen wounds on my body, have lived thirty days on horse-flesh, with the bark of trees for my bread, snow and ice for my drink, the canopy of heaven for my covering, without stockings or shoes on my feet, and with only a few rags for my clothing. In the deserts of Egypt I have marched for days with a burning sun upon my naked head, feet blistered in the scorching sand, and with eyes, nostrils, and mouth filled with dust, and with a thirst so tormenting that I have opened the veins of my arms and sucked my own blood! Do you ask how I could have survived all these horrors? answer, that next to the kind providence of God, I owe my preservation, my health and vigour, to this fact-that I never drank a drop of spirituous liquor in my life; and," continued he, "Baron Larry, chief of the medical staff of the French army, has stated it as a fact, that the 6000 survivors who safely returned from Egypt were all of them men who abstained from the use of ardent spirits."

I

Essays, Extracts, and Correspondence.

POSITION OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION.

WHILE from time to time calling attention to the claims of divers institutions of a more general character, we must not overlook those which are denominational. We have, therefore, now-which we deem the proper time-to call attention to the Minutes for the bygone year of the Congregational Union, recently published, and which form one of those documents that will not only bear, but which demand re-perusal. It is greatly to be regretted that the reading of reports is a task for which most people have little taste, but a circumstance which shows the lamentable extent to which feeling still predominates over judgment. Statistics are the only safe basis of action; they are the very soul of true and sound legislation. Wise men. ask for. facts; silly sentimentalists cry out for excitement. Taken as a whole, the annual reports read in the Metropolis, considered merely as compositions, deserve to rank

with the ablest and most elaborate writings of the day; and on being read they never fail to obtain from men of judgment the attention they merit. They are not merely endured; they are enjoyed. In all sorts of corporate commercial enterprise the periodical reports are everything, and to hear them is the principal object for which the shareholders assemble. The oratory is a very secondary concern; and unless its avowed design and obvious tendency be to tell how to make more money, the web is soon cut off. Now, among the best reports of the season, and those which are always heard with deep attention, are those of the Congregational Union; but as it is possible only for a small portion of our ministers and principal laymen to hear them, it is deemed indispensably necessary to print, that all such may read them. But will they be read? If not, why are they printed? In neglecting them we can assure our readers that they neglect their own interests, the interests of Christ's

kingdom. Next to the highly valuable Report itself, which, like all its predecessors, is profound, comprehensive, philosophical, and yet most practical, attention is due to the very important paper read by Mr. Hill, of Clapham, entitled, "Hints, with a view to promote a more devout and edifying conduct of Public Worship," which we have already laid before our readers, and which deserves to be more than once recited in every congregation in Great Britain. The Collections for British Missions are given at length in the Report, in four columns, stating first the whole amount, and then the proportions for Home, Ireland, and the Colonies, and presenting a very interesting document. The following is the total of collections and proportions:

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It will be seen that the Union itself, which has been the happy instrument of all this good, receives for its share the generous sum of £22 14s. 94d.! When the history of the Union comes to be written, it is to be hoped that, in justice to its Executive, the scribe may find a niche for the words of Solomon :

"This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me: there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: now there was found

1844 and 1845.

in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.'

The only unsatisfactory portion of this interesting and valuable document is the following:

"Your financial affairs must not be passed over without notice. The brethren present will not have forgotten how earnestly successive committees of the Union have, on former occasions, pleaded for a contributed income adequate to its annual expenditure-about four hundred pounds-in order that all profits whatever derived from its publications might go in aid of the fund for aged ministers. The committees have assigned two grounds for this appeal: first, they have alleged that it is objectionable in principle that the management of a public society should be sustained by trade profits in any form. This judgment your Committee, now reporting its stewardship, distinctly repeats and confirms. The second ground of appeal for voluntary contributions, sufficient to leave the profits of all your publications free to augment the fund for aged ministers, has been that they are all needed for that work of Christian justice. As yet these appeals have been ineffectual. The contributed income for the past year, presently to be reported, has not supplied one hundred pounds of the four hundred expended in your service. An opportune legacy supplied a second hundred. But more than two hundred pounds have therefore been unavoidably abstracted from the profits of your publications, to provide for your expenditure. Though somewhat discouraged that the brethren and churches have not yet made the exertions necessary to provide for the Union a safe and honourable support on the voluntary principle, still your Committee is so persuaded that it must be their judgment that your finances should be placed on this only true basis, that it would not feel justified in discontinuing representations on the subject."

Is this among the things that are of "good report?" Let us, in the first place, look at the expenditure, which is as follows:

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Stationery

Incidentals

Rent, Attendance of Office, &c.

Printing, portion of Blackburn and Pardon's Account

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Such are the facts. What is the argument? Were we the adversaries, and not the advocates, of the Voluntary principle, we should eagerly state it, and close our demonstrations by asking whether it were possible that such a body could be composed of Independents, the oldest, greatest, richest, most enlightened, and public-spirited Nonconformist community in Britain-the people whose orators are ever and anon declaiming, with all but Demosthenic vehemence, against Regium Donum, the Government Grant to the Borough-road School, the receipt of Government aid in the work of Education, the endowment of Colonial sects and churches, and all State support, in any form, in matters of religion? Yes, and having done this, we would call upon them, in the name of dignity, not to say decency, to withdraw from the stage of public conflict with the adherents of the

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Establishment principle, till they had reviewed their position, revised their proceedings, and harmonized their conduct with their principles. Who can deny that such counsels, even although tendered in accents of scorn, would, in the lips of an adversary, be somewhat appropriate? Here is a great combination for objects the most important to the several churches who compose it, to the common Christianity of England, and to the world's evangelization-a combination resulting in boundless good, and unattended by a single evil-a combination involving the insignificant expense of only some £421 19s. 4d. per annum! This is all that is required to carry on its great and widespread operations; and, after an experiment of fifteen years, during which it has been tried, and found equal to the great things proposed by its founders and friends, what is the sum total of the

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