And what a lovely thing is peace! Look at the ocean after it has been lashed by angry winds into a storm. Watch the gradually subsiding of the agitated waters. The dark and frowning clouds pass quictly away, the wind falls, the blue sky appears again, and the mighty depths of ocean gradually calm their surface, and are still and smiling. This is peace in the natural world-peace after elemental strife; and grand as may be the features of such contention, there is surely something more congenial with the better part of our nature in the more tranquil

scene.

There is something analagous to this in the moral world. The passions of man are open to agitation. Various causes may rouse and raise them; and the mind may become like the raging waves of the occan. But how delightful it is to those who at all rightly appreciate the moral nature with which God has endowed us, to find within, the influence of a controlling pacific principle, laying every angry passion to rest again, subduing pride, and envy, and rancor, and malevolence, and calling up in their sicad the spirit of tenderness, meekness, and forbearance, and an eager willingness to forgive others, "as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us."

He who has experienced this change, knows a far superior and more satisfactory delight, than any which he could possibly derive from the full gratification of the turbulent and bitter passions of the heart. There is a triumphant and exquisite joy in having compassion upon our fellow-servant, and extending to him a free forgiveness, only to be equalled by the joy consequent on that free forgiveness which our heavenly Father and Judge bestows upon us.

And think of perfect peace in heaven! It will be the complete exclusion from the society of that holy dwelling, of all the workings of proud, selfish, unjust, and unkind feeling: the total subsiding of all the affections into pure equanimity; so that our capacities shall be perfectly free, spontaneously alive, to all that is friendly, benevolent, and generous, and entirely and eternally precluded from the existence of even a secret wish, which might invade the justice due to any one individual, or in the slightest degree disturb the harmony of the whole. Let other men, men of other religious professions, love the bustle and the collision which arise out of the selfishness of the heart in its fallen state; but let

Christians learn to weep in godly sincerity, over every remainder of such corrupt tendency that they detect within them. Let them long ardently for that state of moral perfection, when "Judah shall no more vex Ephraim, nor Ephraim Judah;" but when the mind of every redeemed creature shall be in perfect and perpetual harmony with the equitable, holy, and benevolent mind of God. Let it be our privilege to breath after a promised world, where the spirit of Christ shall be in all its loveliness the spirit of Christians; and where even the secret thought of the heart shall know no deviation from the law of love.

But we are upon carth; and however we may be permitted to speculate on a future world of peace, we must not limit ourselves. to such speculation. It is the duty of all Christians to aim as far as possible to bring the very spirit of heavenly peace to bear upon the evils that reign in human society, and on the excessive passions in which those evils originate. This is a positive duty enjoined upon Christians during their sojourn in this world of contention. They are the oil upon the waves. As Christ their master and prototype stood on the deck of the vessel in the midst of the angry waters, and cried, "Peace, be still;" so ought every Christian to exert the moral influence which his principles, his practice, and his habitual character give him, in order to still the passions of more angry and less peaceable men than himself. He has to keep down pride and self, both in himself and others. He is, "if it be possible, as much as in him lies, to live peaceably with all men."

The object which every Christian ought to have in view in respect to the text, is peace arising from the practice of holiness founded on Christian principles. This, of course, can only extend in the full sense of the words as far as true religion extends; for if men are not really Christian, and therefore not really and practically holy, they are destitute of the only living principle by which pride, and self, and the contentions which spring from them, can be effectually controlled. And if men are sound in Christian sentiment, though yet in a great degree from personal neglect of Christian means unsanctified, to that extent, even among professing Christians, even within the limits of the Christian community, there will be a want of dutiful attention to the precept of the text. But where Christians are consistent, and live practically by their principles, and in all their intercourse in VOL. II.-70

life deny themselves to take up their cross and follow the Redeemer in newness of life, and in the practice of "whatsoever things are pure, and honest, and just, and lovely, and of good report;" there the influence of Christians will extend beyond their own limited sphere. They will be enabled in a great degree to live peaceably with all men; they will often be able to carry forward difficult measures, with men of other minds, in the spirit of conciliation, to breathe a better influence through less religious society, and to lead men, in imitation of their evidently happy and successful example, to live at least in some degree peaceably with each other.

And this should be the Christian's constant aim and endeavor. And what a vantage ground it gives us! If we are really Christian, to what a peculiar state of privilege we are thus called!— We have realized a principle and a blessed influence which make us superior to ourselves, superior to the tendencies of our own natural minds, and superior to the reigning principles of the great mass of this world's society. In the strength of this we are to run our course; and like the sun in the firmament, to "let our light shine before men" for their improvement and their comfort; we are to let the peaceableness of our own ways win the men of strife to peace. Oh, let us never suffer ourselves to be drawn aside from this position, or led to deviate from the character which our heavenly Master has given us. "Ye are the salt of the earth, and if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted." If Christians allow themselves, in their intercourse with each other and the world, to forget the principles of the text, where shall our fellow-men obtain a better influence? If we who profess to have found a remedy, exhibit by our improper conduct, however falsely, the semblance of weakness and insufliciency in that remedy, how can we expect men to apply to it? And if the stream that flows from under the gate of the sanctuary be thus polluted, how can we expect the fulfillment of the promise, that the stagnant waters of the desert shall be healed by it, and that the dead shall live wheresoever the river cometh?

We grant that the text does not call the children of God to a duty without its difficulties. The difficulties are many and serious, and not to be overcome without the most serious and resolute demand upon the heavenly principles by which we profess to be actuated.

The difficulty of living peaceably with all men, is founded in the difference that exists between men; and much of that difference has its origin in our fallen nature. For instance,

First, Men are widely different in temperament; so that they go to work even to attain the same object in a very different manner. The sanguine man cannot comprehend the slow process of the phlegmatic mind. The man of acute feeling cannot abide the snail-like progress of the man of reasoning. Nor can the cautious and timid man go along with the decisive and rapid movements of the bold and ardent.

Secondly, Men take different views of things; and that most conscientiously. Take, as an example, the differences existing in the Christian church, on points of doctrine, and government, and discipline, even where men are really in earnest, and where the practical effect in each, as holy men, establishes the presence and power of the real Christian principle. Each uses conscientiously his own powers of discernment, and to his own master he stands or falls. But no effort has yet availed to make men all of one mind upon all points; nor is it necessary to attempt it. The difficult point rather to be encountered here, and to be attained, is, that while men differ, and are allowed to differ on many points, they may be so one in heart, that within the limits of the believing church, we may live peaceably with all men.

Thirdly, There are differences of education. And this is a more serious difference than men in general suppose. Some men are trained to suavity and yielding. Some are trained to resistance. Some men are trained to yield much, if they can obtain the main point that they are seeking. Some will yield nothing; and would hold it as dishonest to yield in that which is trifling, as in that which is essential. Some are taught to think. that rude and unkind, which others would think honest and manly. Some would think a manner of acting mean and cringing, which others would regard as fairly due to the rules of polished society. A mode of address or a turn of expression may have a relish for one, which is insufferable and disgusting to another. These differences, subordinate as they are, mix up with and considerably affect greater questions; and men are often found to be differing needlessly about a measure, when they have been hurt by a word, or caviling upon a casual word, when they might soon have agreed upon the principle.

Fourthly, There are difficulties frequently in the way of explanation. If men have differed originally about a measure, additional caution is necessary in any attempt at explanation; for if they differed when they were originally agreed, how much more likely are they to differ in a state of opposition; especially when the very point that must necessarily come into discussion, is the point on which they are at variance. The continuance of difference here, arises either from the not touching the evil at all, for fear of making it worse, and so leaving it as it is; or from the endeavor to ascertain somewhat rudely, the whole extent of the mischief, and so widening the rent with a view to a sounder healing. Unless explanation be conducted on both sides in the guarded but affectionate exercise of Christian principle, it will too frequently do more harm than good.

Fifthly, But the grand difficulty in the way of living peaceably with all men, is that native corruption of the heart, to which we directly trace the want of charity, the want of patience, the want of meekness, the want of forbearance, the want of tenderness, the want of that humble sense of our own utter nothingness, which lives in our formal confessions, but not in our hearts. We nced a nature thoroughly new. It is awful scriptural truth, that "the original fault and corruption of our nature" goes to such an extent, that "in every man born into the world, it deserves God's wrath and damnation;" and such is its operation within, that often "the good that we would, that we do not, and the evil which we would not, that we do;" "to will is present with us, but how to perform that which is good, we find not." And if this is the case, it cannot but be that such a corrupt nature, showing itself in those deficiencies of the Christian graces of which we speak, must minister much difficulty in the way of living peaceably with all men." For in them and in us there exists the same deadly evil, ready to take advantage of circumstances, ready to gather excuse and indulgence from the first word, ready to catch at any irritating excitement, and catering after fuel for the flame. And if it be true that a soft answer turns away wrath, it is equally true that an incautious answer kindles it.

What we need is godliness: a Divine influence through the knowledge and faith of Christ, conforming our rebellious will to the will of God. We need so "to learn Christ, as to put off the