sensible, consistent Christian ridiculed on account of his Christianity, except in a few religious newspapers and Sunday-school books. I have been surprised to see the respect paid to religion by those who made no pretensions to it themselves.

It is true that inconsistent Christians do get a good many hard hits; and as most of us are more or less inconsistent, it follows that most of us have to wince occasionally, but we have no right to complain. It may not be kind or chivalrous in the hitter, but, if we present a vulnerable point to the foe, we must expect him to take advantage of it. We flatter our self-love that we are following the footsteps of the martyrs, when we are but stumbling along by-paths of our own. It is not our Christianity, but our inconsistency, that is laughed at, as it richly deserves, and may consider itself let off lightly at that. When our efforts for others are received with ridicule, ten to one it is because we go to work in a ridiculous way. I do not say this harshly or reproachfully. It is a simple statement of fact. Some of us are naturally absurd. We take hold of things in general the wrong way. Some of us are only partially absurd. Let us acknowledge the fact good-naturedly, and if we fail where we earnestly hoped to succeed, let us consider whether it may not be due to the outcropping of our absurdity, as well as of another's total depravity. When we enter the portals of the

church, we take our bundle of peculiarities with us. So far as they are stumbling-blocks in other peoples' paths, we ought to do all that we can to remove them; which being done, we are guiltless. But do not let us magnify them into religion, and think the cause of Christ bound up in them. They may be our fault; they may be our misfortune. In either case they are not our glory.

We confound incident with essence; and the result is harmful. It is wrong, and wrong is always harmful. It is unjust, and injustice works woe. People are bad enough; it does not conduce to God's glory or their own good to make them out any worse than they are. They have a sufficient alacrity in sinning; do not let us call that a sin which is only a difference of taste. I once saw a pious woman seem as much distressed because her brother spoke lightly of the preaching faculty of a certain minister, as if he had told a lie; when the fact was, that the minister, although the very salt of the earth for goodness, a burning and shining light for all moral virtues and Christian graces, was an intolerable proser in the pulpit. Famine itself could hardly obtain meat off the dry bones of his theological disquisitions. Do you not see that such a confounding of facts must have a tendency to make a man desperate ? If you visit upon mere difference of taste, or an acute sense of the ridiculous, the reprobation which belongs only to moral obliquity, if you identify your weak

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nesses with Christ's strength, and consider a dart aimed at one to be also and inevitably aimed at the other, you must not be surprised if he' whom you wish to serve and save, following your example, falls into the same mistake, and the name of Christ thereby suffers reproach.

Be careful, therefore, not to confound men with principles, the religion of Christ with your exemplification of it, the susceptibility of the mind to various emotions with the "opposition of the natural heart" to truth. Make the cause of Christ always yours; but do not suppose that your cause must invariably be the cause of Christ. The shellfish and sea-weed that cling to the ship's keel are not the ship. They are only obstacles to its progress. The heavy blows, the filing and scraping and scouring, are only to clear them off. Nobody is going to scuttle the ship.

In the world ye shall have tribulation, but the tribulation of New England Christians in the year 1860 is from within rather than from without,

it arises from our own sins rather than from the sins of others.

Whoever wishes to work effectually for Christ must put his armor on. It is no work for lazy people. It needs the wisdom of the serpent, the harmlessness of the dove, and the strength of the lion. Let us watch for souls, as those that must give account.

III.

ORDINANCES.

"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."— COL. ii. 16, 17.

E who are Congregationalists have small reverence for the Apostolic succession. We can hardly believe that virtue has been conducted over an unbroken line of fingers eighteen centuries long, and we are rather surprised at the credulity of our Episcopal brethren. Yet we sometimes pay ourselves, and demand from others, as great a reverence for certain forms, as if those forms had been intrusted to our keeping by the great Head of the Church. We are as inconsistent as we fancy "Churchmen" to be credulous. They logically require reverence for what they believe to be a true apostolic succession. We illogically demand equal reverence for that for which we claim only human origin.

I suppose the whole Protestant world is a unit

as regards the necessity and propriety of assembling together on the first day of the week for the purpose of worshipping God in a direct and especial manner. The teaching of Scripture, both by precept and example, and the experience of the Christian world, have shown that the social element of man's religious nature needs this for its adequate sustenance and generous growth. But as to the particular manner in which this worship shall be conducted, or the number of times that we shall assemble ourselves together on Sunday, the Scriptures do not give a distinct intimation, and we acknowledge no other authority, nor is there, in fact, any unanimity of custom in the matter. Many a New England village has, however, settled the question as succinctly and definitely as if it had consulted Urim and Thummim and re

ceived response. Extemporaneous prayers uttered by the clergyman alone, written sermons, and choir-singing, — for quality, two church services and Sunday school in the day-time, and prayer-meeting in the evening, - for quantity. The question of quality I do not now propose to discuss, but let us examine a little this question of quantity.

I have no right to reproach you for going to church only once on Sunday, and you have no right to reproach me for going four times. By your one attendance you express your approbation of, and your respect for, the institution, and by the