great question for us now to solve. All else is unimportant, compared with this enthralling question.

How stand we before God? forgiven or unforgiven? holy or unholy? hopeful, or despairing, respecting eternity? In upholding our country's cause, as we are bound to do, let us not forget this vital enquiry. The magnitude of its importance caused the Son of God to submit to the humiliation of Bethany and Calvary in order to procure for us that union, through repentance and faith to God, wherein only we can find satisfaction to our hopes and a removal of our fears. Let us not be indifferent about the value of our souls, whose salvation Divine love sacrificed so much in order to render possible! We are anxious to do our duty to our Queen and to our Country. Let us not be forgetful of what we owe to ourselves. Let us strive to be unto God "a peculiar people zealous of good works!" And, "O God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee, mercifully grant that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Amen.

SERMON III.

A ROMAN SOLDIER'S CHARITY, HUMILITY,

AND FAITH.

MATTHEW viii., 13.

"Jesus said unto the Centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee."

An eminent example of true charity, humility, and faith is presented to us in the person of this Roman Centurion. But, before our minds bestow attention on the graces of a godly character, which shone so conspicuously in his conduct, a train of preliminary reflections is suggested by his military vocation. We cannot withhold our sorrowful regret that the "unruly wills and affections" of men should cause the battle field to be at times a stern necessity, and armed preparation for defence against possible aggression to be a Christian nation's duty. True it is that, (like sunshine after the storm,) there beams ever before us on the page of Prophetic promise the assurance that a very

different order of things shall prevail hereafter, and that a day of "restitution of all things' shall arrive, when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more"; but, throughout the renewed world, "the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness shall be quiet and assurance for ever." In that day "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.'

The end, however, is not yet. And servants of God must, meanwhile, endure the hearing of "wars and rumours of wars"; and, if need be, respond to the call of duty; and loyally occupy their allotted place in the ranks of their country's protectors in arms, like the devout Centurion to whom reference is made in the Text. Nevertheless, our daily prayer must be "Lord! hasten Thy Kingdom"! From lisping infancy and hoary age must proceed the entreaty," Thy Kingdom come"! All must cherish the longing, preeminent and enthralling above all other longings, to see "the Lord alone exalted in that day. For they know that selfishness, ambition, pride, revenge, cruelty, and hatred will, then and thenceforth for ever, cease to make man his fellow-man's destroyer. "They shall sit every man under his vine and

under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it." For that day of promise every Bible-taught spirit is yearning. And, as its deepest emotions of hope and desire are being stirred by the Divine prediction, more and more painful and humiliating grows the consciousness that, meanwhile, gloomy tidings of war must be expected, and its inroads of violence must be guarded against, so long as the motives and passions of mankind shall continue to be what they are.

It is both painful and humiliating for true servants of God to reflect that the hideous battle-field—the gasping agonies of the smitten --and the thrilling cries of the widow and the fatherless, are all traceable to the prevalence of unchristian principles in the world; and that even the best and holiest among us have done so little, compared with what might have been done by us, to promote, under Divine Blessing a different order of things. God, recollect, has vested in us the power and responsibility of extending, by our example, efforts, and prayers, the influence of true religion, which, wherever it obtains a lodgment, plants "peace and good-will." By circulating the Scriptures, by promoting re

ligious education, by multiplying the means of grace at home and abroad, as well as by having devout recourse to them ourselves, it is ours to teach men to "love as brethren" instead of "hating one another as enemies." May God inspire us with the disposition to do our duty in this respect faithfully, and may His Blessing crown our efforts with success! Meanwhile, pray we heartily to Him to "give peace in our time”! Surely it is a result of human guilt, terrible enough to call forth continual prayer that it may be averted from us, which makes it necessary for weapons of destruction to be wielded in deadly strife by such a man as this centurion-of whom the Lord said "I have not found, so great faith, no, not in Israel"—and by such a man as Cornelius, the centurion of the Italian band, who was a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, and gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway!" The presence of such men in the ranks of war, while it amply justifies our undertaking (as a sacred obligation) to be our country's armed defenders (if need be) likewise suggests for our serious and sorrowful reflection the shock that must be administered to their best sympathies and holiest feelings by the horrors of a sanguinary campaign, in which

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