decisions, or sentences, of the Church Courts in Scotland, with regard to any person connected with this congregation. The other congregations in England connected with the Church of Scotland are in the same or similar circumstances. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland recommended the formation of Presbyteries and a Synod in connection with the congregations in England, situated as described in the following terms, viz. : Edinburgh, 3rd June, 1850 Sess. 15. The General Assembly called for the Report of the Committee appointed to confer with Dr. Cumming, which was given in and read by Dr. Hill, the convener, in the following terms. The Committee appointed to confer with the Rev. Dr. Cumming, beg to report that having learned from him that there are now a number of Churches in the west and north of England adhering to, and by their constitution connected with the Church of Scotland as by law established, and that these Churches are attended by respectable congregations, are humbly of opinion that the General Assembly in accordance with its proceedings in 1844 and 1845 should advise the formation of a Presbytery in the West of England, comprising the Churches in Liverpool and Manchester in connection with the Church of Scotland, and the formation of another Paesbytery in the north of England, comprising the Churches there in connection with the Church of Scotland; and further should advise that these Presbyteries, along with "The Scottish Presbytery in London in connection with the Church of Scotland," do constitute a Synod which shall be declared to be in full connection with the Church of Scotland, and entitled to all the intercourse, correspondence, and encouragement heretofore afforded to Presbyteries, or other Church Courts, within the realm of England. Provided always that the members of the aforesaid Presbyteries and Synod be all Licentiates of the Church or Ministers who have been admitted into full communion with this Church by the General Assembly of this Church. Your Committee are further of opinion that, for upholding the con. nection between the above Synod and the General Assembly, and for affording greater facility for giving advice where counsel may be asked, there should be an annual communication made from that Synod to the General Assembly, in writing, respecting the state of the foresaid Presbyteries; that this communication should embrace a distinct enumoration in 1851 of all the Ministers constituting the members of the said Synod and of their place of worship; and in future years, a distinct statement of any changes that take place in the foresaid Churches, of new appoint. ments made to them, of the persons appointed, and of the Presbyteries from whom their licences were obtained; and that said communications should be kept among the papers of the General Assembly. Your Committee would further recommend that all Licentiates of this Church who may occasionally reside within the bounds of the foresaid Presbyteries shall be required to report themselves within two months to the Moderator of the Presbytery with which their place of residence is most nearly connected; and if their circumstances admit of it to make such acquaintance with the members of the Presbytery as will enable them to bring a favourable certificate along with them when they return to Scotland. Your Committee have finally to report that all the information which they have received from Dr. Cumming respecting the Rev. David Magill, now officiating in the Caledonian Church, London, is highly satisfactory and that in consideration of the character and services of that individual, it is the opinion of your Committee that the said "Scottish Presbytery, in London, in connection with the Church of Scotland," be empowered on taking such trial of his gifts and qualifications as they may deem necessary, and being satisfied therewith and thereafter on his signing the Confession of Faith and Formula, to admit him as Minister of the Caledonian Chapel, in London, under the inspection of the Presbytery of London; it being expressly understood and provided that he shall not be admitted a member of the Presbytery of London, or considered eligible for a charge in Scotland, until he shall have gone through the complete curriculum of study, through which Licentiates of this Church are required to pass, so as to satisfy the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, The connection, however, subsists upon the footing specified in the Report made to the General Assembly in 1850-by a committee appointed to confer with Dr. Cumming upon the state of the Presbyterian Congre gations in England—and I think it is clear that if the connection is ta remain upon the same footing there ought to be a Report by the Synod to the General Assembly of any step taken by the former so important as the affiliation of another Presbytery which might affect the character and constitution of the whole body." The late Mr. Davidson, who succeeded his father, (once & worshipper in this Church with his family), as Secretarytreasurer of the Church in Carlisle, and was as well qualified from intelligence, sincere interest in the subject, and intimate acquaintance with the facts of the case, as any man I have ever met, wrote to myself when about to become minister at Carlisle, as follows: "I am not in a position to give any authoritative opinion, but my impression is that when you have signed acceptance of the charge in the Minute Book, you then become legally possessed of the benefice under the Trust Deed. It is desirable that Presbyterial recognition should be obtained as soon thereafter as convenient, but, in my opinion, it is a matter of expediency, not of legal necessity." The General Assembly in recent years has also appointed a special committee to watch over the interests of the congrega tions in England, and Mr. Robertson, minister of the Iro Church, Edinburgh, is its convener, and as such, according to a conversation with him when last in that city, might have been preaching to you to-day, but for the circumstance which we did not advert with sufficient accuracy, that to-day is his own communion day. It is clear, therefore, that the Church of Scotland has theoretically done all that she can do for her congregations across the border. She can only recommend the brethren who minister to these congregations to associate themselves together in Presbyteries and a Synod, for the purposes of mutual counsel and admonition, and to promote the edification of their respective congregations according to the doctrines, principles, and practices of the Church of Scotland. It is not in her power to set up courts with legal authority and jurisdiction in England, and she has not attempted to do so. It is not in her power to confer on any one of Scotland the right to grant licence to preach forth the Gospel, and she does not attempt to do do so. The ordination of brethren in England is as valid in her eye as the ordination of brethren in Scotland. The same may be said also of induction. But these acts, to be valid in her eye, must be performed by the brethren in relation to persons who have already received her stamp, or seal, or licence, after suitable and sufficient examination, and through her stamp, the stamp of the common sovereign of these realms. We are not, therefore, an independent Church. We are an integral portion of the Church of Scotland. The inconveniences connected with the carrying out of our principes forth of Scotland have also counter-balancing advantages if we only knew them and were willing to develope them for the advancement of have extended their personal sympathy and countenance to us, and many others have promised to do the same as soon as time and circumstance permit. But we must not forget the special strain which is placed on the Church at home at the present moment, nor the weight of obligations which rest Christ's cause in our own hearts and in the hearts of others. We are not dissenters in the proper sense of the term: for dissent has always a relation to the voice of the people through their representation in Parliament, and expressed in its most permanent form in the existing laws of the land. The United Presbyterian Church in Scotland is a dissenting Church, on each individual minister in his own position at home, and because it dissents from the will of the Imperial Parliament as expressed in the existing law of the land, when it recognises the national Church of England in England and the national Church of Scotland in Scotland. The Free Church in Scotland is in the same way a dissenting Church, with this modification, that their dissent was caused by the interpretation put upon the will of the Imperial Parliament by the law courts of the country. They do not dissent from the will of the Imperial Parliament being expressed in any form with regard to any Church, but they dissent from the existing form in which it has been expressed as interpreted by judicial authority. In a country governed through representative institutions, such as ours is, this evil should not have led to the disastrous consequences which have followed had not the violence of party spirit and passion and personal feeling on both sides burst away the control of reason aud conscience and Christian principle. But it is easy to criticise after the event and to speak of the restraint and presence of mind which might have saved from shipwreck, in the calm, after the storm is over. The key to the constitution of this country is that the law governs, the sovereign reigns. A state of dissent therefore, is a state of chronic discontent with the existing law, which governs with the constitution of existing society. We are not here, however, as dissenters. We take up no attitude of antagonism to the Church of England. Our position is the same, or similar, to that of members of the Church of England in Scotland. We do not, indeed, conform to her rites and ceremonies, because we find those to which we have been accustomed more conducive to our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. We do not dispute the propriety of members of the Church of England saying the same thing with truth of the rites and ceremonies of the Church of Scotland in Scotland. We accept the same central authority, the will of Queen, Lords, and Commons, as expressed in the existing law of the land, with regard to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of Scotland in Scotland as to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England in England. There is the same practical necessity for our existence in England as for the existence of Episcopal congregations in Scotland; and we might justify our position by considerations drawn from the Solemn League and Covenant and the Westminster Confession of Faith to which it was related, the Revolution Settlement, and the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland. But we forbear, as the subject is our relation to the Church of Scotland. The sons and daughters of Scotland in England have a special claim to be followed by the ministrations of their National Church; and the Church at home has failed to respond to this claim, not so much in theory as in practice, in the small amount of practical sympathy and countenance she has shewn them upon the theory she herself has put forth. We cannot complain of late in this congregation, as compared with others, of want of sympathy and countenance: for some of the ablest and most eloquent of the ministers of the Church so become unreasonable in our demands upon them. Yet there may be good grounds for admitting that the Church at home, as a whole, is not anything like sufficiently awake to the magnitude of the opening which exists for her legitimate efforts in England nor to the vast accession of strength she might gain for herself by taking possession of what is her own and of what runs to waste, or worse, for the want of her fostering hand. She is certainly not sufficiently aware of the numbers, and of the amount of influence, she might rally round her standard were she to carry it forward with snffi- · cient force and fervour amongst her sons, daughters, and sympathisers in England. She certainly does not appreciate with anything like sufficient depth and earnestness the difficulties and dangers with which the faith of her sons and daughters have to contend in such a city as Manchester. The struggle for the means of subsistence by some, the streams of worldly pleasure which play upon others; the press of business which weighs on a third class; the novelty of the circumstances to those who came recently from Scotland; the conflict and looseness of opinion and feeling to which all are exposed, and the torrents of temptation, of vice, and irreligion which whirl and eddy on every hand, are enough to make the stoutest heart quail, to shake the strongest faith, and to call forth a deeper sympathy and a nobler effort on the part of the Church at home than she now seems to feel and to make, if she could only be brought face to face with the facts as they exist. It is unnecessary to dwell much on the long and illustrious history of this Church with which we are so closely connected, or on the details and excellencies of her Presbyterian constitution. Yet it appears advisable, and it may be interesting, to pass a few remarks upon them before we close. Those who desire fuller information, in a readable form, should procure the "Baird Lectures for 1875." The introduction of Christianity into Scotland is buried in obscurity. A mist hangs over its first footsteps as dense as ever hangs on the Scottish hills or as the fogs which frequently envelop Manchester. The legend as to Apostolic feet having touched our shores are unreliable, though we cannot call them wholly untrue with any warrant. History brings its light clearly forth on our island home through St. Columba from the north and St. Augustine from the south. Iona's isle shed the beams of heavenly light on Scotland without doubt, whatever may have been before. The Caldu institutions covered the land, and Christianity ever since has always assumed a peculiarly national and independent form in Scotland. In the fifteenth century the supremacy of the Pope was well nigh established, but the claims of York and Canterbury were adroitly played against his claims until the independent patriotism of the people flashed forth again in triumph under Robert the Bruce. The Reformation was subsequently achieved with thoroughness under the sheltering shield of the Barons-the Lords of the congregation. The existing constitution of the Church of Scotland was framed according to the principles of John Knox, Andrew Melville, and Alexander Henderson, who in succession played a conspicuous part in a transition period full of peril to the dearest interests of the inhabitants of Scotland. These principles have been applied with remarkable success in modern times: first under the burning eloquence and irresistible enthusiasm of the celebrated Dr. Chalmer, of whose name every Scotchman is justly proud, but whose life and labours, noble and devoted as they were, were so much marred by the disaster of '43; then under the influence of the less eloquent, though no less able and earnest, Dr. Robertson; and in succession to him under the wise, genial, assiduous, and strong guidance of the late lamented Dr. Smith, of North Leith, who was cut off in the maturity of manhood, under the effects of excess of work and an overwhelming domestic bereavement. Her creed is Calvinistic, but not more so than that of the Church of England. The decree of reprobation which the logic of Calvin led him to propound, but which the love of his heart led him to shrink from and designate as horrible, was deliberately rejected from her trusts. And our neighbour, Dr. Thompson, told us, at my induction amongst you, that he had taught her doctrines all his life, and hoped to die teaching them. The constitution of the Church of Scotland is founded, as already stated, on the abnegation of the priestly idea of the Christian ministry and it is also, in its very essence, characterised by the thorough amalgamation of clergy and laity in the exercises of ecclesiastical power, as well as in performing Christian duties. The Church bold, indeed, that certain ecclesiastical functions, such as preaching the Word and dispensing the sacraments, belong especially and properly to a regularly constituted and ordained class of ministers, but she repudiates tained so arrogantly by some Churches; and she acts upon the principle as unscriptural and absurd the theory of apostolical succession mainthat every person solemnly set apart to the ministry of the Word by one of her presbyteries, is as much a successor of the apostles as it is possible for any one to be. Such persons are alone eligible to the pastoral care of a parish; but in this office they are regarded as perfectly competent and entitled to perform all the duties and to exercise all the powers which in the New Testament are attributed to those who, beyond all question, are there spoken of indiscriminately under the two titles of bishop or overseer, and presbyter or elder. To these the Church of Her policy is Presbyterian, and, standing mid-way between Episcopacy and Independency, should combine in no small degree the advantages of both "by virtue of the system of orderly subordination which characterises" Presbyterian govThe proper aim of the Church, the true end of all Church work is, ernment, "and which harmonizes so beautifully individual not to aggrandise and glorify a class, not to buttress up in exclusive influence and freedom with the exercise of collective author-ministers of Jesus Christ with all the defences and ornamentations of dignity a haughty and infallible priesthood, or to hedge round the ity." Dr. Smith, in the "Baird Lectures for 1875," says (pages 91 and 92, and pages 62, 63, and 64, and also pages 236 and 237): The Church on earth, so far as visibly organised, is in one respect a mere human institution. At the same time, every rightly constituted branch of it must be planned in compliance with the terms of Christ's commission, and in accordance with general principles, bearing upon its character, conduct, and work, which are clearly expressed in Scripture. It is so constituted for the purpose of continuing Christ's life, and of carrying out Christ's work on earth through the mutual edification of believers and the gradual ingathering of those that are without to the faith and fellowship of Christ's people. The systematic organisation, the united prayer and combined endeavour, implied in the very idea and existence of such a Church, are readily conceded to be absolutely indispensable for the successful prosecution of missionary enterprise, and the setting up of the kingdom of Christ in heathen lands. They appear to be equally indispensable for the maintenance of the Church in purity and vigour in lands already Christianised. For the discipline of the lapsed for the instruction of the ignorant--for the strengthening of the weak-for the succour of the tempted for soothing sick and afflicted ones-for comforting mourners--for quickening all to a higher, holier, and more heavenly life, the very same instrumentality is needed as for the extension of the Church in heathendom. For both purposes the preaching of the Word, the observance of worship, the administration of the sacraments, and the stimulating examples of suffering patience, and of living faith, hope, and charity, such as a Church, with its social membership and institutions, can alone supply, are equally essential. On this ground the Church of Scotland has been constituted. For this reason she assumes the character of a national Church, and in order to this has all her agencies and arrangements based on the principle of endowed territorial work--s principle which may be easily vindicated as not only sound and good in the abstract, but as specially appropriate to the present circumstances of the country, ›nd a› «lona fitted to mert and obviate many of the erying evils of the times in which we he. ་ mystery and mummery, ritualism and absolvatory power. It is rather to benefit the people at large-to established their hearts in the faith and hope of the Gospel-to purify and adorn their lives with the gr and virtues of the Christian character-and to make them god industrious, honest, and loyal citizens of an earthly state, that so the may be fitted when their change comes for entering on the inheritance of the saints in light. Such is the aim with which we are here instituted as a Christian congregation, organized for Christian worship and Christian work in this community, in connection with the Church of Scotland, and according to her principles and her pattern, because of the number of her children and their sympathizers who dwell in this city. And let us labour and pray that this aim may be realized that all things may be done decently and in order that God's name may be glorified and the highest good of immortal souls advanced; that all things may be done for edification; that nothing may be done through strife and vain-glory; that nothing may be done to give worldliness and spiritual sloth the victory. But rise! let us no more contend, nor blame Each other's burden in our share of woe. And let us appropriate to the Church of Scotland the language of one of the most eminent, if not the most eminent, of living statesmen, applied by him to the Church of England (pages 25, 26, 27, 28). "Will it be said, all this anxiety is very much disproportioned to the case, if you are sincere in your belief that there is safety within the * Act Ass mbly, vii. 1719. Church as an ark which shall float on the waters when the fount ans of the great deep of human desire are broken up? It is true that we have nothing to fear for her, who bears a charmed life that no weapon reaches. She pursues her tranquil way of confession, adoration, thanksgiving, intercession, and divine communion, concentrated alike for the present and the future upon one object of regard, her Lord in heaven. This of the Church of Christ. And in the Church of England we find ors, and there are other lands where, when the slave sets his foot, his chains melt away in the breath of liberty; so there is a moral sphere where man is in a state of harassing thraldom, and another in which, the moment he enters it, his thoughts, and words, and actions are free. The two regions are those of well-doing and evil-doing; or, what is equivaall the essential features unimpaired, which declare her to be a fruit-lent, of the Spirit and of the flesh. In the region of wellbearing tree in the vineyard of God. The Scriptures faithfully guarded, doing, or under the guidance of the Spirit, we are free from liberally dispensed, universally possessed and read; the ancient bulwarks of the faith, the creeds, and the sound doctrine of catholic consent the law; in the region of ill-doing, or under the control of maintained; the apostolical succession transmitting, with demonstration the flesh, we are slaves to the law. By transferring our of the Spirit, those vital gifts which effectuate and assure the covenant; allegiance from the flesh to the Spirit, we pass from serfdom the pure worship; the known and acknowledged fertility in that sacred to liberty. to liberty. This is simply because the law is enacted against learning which, when faithfully used, is to the truth what the Israelitish the works of the flesh and not against the fruit of the spirit. arms were to the ark; and the everywhere reviving and extending zeal, courage, and love, these are the signs which may well quiet apprehen"The law is made not for a righteous man, but for the lawsion for the ultimate fate of the Church of England in the breast of the less and disobedient."-1. Tim., i., 9. "The works of the most timid of her sons. But we need not be ashamed, with all this, to flesh are manifest. But the fruit of the spirit is love, feel deeply and anxiously for our country. For that State, which, deriving its best energies from religion, has adorned the page of history, has extended its renown and its dominion in every quarter of the globe, has harmonized with a noble national character, supporting and supported by it, has sheltered the thickest plants of genius and learning, and has in these past days rallied by gigantic efforts the energies of Christendom against the powers and principles of national infidelity, bating no jot of heart nor hope under repeated failures, but every time renewing its determination and redoubling its exertions, until the object was triumphantly attained, for this State we may feel; and we may tremble at the very thought of the degradation she would undergo, should she in an evil hour repudiate her ancient strength, the principle of a national religion. We do not dream that the pupils of the opposite school will gain their end, and succeed in giving a permanent and secure organization to human society upon the shattered and ill-restored foundations which human selfishness can supply. Sooner might they pluck the sun off his throne in the heavens, and the moon from her silver chariot. What man can do without God, was fully tried in the history of Greece and Italy, before the fulness of time was come. have there seen a largeness and vigour of human nature such as does not appear likely to be surpassed. But it does not comfort us that those opposed to us will fail. They are our fellow-creatures; they are our brethren; they bear with us the sacred name of the Redeemer, and we are washed for the most part in the same laver of regeneration. Can we unmoved see them rushing to ruin, and dragging others with them less wilful, but as blind? Can we see the gorgeous buildings of such an earthly Jerusalem, and the doom impending, without tears? Oh that while there is yet time, casting away every frivolous and narrow prepossession, grasping firmly and ardently at the principles of the truth of God, and striving to realize them in ourselves and in one another, we may at length know the the things which belong to our peace." SERMON. We By the Rev. W. A. O'CONOR, B.A., at the Manchester The joy, peace; against such there is no law." Freedom con- This call to lofty privilege is characteristic of Christianity. In the writing or speech of an ordinary author it might be pronounced sentimental or theoretic if addressed to an individual, or Utopian if addressed to a community. But it is the very plan and method of revelation. The Bible does not appeal to our formal reason in logical statements of doctrine, but to our imagination in grand and elevating thoughts. Christianity is the rule of spirit, of mind, of ideas. The text is only one of a group of cognate passages that embrace the whole field of man's consciousness and duty. In all of these law is represented by some external and material influence; and freedom, won for us by Christ, stands as the unchanging mark of the believer. There are two definitions of this freedom. One is, that we must not confound the freedom to do right with the freedom to do wrong. We must not carry the privilege that is peculiar and proper to the region of spirit into the region of flesh. "Submit yourselves "But if ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law." to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake.. Gal., v. 18. as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness." severity, but also that we are free from the law in not treat-move in the depths of all great cities; reflect on the injuries ing others with unjust severity. Christ revealed the justice and miseries that drove their fathers from the realms of light, of mercy to mankind, not to open heaven to us immediately, and sank them at length in an abyss that is deeper than but to teach us to act justly to one another. God would not despair, that does not even mourn over its dead hopes. Can leave out of account in His dealings with us our liability to you call them sinners? Should they be treated as sinners? transgress, our hereditary tendencies to sin. "My Spirit Does not man's law deal with them rather as vermin to be shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh." It extirpated than as souls to be delivered? But they only rewould be unjust not to make allowances. God does make present one aspect of the influences to which all in common them; but that for which He makes no allowance is when we are liable. If they could look intelligently on those classes absorb the waters of mercy into the desert of selfishness, when which are called superior to them they would behold, too we receive justice and dispense injustice, when we ask and often, the results of successful injustice in the past repr obtain pity and consideration for our own infirmities, and duced in characters that are farther from the kingdom of show no pity nor consideration for the infirmities of our heaven than their own. All our qualities, the constitution of brethren. our souls, all physical and mental leanings and shrinkings, are the consequence of forces that were at work centuries before we were born. Although our sins, therefore, are our own, it is obvious that there is injustice in the law that makes them our own. Why should I be made a sinner and punished as a sinner because Adam sinned? Why should I be condemned from the birth because all the descendants of Adam continued to add sin to sin, and evil desire to evil desire, until the accumulated burthen became my insupportable inheritance of woe? It may be justice to the race, treated in the mass-Adam and his children taken together—that they should be subject to the Divine wrath; but it is not justice to any individual. "If we be led of the Spirit we are not under the law." For this law is not God's primeval equity—it is the law of fallen human nature. "What mean ye," says the prophet, "saying the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge? Behold souls are mine."-Ezekiel xviii., 2. The early record of crea tion tells us that while the lower animals were made after their kind, man alone was made in God's image. Morally speaking, man has no human ancestry. God is the immediate Father of each individual that comes into this world. But it is one of the effects of the Fall that we have lost the sense of our true sonship, and prefer to be born after our kind, like the ox that plods or the tiger that prowls. Therefore it is that the world is being divided into masters, who boast of their forefathers' violence, and slaves, who inherit their forefathers' servitude. Christ delivers us from this state. He is the new Adam who brings us back from the birth after our kind to the old creation in God's image. With Christ as Brother and God as Father, the child of a hundred generations of kings and the child of a hundred generations of paupers stand equal in their freedom from ancestral taint. To the son of honoured rank and the son of the harlot or the The darkest and most mysterious dispensation in divine murderer this freedom is equally offered, and by each it is government is the influence of antecedent circumstances in equally needed. But it is our part to comprehend, appreshaping character. We are creatures of the past. In long ciate, and appropriate the privilege. It is our part to help by-gone centuries the strifes, and passions, and vices of men each other to make it a reality. The pride and luxury of the were sowing the seeds of which we to-day are the living har-rich and the ignorance and coarseness of the poor are both vest. Open crime and secret sin in ancestral times are felt amongst us in the taint that disfigures and the weakness that degrades. Every wrong ever done was a tributary to that mighty torrent of wrong that runs through human history, gathering fresh force from each generation, and threatening, unless resisted by some mightier power, to bear the race at last to some sunless and unfathomed ocean of death. Think of the swarming broods of degenerate humanity that obscurely The principle embodied in the text explains the true nature of the doctrine of justification by faith. The law says that the soul that sins shall die. But if we have faith, or are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law. The walk of faith, or the guidance of the Spirit, always falls short of absolute righteousness. Faith is practically failure. But there is all the difference possible between failure and deliberate neglect and disobedience. The man who rebels against God, or who uses his liberty for an occasion to the flesh, and the man who strives to keep God's law, and fails, are very different in character. The man who rejects Christ, or Christ's laws, rejects mercy. He who strives to follow Christ seeks and obtains mercy. He may have such difficulties in his way that he cannot overcome them. He may be so over-weighted by circumstances that he cannot do more than die in the unfinished fight of faith. But if he have striven, if he leaves the blood-marks of his struggle on the barriers that opposed or the temptations that dragged him down, his intentions will be weighed, the will is taken for the deed, and his faith is counted for righteousness. But the transaction does not terminate in the joy of deliverance. The sincerity of the faith that is counted for righteousness is tested not by fervency of words or feelings, but by our readiness to extend to others the mercy that has been meted to us. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death. But there is a sin unto death-when the sinner refuses to his fellowsinner the mercy which he claims and seizes,—when he prays for and obtains forgiveness, but will not forgive-when he goes forth in the buoyancy of his premature freedom feom the law, and puts the law into merciless action against his brother, when exonerated, reprieved and delivered from his own debt, he takes the man indebted to him by the throat, and says, "Pay me that thou owest!" pardoned by God, and both need pardon from each other. Shall he to whom ten thousand talents were forgiven exact the hundred pence from his fellow-servant ? Thoughtful men, lovers of justice, and expectants of the kingdom of God, are dismayed and saddened by an unexpected frustration of their hopes. In former times poverty and its attendant debasement were ascribed to an insufficiency in the general resources; or at least it was thought unnecessary to |