are drawbacks-serious drawbacks on the most favourable aspects which our streets present; but there remains enough, after all, to excite devout thankfulness for what we are, and to justify the most sanguine expectations as to what we shall yet become. Notwithstanding that recent events have led Popish scribes on the other side of the channel to assume and rejoice over our country's downfall, we see good reason for the conviction that her glory is not yet on the wane-has not yet culminated. Her mission to the nations of the earth has not yet been accomplished. Her latest intelligence must have already convinced those scribes that their rejoicing was premature. We see the staff of her strength, and the pledge of her progress, in that which they deem the source of her weakness. Only let her be faithful to her Protestantism and to her Bible, and it will be a long time yet, if ever, before a traveller from the antipodes, or anywhere else, will "take his stand. on a broken arch of London bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's." The race of heroes is not yet exhausted. Delhi and Lucknow-the names which have recently become household words-names, the very mention of which makes our hearts leap with admiration of their heroism-the names of Laurence and Havelock, and Greathed, and Osborn, and Willoughby, and Salkeld, and Home, with a galaxy of others, too numerous to mention, down to the very pri vates of her army, testify to the skill and courage, ay, and I will add, to the goodness of her sons. For though, in the rush of mad war, the soldier's passion may sometimes have mastered his cooler judgment, and in some few instances, men may have been recklessly slain, the wonder is not that there should be occasional excesses, but that after the provocations received, the desire for vengeance should have been so well restrained. I see the power of England's Christianity in the fact that it influences England's war fare. Had not her soldiers felt directly or indirectly the power of her religion, they would not have contrasted so nobly with their heathen foes-they would neither have proved so brave in the hour of battle, nor so merciful in the flush of victory. Oh, with all her faults, I am proud of old England. Not in a spirit of vain boasting, do I say it, but with thankfulness to God, who has made us what we are, notwithstanding much unfaithfulness and many sins-not in a spirit of vain boasting, but with thankfulness to him do I say, that never waved more proudly than at this day that flag which long has braved the battle and the breeze. No, our mission is not yet accomplished. Those sons and daughters of hers who have done so nobly on the plains of Hindostan, have left brothers and sisters at home, whose hearts and limbs have been cast in the same heroic mould; and who, did occasion demand, would act no less nobly. And are they not all around us, even now, displaying, in the battle with social evils, the same heroic qualities; and devoting to the work of social reformation, some the statesman's skill, and many the soldier's courage? We have many faults, but we are trying to mend them, and we are mending them. The same religion which has made us what we are which has raised us to a place among the nations of the earth, which no other nation is now qualified to take, is at work among us still. Those church spires and cathedral domes which tower above our city,-those hundreds of churches and chapels,-though they be not all they seem, are the material monuments of its presence and power. The Christian communities which assemble there are the centres of its transforming and sanctifying and elevating influence. Those benevolent institutions which we count by hundreds, with an aggregate revenue of many hundred thousand pounds, are its immediate fruits; our national enterprise and extended dominion its indirect results. That noble Bible Society; those Missionary institutions, with their extensive ramifications and vast resources; our Sunday-schools and Young Men's Christian Associations, with numberless others which time fails me to name, are at once the offspring of her influence, the signs of her progress, and the agencies of her future conquests. The efforts made to bring Christian truth into contact with all classes of the people, by means of Ragged Schools, and Domestic Missions, and Educational Unions, and Exeter Hall Working Men's Services, are the symptoms and the results of her reviving life. The outspoken manner in which she deals with every social evil is not the sign of failure, but an indication of the thoroughness with which she means to accomplish her task-leaving no suffering unmitigated, and no sin untouched. And the altered tone of the public press,—a press which watches shrewdly the signs of the times, and never speaks but on the winning side, is the proof of her power, and the pledge of her triumph. And looking at all these features of England's Christianity, we see reason to anticipate a glorious future for England. There is reason to watch, young men, lest you should be overcome by the pernicious influences which are working around you. There is reason for working-for not without work can evil be destroyed and good diffused. There is reason for which you have to grapple are by the unaided arm of man. hope. Christianity has not proved a failure. And although its progress has not been so rapid as some might have anticipated, it has been quite as rapid as the analogy of the Divine procedure, and the nature of the work to be done, would have warranted us to expect. The world was rushing rapidly down the steeps of night towards endless destruction, when Christianity laid hold of it; and, though it has not at one bound raised it to the place whence it fell, it prayer; for the evils with too strong to be vanquished But there is also ground for has checked its departing momentum; it has caused it to waver in its motion; it has changed its course. And now, under its influence, the world is rising-gradually, and slowly, yet surely rising-rising through the dawning light into the brighter day. And it will continue to rise until it takes its place in the community of holy worlds, to move with them in harmony around the throne of God; while the unfallen sisterhood rejoice that the dead has been made alive-that the fallen one has been restored, and the lost one found. Then the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. He who testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. |