illustration from the Apostle Paul, to show how a Christian man, wherever he is, will always keep this one object predominant. Do not too many Christians now, when they go across to the Continent, leave all their Christianity on this side the Channel, and indulge in all the pomps, the vanities, and the amusements of a dissipated capital? Many that go to Athens or to Rome, or to other illustrious cities, think only of their splendid architecture, the beautiful paintings, the exquisite sculpture, and act as if they had forgotten that they had been baptized into the visible Church, and some of them called into the true and living Church of the Lamb. Let us look, by way of contrast, at the conduct of the Apostle Paul-one who was in the world and overcame it; he visited the most illustrious capital on the earth-that capital which was called the Eye of Greece, the University of the World, whose fanes were unrivalled for their beauty, whose academy was the retreat of wisdom; by the banks of whose Ilissus a Socrates, a Plato, a Xenophon, and the most illustrious of mankind daily and hourly trod. The Apostle had taste, genius, education, talent; he had, to use the modern phrase, "æsthetical culture," just as much as any of those who have claimed a monopoly of it. But when he went to Athens, he saw none of its splendours; he was captivated by nothing of its beauty, he turned his back upon its temples, and its schools, and its lofty halls, and its glorious monuments, and he saw in that clear light which came down from heaven, but one painful and terrible spectacle-a city wholly given to idolatry; its moral ruin overpowered in his mind all its artistic magnificence.

Here was one who was in the world, and a victor over it. This Paul, too, we read, went to Rome; and when there, I have no doubt he paused in the senate, if peradventure he might hear the echoes of that eloquence which thrilled and captivated the world He climbed the lofty Capitol, that he might look around him on that glorious panorama of all that was splendid, and beautiful, and mighty. He saw the fasces - those awful symbols of departed justice; he could admire the graceful pillar, and look with reverence on the patriot's tomb, and with delight on the clustering columns; but these occupied little of his time or attention. His daily walks, we read, were not where history has shed its

splendours, but in the haunts of the hated Hebrew, amid the abodes of the wretched and miserable slave, by the pallet of the sick and the bed of the dying, among the victims of oppression and tyranny, of poverty and want. He held it to be his greatest glory, not that he had pleaded before princes, but that he had preached the Gospel to paupers; not that he had paced the illustrious forum, but that he had illuminated with the bright beams of the Gospel the souls of the dying, and taught the outcasts of humanity that they had sympathies in a human heart, consolation in Christ, and a home in heaven. What a noble instance of one who had taste, and sacrificed it; who had æsthetic sympathy, and put it down; who could admire the beautiful, applaud the glorious, be charmed with the grand; but live and die, and labour and suffer, only to save souls!

We, too, must be crucified to the world- we must thus overcome the world; some things in it we must repudiate, other things we must subordinate, many more things in it we must sacrifice. Conflict is the characteristic of this dispensation; our carnal taste would prefer the beautiful knoll in which we could lie down, and muse, and meditate; but Christ, by the voice of his Gospel, or by the dispensations of his providence, keeps us still on the march. We should prefer, no doubt, to pass to heaven in an easy chair, or in a finely-hung chariot; but, blessed be God, he does not allow us to do so. He opens the grassy seat, on which we sit down in indolent repose, to receive the dead dust of the near and the dear; or he enters the place which we had called our home, and of which we had declared in our folly, "Here we will rest and be happy for ever," and makes the flowers that are brightest in it fade, and the sounds that were music to become discord, and a voice pierce the inmost depths of our heart, saying to us, "Arise! this is not our rest; there remaineth a rest for the people of God." We have a battle to fight the "Battle of Life" is the name of a Christian's mission. To restrain appetites, to purify our affections, to sanctify our natures, to direct the eye of our ambition to a throne beyond the stars, to invigorate the intellect and transform and elevate our hearts, to save the soul—this is the great object of the Gospel. We are here as soldiers; to serve Christ is our mission, to over

come the world is our duty; the reward, promised to this Church, is, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God."

My dear friends, are you on the Lord's side? Have you taken your place? I trust that many a Christian in this assembly can say, "O Lord Jesus, I have been often beaten in the battle of life; I have often fainted and given way; I have often fallen before the foe but oh, my Lord, thou knowest that my heart cleaves to thee; thou knowest my resolve that thy side shall be my side, thy God my God, thy people my people; thou knowest that it is my prayer that I may know thee more, that I may love thee more, that I may serve thee better; and in thy strength, my Lord and my God, I will arise from the depression I have suffered, and the discredit I have brought upon thee; I will redeem the time, by thy grace, and I will endeavour to compensate, as far as compensation can be made below, by the splendour of my victories, for the defects and deficiencies, and worldliness and sinfulness, of the days that are past." He that can say so, and say so not with feigned lips but from the depths of his heart, has a principle within him which is mighty in power, and the spring of which shall not cease till grace is lost in glory, and struggle in everlasting victory.

LECTURE IX.

THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST.

"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God."-REV. ii. 7.

WHEN I addressed you from these words last Lord's-day evening, I showed that the word "overcome" implies by its very nature a previous battle. I endeavoured to describe what I conceived to be, indeed, the "Battle of Life," by referring to the powers that are engaged in the conflict, and the weapons which they respectively wield. I stated that on the one side, whatever may be their names, ranked under one banner are all the followers of Satan, all that sympathise with him, and reject and repudiate like him the Lord Jesus Christ. On the other side are arrayed all who belong to Christ, whose characteristics as his soldiers I am about to describe. Christ might crush Satan by the stroke of his omnipotence, but he does not do so; he suffers him occasionally to prevail, but only as preparatory to his final and utter overthrow. I showed you that Satan, and they that are on his side, use such weapons as deception - Satan is "a liar," we are told," and the father of it;" temptation - he has access to our hearts; I believe he has a longer tether and greater power than our philosophers are disposed to admit; he is "the Prince of this world;" he is not omnipotent, but he goes about with ceaseless activity, "as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour;" at the same time I believe he has the archangel's wisdom and the archangel's power, both inspired and strengthened by the demon's depravity and wickedness; and therefore we war "not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and spiritual wick

edness in high places.". I do not think we can account for the fearful crimes that occasionally stain our history, or the gigantic criminals that sometimes appear in our calendars, except by supposing the action of diabolic power. Another Satanic weapon is wicked instruments; a fourth is the corruption of what is good. Hypocrisy is virtue depraved, or vice putting on the external appearance and form of virtue; Popery is Christ's truth perverted the stones that were intended for a holy temple built into an unholy one. Satan employs persecution also. This was a favourite weapon during the first three centuries, and afterwards during the mediæval ages, towards the dawn of the Reformation; and perhaps before this dispensation closes it will be wielded once more, especially when that sifting time arrives which will test who are Christ's that overcome, and who are Satan's that are Overcome. In contrast with this, Christ and his people use their weapons; the first of these I stated to be truth. Christ will triumph in the world, not by the force of omnipotence - that would be the nearest approach to persecution; nor will he triumph by policy that would be stealing a leaf from the book of Satan; but by truth. Christianity repudiates the bribe of the treasury and the bayonet of the soldier; it will triumph by the use of truth, or it will lie down and die a martyr. Another of Christ's weapons is meekness, patience, forbearance, overcoming evil with good, "heaping coals of fire," to avenge the wrong of the wrongdoer; another is the preaching of the Gospel by human instrumentality; and lastly, the most powerful weapon of all, if weapon it may be called-the Holy Spirit of God. The victory is "not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts." The man who is overcome in this battle will feel it as the gnawing worm that never dies, that the defeat was wickedly and wilfully incurred; and the man who overcomes in this contest will feel, and sing in songs of triumph what he feels, through the ages of eternity, that the victory was "not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts."

I come now to answer the question which may be asked, Who are those that overcome? in other words, to endeavour to delineate Christ's soldiers. I will describe them first of all negatively. There are certain parties of whom it may be positively stated that