belongs. He may have become a poor, miserable, and helpless drunkard. He may have committed crimes for which he has received the contempt and execration of his fellow men. What, let me ask, could philosophy do for such a man? I will tell you :

When on a visit to one of the most distinguished universities in Europe, some five years ago, I occasionally attended the lectures of a celebrated Professor of Moral Philosophy, who is well known from one end of this country to the other by his light and popular writings. He is a man of the most brilliant imagination, of vast stores of knowledge, and of an admirable command of language. Withal, he has a person of most commanding appearance, a face of the finest mould, a forehead, an eye, such as a Vandyke might covet as a model for his pencil. As he stood before his class, his black gown hung carelessly from his noble shoulders, on which rested the long tresses of his auburn hair.

In the course of his lectures he was naturally led to treat of virtue, upon which he expatiated, very much as we may suppose that Plato would have done in similar circumstances. In the next lecture, which was an appropriate sequel, he discoursed on the resources of virtue; and first he developed the considerations which it furnishes to save men from falling into sin; or rather into vice, or the commission of wrong; for the learned Professor seemed to shrink from using the word sin. These topics he handled with consummate skill. After having dwelt with great eloquence upon the motives and arguments which philosophy may use to persuade men to pursue a virtuous life, he next took up those which she may employ to dissuade from a life of vicious indulgence. Among other things he depicted the poor sinner, hurried on by temptation to the commission of crime, as advancing rapidly to the verge of a vast precipice, at whose distant base lies a boundless, fathomless abyss, over which rest clouds of thickest darkness and impenetrable gloom. Above this awful gulf he represented death, hovering in mid-air with a javelin in his hand, and just ready to pierce the poor creature to the heart. The image was as appropriate as it was appalling.

At length, the eloquent Professor came to the question: "But suppose that temptation should prove too powerful, and all these considerations become insufficient to keep the man from falling into sin-into crime it may be, disgraceful crime-what is the wretched evil-doer to do? What can be done for his recovery?" Oh, thought I, when the Professor had reached that point, this is the question of questions! We shall now see what philosophy can do for a man in so deplorable a condition; and sure enough the Professor essayed to enter upon the task of suggesting those considerations which philosophy can make : Such as the "importance of not abandoning all hope; that bad as the case may be,

the fallen one may with suitable efforts rise again, at least to a partial recovery of the good opinion of the world. It is true that reputation, property, happiness, may all be lost; but still there is room for hope that amendment of life, and a long series of years virtuously spent, will do much towards re-instating him in the esteem of society.' But alas! how insufficient are all such considerations to meet the exigencies of the case! How little success, humanly speaking, is likely to attend such means of alleviating misfortune! And how vain and little worth appeared all that philosophy can do in comparison with the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ. I could not but say within myself, whilst listening to all this splendid declamation, that one simple sermon, from a man however illiterate, who knows the Gospel by having experienced its power in his own soul, is worth a whole Alexandrian library of such lectures. The simple parable of the Prodigal Son, which is related in twenty-two verses of one of the Gospels, is infinitely better fitted to meet the case described. Let us consider this point for a moment.

The poor sinner has ruined himself, and feels that he is undone! He has pursued the course of vice and sin to such a length that property, reputation, friends, and hope are gone. It may even be, though blessed be God that does not often happen, that long-lingering affection for him has abandoned its last earthly abode a mother's bosom! In this state the Gospel comes to him; perhaps it finds him in the gloomy walls of a dungeon! And it tells him that, deplorable as is his condition, there is yet hope for him; for there is one Being whose heart yearns over him, yea, even bleeds for him! And that Being is He whose favor is of greater importance than all the universe beside. It tells him that the infinite God, his Heavenly Father, still pities him, and invites him to return unto Him from whom he has all his life long been wandering. It informs him that he has the proof of this in the fact that he still lives, and is therefore a "prisoner of hope." It tells him that " God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." It exhorts him at once to arise and go to his Heavenly Father, fall down at his feet, confess his many and aggravated sins, and ask for the pardon of them all for the sake of the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."

This is the way in which the Gospel meets the poor lost sinner. In the striking language of one of the prophets, his case is represented under the figure of one who is exposed in all her disgusting wretchedness and helplessness in the open field, where the infinitely merciful Jehovah passes by and has compassion upon her, and says, "Live!" O blessed news this, for the wretched and hitherto hopeless man! He listens; he wonders

whether this can be true. At length, through grace, he believes; he rises up and returns to his Heavenly Father; is received, is pardoned, is enfolded in the arms of heavenly love and mercy! O what a transition! He is renewed in his soul by the Holy Spirit. He becomes a new creature! How wonderful the change, both in his character and in the relations which he sustains to his Maker! He now has the heart, if I may so speak, to try to live a new life. He has now the courage to hope that, if God has forgiven him, he may, by a life of well-doing, re-instate himself in the good opinion of society, if he has lost it. He ventures to hope that, if God has forgiven him, his fellow-men may also be induced to forgive him.

But, if any should not be willing to forgive him, he has that within him, through God's grace, which can enable him to sustain their contempt and their hatred. And he will bear these things as long as they are endurable. He will bear even oppression, and perhaps for a long time, without a murmur. Yet there is a point beyond which endurance of wrong is impossible, even for a Christian man; for "oppression," long continued, will, we are told on the best authority, "make even a wise man mad.”

In such circumstances, what is more natural than for one who has found the favor of God, to question the right of a fellow-man, be he who he may, to put his foot upon his neck. He cannot be persuaded to believe that God has given authority to any one, be he prince or common man, to tyrannize over him.

And this will be more readily his conviction if such tyranny interfere with the rights of his conscience, and prevent or hinder the discharge of his religious duties. For here a chord is touched which vibrates to his inmost soul. He might bear the loss of his goods, the loss of his political and civil rights, the loss of reputation. But he cannot long bear, in silence, the .deprivation of his religious rights and privileges, of the liberty to worship and serve God according to God's Word and his own conscience. Oh, no! This is too great a sacrifice for him to make, because it interferes with his duty to his God.

And when he thinks not only of his own eternal interests, but also of those of his children, which may not only be put in jeopardy by such tyranny, but even ruined, not all earth, not all hell, will be likely to make him acquiesce in it; for it concerns not this world only, but eternity; not the body only, which must in a short time perish, but the soul, which can never die.

Let us suppose that such a man is not alone; that others, perhaps many others, in the same village, city, neighborhood, district, country, have undergone the same blessed translation from the kingdom of darkness and of Satan, into the kingdom of light and of Christ. It may be that they had not sunk down into a state so degraded and abandoned as that which we have just de

scribed. This matters not, so far as the object which we have in view is concerned. They all have been sinners, and in their own opinion, as well as in reality, great sinners. But they have become new men, have new hopes, are influenced by new and heavenly motives. Will it be possible for such men to suffer oppression long from their fellow-men, and not resist it, especially if that oppression interferes with the rights of conscience, and prevents the enjoyment of the means of grace? They may, indeed, as we have said, endure with patience much loss of their goods, and even of their civil and political rights; but if it "concern their God," and their duties to Him, they will not long hesitate to disobey the command even of a king, and suffer martyrdom rather than submit to such grievous wrong. They will not only refuse to obey, but they will take measures for self-protection, and for the maintenance of their rights; and they will have justice on their side in doing both.

And just here has begun almost every noble and successful resistance to tyranny which has illustrated the annals of Christen-dom since the dawn of the Reformation. That blessed movement of necessity became a double one, almost from the first; for it encountered a double despotism,-that of the Prince, and that of the Priest. Little, indeed, did Luther anticipate this at the outset of his noble mission; for he did not see the length to which his principles would carry those who adopted them. Very far was he from comprehending at first, or indeed at any time, the full effect which the reading of the Scriptures, and the reception in the heart of the glorious doctrine of Justification by Faith, would have upon the masses, and the length to which pressure from without would compel them to go. But it was soon found by those who embraced the Reformed Faith, that it was in vain to hope to overthrow the spiritual despotism and darkness beneath which mankind had for ages groaned, so long as the political tyranny continued to uphold it. To this it was owing that the Reformation soon became a political, as well as a religious movement—not of choice, but by the compulsion of its enemies.

Let us now seek for the illustration and confirmation of these positions in the facts of history.

We have spoken of the Reformation as giving an impulse to the struggle for liberty, and for proper guarantees in behalf of human rights, especially the rights of conscience, and religious worship; and in so doing, we have spoken in accordance with truth. But, in fact, the partial resuscitation of evangelical faith had, in previous ages, been attended with similar, though partial, developments. Of this we have a notable instance in the case of the Waldenses. From the 11th to the 14th century, that martyr-race endured a harassing, and even, at times, a se

vere persecution. To this they opposed a patient continuance in well-doing, and bore in meekness the spoiling of their goods, cruel indignities, and lingering imprisonments. Bloody persecution next followed. They then took up arms in defence of their rights and their lives, and through a period of three centuries and more, sustained thirty-four distinct wars with their enemies, and successfully maintained their religious liberties and rights, although in doing so they were oftener than once reduced almost to extirpation in their mountain abodes. The Proclamations, Addresses, and Treaties, which the Dukes of Savoy, the authors of these wars, were compelled to make in their behalf, were in some sense guarantees of their religious liberties and civil immunities, as they were enduring proofs, notwithstanding the faithless manner in which they were observed, of the reality and the vigor of the resistance which occasioned them.

In the history of the Hussites of the 15th century, we have another remarkable monument of the energy, courage, and perseverance which an evangelical faith can create and sustain, and whose fruits were long perpetuated in the heroic defence, on the part of Ziska and the Taborites, of their mountain-homes, as well as of their scriptural Religion, amidst the fastnesses which the God of nature and of grace had planted in Bohemia.

Even the early Capitulations of Charlemagne and his successors, as well as the Capitularies of the German Princes and Emperors of later days, were so many pacts in which defences for religious, as well as civil rights were sought; and though very imperfect, they were unquestionably the best bulwarks which could in those times be erected.

But it was, as we have remarked, the great Reformation of the 16th century that gave that grand impulse in behalf of popular liberty and constitutional government which the world has so extensively felt, and which has even yet expended but a small portion of its energies. Ten years did not elapse after Luther began to preach the doctrine of Justification by Faith, before its effects were widely felt throughout Germany, in inciting men to resist oppression. In the unfortunate "war of the Peasants," in the year 1525, we can see clearly that this principle had some share. The masses of laboring people had long groaned beneath the heavy burthens which their "Seigneurs" and "Princes" imposed upon them. Discontent had often manifested itself at various points, and even blood had flowed. Still, no general uprising of the people took place, till the principles of the Reformation had gained considerable diffusion in that country, and society at large had been agitated to its centre by open discussions and controversies, which had a tendency to unhinge and subvert men's minds, not only in regard to the Papal religion, but in some sense also to the just claims of the " powers that be." It is true that