where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." We learn, that they were nurtured in the bosom of our ancient Church, who regards all, the high and the low, as alike her children,*-that in her solemn rites and services they found all the spiritual aliment necessary for their souls, and thus were prepared for the church in glory.

Let us then profit by their example. As we travel on our way, each year convulses the religious world with a new excitement, and gives birth to some plan for leading the lost to the truth, which, in the judgment of erring man, is better than that practised by Apostles and Saints in primitive days—more effectual than that by which the early heralds of the Cross broke the power of heathenism, and Christianized the world. Those deep and searching sorrows by which the contrite heart turns to its Lord, and thus, as in a furnace of fire, purifies the whole man, are all now derided, as something formal and antiquated. In their place, new machinery is invented, which, by one sudden, violent effort, sweeps the abandoned sinner from the depth of his degradation, and elevates him immediately to the very heights of Mount Zion. Peace, rather than holiness, i made the end and object of their search.

But oh, be not ye deceiv d, or believe that any ing o、a

"Our Mother, the Church, hath never a child,
To honor before the rest,

And she singeth the same for mighty kings,
And the veriest babe on her breast;

And the Bishop goes down to his narrow bed
As the ploughman's child is laid,

And alike she blesseth the dark-brow'd serf,
And the chief in his robe arrayed.

She sprinkles the drops of the bright new-birth,
The same on the low and high,.

And christens their bodies with dust to dust,

When earth with its earth must lie;

Oh, the poor man's friend is the Church of Christ
From birth to his funeral day;

She makes him the Lord's, in her surpliced arms,

And singeth his burial lay."

Rev. A. C. Coxe,

be substituted in place of that discipline-that holy training, which gradually, yet surely, prepares for heaven, and which it is the object of the Church to effect by her constantly recurring round of services. Voices on every side are summoning you to leave the fold of the faithful. The restless and unsettled are ever pointing out new paths, and exclaiming, "Lo here," and "Lo there." They cry with regard to our Lord" Behold, he is in the desert," and thus would induce you to be wanderers with them in the pathless wilderness. We say therefore unto you, in that Master's words" Believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." Not in the whirlwind and the storm is it, that faith takes root, and godliness grows up in strength. It is beneath the gentle dews of divine grace, which fall silently yet steadily, that the vineyard is quickened into fertility. The whisperings of "the still small voice," lead us on to peace and happiness. And this is pledged to the Apostolic, Catholic Church, and in her courts is never sought in vain by her children.

IX.

THE CHURCH IN ALL AGES THE KEEPER OF THE TRUTH.

She sits Truth's Witness in an evil world,

And sore environ'd by unnumber'd foes,

With wiles and weapons stern against her hurl'd;
The Child of Life, death's shades around her close,

The Crown of joy, amid o'erwhelming woes:

Her right hand holds the keys of death and life,

And calin she sits in undisturb'd repose,

But all around with hostile arms are rife,

And foes of earth and hell are arming for the strife.

The Baptistery.

MELANCHOLY indeed was the view presented to the great Apostle of the Gentiles, when standing upon the Mount of Observation, he first looked forth over the world which was to be the scene of his labors. The greater portion of mankind were crushed down by the iron power of Rome-a tyranny the most oppressive and degrading, which seemed to be gradually treading out every spark of generous feeling, and fitting the human race only to be slaves. Neither was there any thing to correct the cruelty and licentiousness which were so fearfully on the increase. For ages men had made trial of their moral strength, but seemed now to have resigned themselves to despair. Every prevailing system had lost what purifying influence it might formerly have possessed. The philosophy of Greece-perverted from all the nobler ends at which once it aimed-was only investing vice with new grace, and causing the arrow to sink deeper because its point was polished. The old Paganism of Rome had to begun to lose all moral hold on the mind, and now was only sustained as the religion of the Empire, and the

instrument of power to its priesthood. Even its ministers in secret scoffed at it as an imposture. "Diligently practising" —says Gibbon" the ceremonies of their fathers; devoutly frequenting the temples of the gods; and sometimes condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal robes."* In Egypt, forgetting the lessons of wisdom which in an older day were taught in the sacred groves of Memphis and Heliopolis, her people now bowed to deities of their own creation, and worshipped the herb they eat, or the reptile upon which they trod.

Neither did the East furnish to the Apostle any more cheering view. There was the fruitful home and the cradle of every debasing form of idolatry. The ancient inhabitants of Palestine had bequeathed to their descendants the adoration of Astarte, the Queen of Heaven, or of that spirit which, under the name of Baal, was supposed to guide the chariot of the sun; while still more distant nations, with their innumerable gods, had collected in their worship every thing which was degrading and licentious. Even God's own people, the Jews, had shared in this debasement. Their religion had degenerated into formality. The purity of their earlier days had departed, and so marked was their wickedness, that their own historian, Josephus, bears his indignant testimony to their depravity.† Such was the prospect which presented itself to St. Paul, as he looked over the moral landscape. Truly, it was a "world lying in wicked"The people were sitting in gross darkness."

ness."

Where then was the power which could meet all this array of idolatry and vice, and mould it into purity? On what did the Apostle rely, that he was enabled to go forth so boldly to confront it? His hopes rested on that Church -then in the feebleness of her early day-which his Lord had founded. He looked to her, as a perpetual witness against sin. He expected her, with her holy institutions, to enter the dark and troubled waves, and spread over them a

* Decline and Fall o the Roman Empire, ch. ii.

+"Nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world." Antiq. lib. v. chap. 10.

glory not of this world. His trust was, in "the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."

Has the Church then realized these high expectations? Has she fulfilled the lofty destiny which St. Paul marked out for her? Has she in the ages which have gone, been the Ark of truth for a fallen and apostate world? The history of the past answers, that she has. From every page of the records of our race, there comes a testimony, that the Church alone has been the preserver of all that is most valuable to man in time and through eternity. It is on this subject then that I would address you this evening--THE

CHURCH, IN ALL AGES, THE KEEFER AND GUARDIAN OF THE

TRUTH. From an historical view of her origin and progress, it will be evident, that in each crisis, intellectual or moral, in the existence of our race, the Church has stood forth to rescue man's best interest from ruin. And she was enabled to accomplish this great work by her strict organization and government, and the union produced by the Apostolic ministry, binding together the different branches by a common tie.

We might indeed say at once, that since God adopted this plan for preserving in the earth a knowledge of our faith, it must be the best method that could be devised. The very fact that it was the choice of Infinite Wisdom, proves this point conclusively. But it is evident, even to the eye of human reason, that this end could probably have been effected in no other way. Had the word of God, and the holy principles of His Gospel, been left to be treasured up only in the breast of each private individual, or to be swept about on the wild waves of popular feeling, they would long since have disappeared from the earth. The same result would have followed, had the spiritual destinies of the world been commit'ed to the care of the discordant sects which are now around us. These, deprived of the high claims of the Apostolic Church, and standing independently of each other, unite both the nature and the weakness of mere voluntary associations. It is the existence of the Church, which keeps the truth always before the world, which gives to religion "a local habitation and a name," and endows it with permanency.

We shall easily perceive this, by le king back to the