which is appointed in thy providence for them, and to persevere unto the end.

We pray that there may be many and many of us who shall be builders in the day in which we dwell, establishing blessed institutions in society upon foundations which shall go on generations after they are gathered to their fathers, working for the amelioration of men.

We pray that thou wilt bless all those who are laboring in the Sundayschool and in the Bible-classes. Bless the labors of those who are going from house to house, or into the highways, to minister to those that are not gathered into the sanctuary. And grant that they may have the Sacred Spirit and inspiration of God upon them. Teach them both to love and teach. Bless all the Churches that are gathered together this day in this city, and in the great city near us, and throughout all our land. We pray that thy servants may be prepared to preach the Gospel with more understanding and sympathy and power. May revivals of religion break out on every side, and spread through all our land, and stay the mighty evils and the mighty temptations to unbelief and doubt which are setting in. Grant that there may come this twilight of faith; and more and more may the heart prove mightier to reason than the head, so that all men may receive the truth unto salvation.

Bless we prav thee, the government of these United States. Bless the President, and all who are in authority with him. Bless the Congress assembled, and the Legislatures of the various States. May they devise things wise and honest. And grant, we beseech of thee, that our magistrates everywhere may be God-fearing men, who shall administer the trusts reposed in them with love toward their fellow men, and with sacred fidelity. May this nation grow purer with age, and with strength more humane. May it not tread down the weak and helpless, but be the benefactor of nations. And may its example kindle hope in other lands. Lead men step by step through virtue to true piety, And at last may thy word, long delayed, be fulfilled, and the earth see thy salvation.

We ask it for Christ's sake.

Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we pray that thy blessing may rest upon the word spoken. Grant that there may be some souls drawn to make experience of thy love and thoughtful care. In thee we live. We have our being in thee. We desire to rejoice in the Lord. We desire to be strong in thee. We desire to walk in thy strength. And when, at last, through thine unspeakable favor we shall have accomplished the duty of our life, and passed by its wide and dreary reachings, grant that we may be admitted into thine heavenly kingdom, to dwell forever with the Lord.

And to thy name, Father, Son and Spirit, shall be praise everlasting. Amen.

CONFLICTS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

"Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."-1 PET. I. 6, 7.

It is here recognized that though a Christian has manifold joys and exhilarations in his career, he is subject to occasional "heaviness," or heart-sadness, "through manifold temptations." But it is recognized that such experiences belong to the very idea of piety, which is a process by which the spiritual in man gains a complete ascendency over the physical. And as the gold that is in the rock is subjected, first to severe blows, by which it is comminuted, and then to the action of various agents, and to the flame, in order that it may be extracted from its gross accompaniments, and become pure; so there is in man true spiritual gold, a spiritual element, a spiritual nature, that is to be separated from the lower and grosser elements of his being. And there is, in the providence of God, and in the scheme of grace, an economy by which this work is accomplished. It is clearly taught that there is throughout the Christian life, the element of conflict, the element of trial, the elements of temptation and suffering; and that these are not accidental; that they are not simply incidental to certain circumstances; that they inhere in the innermost nature of the work that is to be done; that they so much belong to it, that they who have none of these conflicts have no right to suppose that they are Christians. They are not sons unless God deals with them as he deals with all whom he is purifying and preparing for glory.

This experience may be gradual, diffusive, resulting at length in certain growths and ripenings and attainments. Or, it may be critical, peremptory. Usually it is both. We are carried through a series of trainings which are at work upon us all the time-minute influences; a thousand attritions of care; a thousand little events of sorrow; a thousand disappointments, each of which in itself is trifling, but the aggregate of which is most important in its result upon our normal de

SUNDAY MORNING, June 12, 1870. LESSON: MATT. V. HYMNS (Plymouth Collection); Nos. 1344, 1235, 725.

velopment-evolving, unfolding, and confirming the inherent strength of character.

But then, besides the strong natures, there are natures that are disproportionately formed and unbalanced, natures that in their early experience were brought up unfortunately, that go through more critical experiences still. Every single element in them, first or last, has to undergo a severe trial to see whether it shall be subdued, and lose the rankness and coarseness and harshness of its natural flavor, and become perfectly sweetened by the Christ-element that is to be in every one.

This element of conflict is therefore universal, in that it belongs to all. It is universal, also, in that it belongs to every part of our nature. -though it is not the same in degree at all times, nor to all persons. Such spiritual conflicts exist, I have said, in a general and continuous way; but, as in our text, it is recognized that there are special trials, and special times of trial. There are periods when out of joy men come into great "heaviness" and sadness. The whole color of a man's life is frequently determined by some special trial or conflict which he goes through, for days, and for weeks, and for months, and sometimes even for years. And the critical passages of a man's history are not the outward happenings, but the inward, invisible, unjournalized, unspoken, and almost unknown experiences through which the heart passes.

When men are called into the Christian life, they do not come in as experts and veterans. They come in as recruits, to be drilled. And all their campaign lies before them. The victory of our faith is gained step by step; and the great personal epochs in our history are those in which the good principle, after severe conflict, gains ascendency over the evil that is in us.

In order that we may look the more fully into this general truth, I will specialize, and show, not by any means all the conflicts through which men go, but some of the special ones.

1. Men often pass through scenes which thoroughly awaken them to the higher spiritual life. For many persons glide into a religious life, I had almost said, unconsciously. I do not mean that there is not a point of time when men choose, and determine; but the choice is so feeble in some natures, and the gradations are so small, that while they are consciously religious-that is, purposed to live according to the rules of Christ-yet their life is not fairly stirred up. They are like men who, being awaked in the morning before they have finished their sleep, though they are awake and dressed, and though they move about, move as sleep-walkers. And frequently it is the case that there happen to such persons experiences in any of a hundred ways-to some experiences of joy, and to others experiences of sorrow; to some crushing

afilictions, and to others stimulating afflictions; or, not afflictions, but strifes; vehement pressures on the one side and on the other; the introduction of elements that wake up a depressed life in the soul, and bring men out finally into a higher, clearer, stronger light-so that though they could not say that they were not Christians before, they are conscious that they have now come to a level and to a height of spiritual realization which they did not reach in the earlier periods of their lives. And those who have been brought as children, quite young, and without adequate instruction, into the communion of the church; those who have, by the exterior elements and appliances of the church, been held to an outward conformity with the Christian life, frequently come to a period in which their souls are put through a furnace of trial. Sometimes it seems as though they never before had been convinced of sin; as though they had never before really had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they wake up into a positiveness and clearness of faith. And there frequently is a richness of experience which leads them to say that they were deceived before. But they were not necessarily deceived. For this is the peculiar method by which men are brought to the full disclosures of a Christian life. And though it is. the peculiar method, it is more universal, in this respect, than the regular and normal method.

Men frequently progress in religious life as travelers used to on old canals. They ran along upon a lower level, seeing only the valley through which they were passing, and thus came to some lock, in which they rose, step by step, and thus came to a higher level, with a larger outlook, a wider prospect. Along this level they ran for a time until they came to another lock; and in that rose up to the summit level, where they could look over all the country round about, which they had never seen before. At first, though they were advancing, it was upon a low line of progress; but at last they were brought up where they had more extended ranges of vision.

There are experiences which befall men, sometimes by grief and sometimes by moral strifes and struggles, through which they rise from a lower spiritual state to a very much higher, more appreciative and more intense spiritual condition.

2. Men frequently pass through crises in which they are at war with some special element in themselves. There are certain faculties, different in different men, that stand in the way of the development of the Christ-like life. In some it is temper, quick, violent, imperious, cruel, plunging them sometimes into great trouble, and sometimes into. an anguish which stands right in the way of a consistent Christian life. There are many who make but very little headway in this conflict until, sometimes by one method, sometimes by another, and sometimes,

perhaps, as a sequence of the very temper itself, they are brought to a sense of their weakness in this respect, and to pain and suffering in consequence of the violations of that unreclaimed and unsubdued passion. And they are not merely in "heaviness," but in bondage and in torment.

The hindering affliction may arise from loss of property, or loss of friends, or loss of respect. It may be some great and trying affliction that men are drawn into by passion. It may come in a hundred forms. But the root of it, and the work that goes on in connection with it, is one which makes sinful or evil a man's imperious and wicked disposition.

There is many and many a man who rages like the demoniac in Gadara, who dwelt among the tombs, and who, when bound with cords and chains, snapped the one and broke the other, and who day and night cried out exceedingly, and cut himself with stones, till he met the exorcising Christ; and then cried out with yet wilder exclamations, until finally he was subdued, and the evil spirit was cast out of him, and he was clothed, and was found sitting in his right mind at the feet of Jesus.

All this process is often blind to those experiencing it. And to other men it seems a great evil. But in the midst of the darkness and swirl of these inward experiences, one of the greatest battles of the soul is being carried on, varying, fluctuating, now gaining ground, and now losing ground, so that at times there is great doubt as to its issue. Yet it is a memorable battle for life and for immortality. There is great "heaviness" and great anguish, for a time to the sufferers; but this is a trial of their "faith which is more precious than gold." And it is a trial which, if they understand that they are workers together with God, will be a crisis giving them a truer life and a nobler liberty. And though they seem to be broken, they are only broken as flax is broken, that it may become the linen thread, to be wrought into the white raiment of the saints.

3. So, too, for persons who sin by the tongue, there are crises in Christian experience which gather around about that member. For the tongue, though it is the instrument from which come words of prudence and kindness and benevolence, is also an organ that ministers to frivolity and vanity. It is the creature of lies; it is the perpetrator of slanders; it is the propagator of wicked stories; it gives currency to seductive imaginations, whisperings, backbitings, revelings, oaths, and bad influences of every kind. The evil tongue, we are told, is an organ which, like the wild beast, can scarcely be reclaimed or tamed. It is a member which, when it has its freedom, often gives itself to the ministration of lusts and passions. It is the chimney of the soul, and of the lower nature, and is full of soot and blackness.