is better than he that taketh a city.” It was an adage of lettered antiquity, that a good man struggling with adverse fortune, was a spectacle recreating even to the gods. But man's most glorious achievement is the mastery of himself. He who by divine grace can successfully say to the stormy passions of his own soul, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,"† is an object upon whom, not the false gods of polytheism, but the Jehovah of the Bible, can look down with complacency.

Such conquest of self is an indispensable preliminary to the favor of heaven. The unholy desires of the miniature world within us must be reclaimed, its lusts exterminated, its strong citadel of selfishness razed to the ground, or we cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Unprejudiced reason, with the Gospel shining around her, must perceive the necessity of moral renovation here as a preparative for bliss hereafter. For how could impenitent sin commingle through endless ages with immaculate holiness? Such moral renovation was a stranger even to the dreams of heathen antiquity. Her ferocious warriors she sent to elysium red from the

* Proverbs xvi. 32.

+ Job xxxviii. 11.

fields of their wanton and murderous slaughter; her profligate kings and emperors she transformed to deities when earth could no longer endure the burden of their presence.

The sanctions of the christian code bear evident marks of heavenly lineage. By the sanctions of a law are meant its rewards for obedience, and its penalties for transgression; the former called remuneratory, the latter vindicatory. An edict without sanctions is but naked advice; its obedience or disobedience depending on the volition of those to whom it is addressed. Human sanctions rely for their efficiency upon extraneous proofs; without the aid of auxiliary evidence, they must remain utterly powerless, especially in the vindicatory, which is their principal department. In a land filled with all the complicated machinery of courts and of prisons, transgression may walk in triumph, if, by the stealthiness of its steps or the adroitness of its disguises, it can lull the inattentive ear and beguile the unsuspicious eye. Even where the evidence of guilt is clear, municipal sanctions are often eluded by flight, and sometimes resisted by force. They penetrate not the secret chambers of guilt; the hidden springs of crime are beyond their grasp; they enter not the deep and dark laborato

ries of the heart; they reach not beyond the brief span of mortal life.

The sanctions of the evangelical code pervade the innermost "thoughts and intents." None can resist them by force, or avoid them by flight, or elude them by craft. They invoke the hopes and the terrors of eternity. They require the aid of no extraneous proofs. The omniscient eye, doth it not see? The omnipresent ear, doth it not hear? The omnipotent arm, who can withstand? The Book of God's Remembrance, who will gainsay? That dread Volume records even the most secret aspirations of unembodied guilt; and there are registered each widow's mite cast into the treasury of benevolence, and every cup of cold water given to any of Christ's little ones in the name of a disciple.

The Judgment of the Great Day is the most awful conception that ever dilated the human mind. How puerile, how despicable, were the tribunals of heathen gods, erected by classic polytheism for the sentence of departed spirits! Yet were they decked with all "the pride, pomp, and circumstance" which the uninspired imagination could conceive. The Judgment Scene of the Gospel is an original delineation achieved by no mortal pencil. Without

divine teachings, it was impossible that in representing the award of final retributions to human kind, the unlettered fishermen of Galilee should so immeasurably have transcended, in simplicity, in pathos, in unearthly grandeur, all the imaginings of Homer, of Plato, and of Virgil. The combined skill of ages has been exercised to surround terrestrial courts with whatever can excite respect, veneration, or awe. Yet how do the courts of earth sink into nothingness compared with the Grand Assize of the Son of God, when he shall come to judgment on his throne of clouds, with the hosts of heaven in his train, preceded by the archangel's trump, and met by the thronging dead! Without teachings from above, the peasants of Judea could have delineated the scriptural picture of the final advent of the Judge of all the earth, no more than they could "thunder with a voice like Him."*

* Job xl. 9.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST.

Difficulty of delineating character-Especially that of perfect man -Delineation of perfect man reserved for fishermen of GalileeThey had no model-Difficulty enchanced by the fact that the Christ of the Gospel enshrined the second person of the Trinity— Infidelity gains nothing by supposing that Christ was the deceiver and his biographers the dupes-Enacting perfect character more difficult than even delineation of one--His blended meekness, lowliness, and majesty--His humiliation surpassed what mere man would have voluntarily endured or conceived-His piety-His benignity-His. beneficence--Cases of Bartimeus-The sinful woman who anointed his feet-The prodigal son-His restoring Lazarus to life-His weeping over Jerusalem.

THE power of delineating character with truth and vividness, is one of the rarest attributes of genius. To this attribute the great historians of ancient and modern times are indebted for their fame. It is this almost peerless attribute which has clothed with immortality the few imaginative writers who have triumphed over the ravages of time. To create a hero and sustain his consistency in all the varied relations of life, requires a discrimination of intellect, an accuracy of judgment, and a plastic power of fancy, seldom vouchsafed to mortals. And of all fictitious characters of earthly mould,