1 Their faculty of appre not at the import of his message. ciation has been grievously impaired. A prophet has leaped into the day with his burden of reproof and truth-telling, but he has not been clad in silken sheen, nor a speaker of smooth things, and the world has gone on to its merchandise, while the broken-hearted seer has retired into the wilderness to die. A poet has warbled out his soul in secret, and discoursed most exquisite music-but, alas! it has been played among the tombs. A glorious iconoclast has come forth among the peoples, "expecting that they would have understood how that the Lord by him had sent deliverance," but he has been met by the insulting rejoinder, "Who made thee a ruler and a judge?" Thus, in the days of her nonage, because they lacked high estate and lofty lineage, has the world poured contempt upon some of the choicest of her sons. "A heretic!" shouted the furious bigotry of the Inquisition." “ And yet it moves," said Galileo-resolute, even in the moment of enforced abjuration, for the immutable truth. A scoffing to Genoese bravos, grandees of Portugal, and the court of England, Columbus spied the log of wood in its eastward drifting, and opened up America-the rich El Dorado of many an ancient dream. "An empiric!" shouted all the Doctor Sangradoes of the time, and the old physiologists hated Harvey with an intensely professional hatred, because he affirmed the circulation of the blood. "A Bedfordshire tinker!" sneered the polite ones, with a whiff of the otto of roses, as if the very mention of his craft was infragrant-" What has he to do to preach, and write books, and set up for a teacher of his fellows?" But glorious John Bunyan, leaving them in their own Cabul-country, dwelt in the land of Beulah, climbed up straight to the presence of the shining ones, and had "all the trumpets sounding for him on the other side." Sidney Smith wrote at, and tried to write down, "the consecrated Cobbler," who is re was to evangelise India- but William Carey shall live embalmed in the memories of converted thousands, long after the witty canon of St. Paul's is forgotten, or, membered only as a melancholy example of genius perverted and a vocation mistaken. "A Methodist!" jested the godless witlings of Brazennose- "A Jacobin !" reiterated the makers of silver shrines-"A ringleader in the Gordon riots!" said the Romanists whose errors he had combatedand the formalistic churchmanship of that day gathered up its gentilities, smoothed its ruffled fringes, and with a dowager's stateliness flounced by "on the other side:" and reputable burghers, the "canny bodies" of the time, subsided into their own respectabilities, and shook their heads at every mention of the pestilent fellow: but calm-browed and high-souled, John Wesley went on until a large portion of his world-parish rejoiced in his light, and wondered at its luminous and ardent flame. And if it be lawful to speak of the Master in the same list as his disciples, who, however excellent, fall immeasurably short of their Divine Pattern, He was called a Nazarene, and there was the scorn of a world couched in the contemptuous word. There are symptoms, however, of returning sanity. Judicial ermine and archiepiscopal lawn robing the sons of tradesmen, and the blood of all the Montmorencies-fouled by mésalliance with crime-cooling itself in a common prison, are remarkable signs of the times. Men are beginning to feel conscious, not, perhaps, that they have committed a crime, but that they have been guilty of what in the diplomacy of Talleyrand was considered worse—that is, a blunder. Whether the chivalry of feudalism be extinct or not, there can be no question that the vleinage of feudalism is gone. Common men nowadays question the wisdom of nobilities, correct the errors of cabinets, and do not eveu listen obsequiously to catch the whispers of kings. That is a strong and growing world-feeling which the poet embodies when he sings "Believe us! noble Vere de Veres, From yon blue heavens above us bent 'Tis only noble to be good Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood." Not that rank has lost its prestige, nor royalty its honour. Elevated station is a high trust, and furnishes opportunity for extensive usefulness. The coronet may be honoured or despised at the pleasure of the wearer. When the rank is larger than the man, when his individuality is shrouded behind a hundred coats-of-arms, when he has so much of the blood of his ancestors in his veins that there is no room (for any generous pulses of his own, why, of course, he must find his own level, and be content to be admired, like any other piece of confectionery, by occasional passers-by: but when the noble remembers his humanity, and has sympathy for the erring and encouragement for the sincere— 66 When, all the trappings freely swept away, The man's great nature leaps into the day,”— his nobility men are not slow to acknowledge—the cap and plume bend very gracefully over the sorrow which they succour, and the jewelled hand is blanched into a heavenlier whiteness when it beckons a struggling people into the power and progress of the coming time. The great question which must be asked of any new aspirer who would mould the world's activities to his will, is not Whence comes he? but What is he? There may be some semi-fossilised relics of the past who will continue to insinuate, "Has he a grandfather?" But the great world of the earnest and of the workers thunders out, "Has he a soul? Has he a lofty purpose, a single eye, a heart of power? Has he the Prophet's sanctity and inspiration, as well as his boldness and fervour? Never mind the bar sinister on his escutcheon-has he no bar sinister in his life? Has he a giant's strength, a hero's courage, a child's simplicity, an apostle's love, a martyr's will? Then is he sufficiently ennobled." If I, a gospel charioteer, meet him as he essays, trembling, to drive into the world, What must be my salutation ?—Art thou of noble blood? Is thy retinue large? thy banner richly emblazoned? thy speech plausible? thy purpose fair? No-but "Is thy heart right?" If it be, give me thy hand. A prominent feature in the Prophet's character, one which cannot fail to impress us at every mention of his name, is his singular devotion to the object of his great mission. He was sent upon the earth to be the earth's monitor of God. This was his life-purpose, and faithfully he fulfilled it. Rising above the temptations of sense-ready at the bidding of his Master to crucify natural affection— sternly repressing the sensibility which might interfere with duty-trampling upon worldly interest, and regardless of personal aggrandisement or safety, he held on his course, unswerving and untired, to the end. God was his object in everything: to glorify God, his aim-to vindicate God, his miracles to speak for God, his message—to exhibit God, his life. As the rod of Moses swallowed up the symbols of Egyptian wizardry, so did this consuming passion in Elijah absorb each meaner impulse, and each low desire. His decision rarely failed him, his consistency never. He "halted not between two opinions." He spurned alike the adulation of a monarch and of a mob. He neither dered for the favour of a court nor made unworthy compromise with the idolaters of Baal. Heaven's high remembrancer, he did a true man's work in a true man's "united" heart. way, with one purpose and a Although many parts of this character cannot, on account of his peculiar vocation, be presented for our imitation, in his unity of purpose and of effort he furnishes us with a noble example. This oneness of principle-freedom from tortuous policy-the direction of the energies to the attainment of one worthy end-appears to be what is meant in Scripture by the "single eye,” ¿ñλ~ç—not complex-no obliquity in the vision-looking straight on-taking in one object at one time. And if we look into the lives of the men who have vindicated their right to be held in the world's memory, we shall find that all their actions evolve from one comprehensive principle, and converge to one magnificent achievement. Consider the primitive apostles. There you have twelve men, greatly diverse in character, cherishing each his own taste and mode of working, labouring in different localities, and bringing the one Gospel to bear upon different classes of mind, and yet everywhere-in proud Jerusalem-inquisitive Ephesus-cultured Athens - voluptuous Rome, meeting after many years in that mightiest result, the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. of this issue is of course due to the Gospel itself, or rather to the Divine agency which applied it, but something also to the unity of the messengers, their sincere purpose, and sustained endeavour. And so it is in the case of all who have been the benefactors of mankind. They have had some master-purpose, which has moulded all others into a beautiful subordination, which they have maintained amid hazard and suffering, and which, shrined sacredly in the heart, has influenced and fashioned the life. If a man allow within him the play of different or Much |