that Sun soon to emerge, and create by his presence the splendor of the millennium. And thus by faith Latimer " obtained a good report."

I cannot omit to mention one as illustrious, as eminent, but grievously misjudged by many; I mean John Knox, a gentleman by birth, a thorough scholar by education, a true Christian by grace; and yet by some he is often denounced as if he had been either a great fanatic or a restless and a ferocious Goth. The truth is, he was constitutionally one of the most gentle of men, by grace one of the most heroic of martyrs, and when the crisis demanded it one of the most unflinching confessors. He was as gentle as a lamb in all the relations of private life; but when a great deed had to be done, he was courageous as a lion, and ever dared to do it. It has been remarked that men who have slow pulses are capable of the greatest things; for they are only, as it were, gathering their strength when other men's hearts are exhausted. It is such quiet and gentle men who, when inspired by the grace of God, and having a noble object before them, are capable of heroic deeds. By faith Knox "obtained a good report." And so faithfully did that man preach, and so powerfully did he speak, that Mary, then a Roman Catholic, said, "I fear more the words of Knox," because her conscience, in spite of her creed, told her they were true," than all the long bows of England," the weapons that oft surpassed the claymore in effect, and were therefore at one time the terror of Scotland. He carefully preserved the cathedrals; it is a libel on his name to say that he pulled them down: the monasteries he did destroy, and, while men of antiquarian sympathies may deplore their ruins, by faith he did it, and Christians rejoice; and by faith he predicted that, when the rookeries were gone, the rooks would fly away; and what is the fact? That, in Scotland (at least in its national church), there is not such a thing as a Puseyite sermon preached, and the Pope as yet

has not a hundred congregations of papists in the whole country. The Pope has admitted that Scotland is not yet ripe for his invasion; and he will find out that, if he attempt to invade it, he will have made a grosser blunder in the north than, as he has discovered by this time, he lately perpetrated in the south.

By faith, then, Knox "obtained a good report.' It was inscribed on his tombstone, "Here lies the man who never feared the face of clay." Only, I may add, we must not suppose that the most conspicuous of the array were necessarily the most spiritual and devout. There were no less holy elders who are less renowned. Melancthon wrote in his study what Luther proclaimed on the platform. Calvin, whose Institutes are still ́referred to as the purest theology in Christendom, fed the flame that Luther kindled. Because a certain man does not preach so well as another, it is not just to say he is not doing God's work so well; he may be doing it much better. The words of Knox and of Luther have, except in their echoes, perished; but the writings of Melancthon and of Calvin still remain. I might refer to Pascal and Quesnel, and, in later days, to Whitefield, and lastly to Simeon, of Cambridge, who, after he had first begun to preach the Gospel in that university, regarded it as a token for good, and a reason for gratitude, that a servant-man lifted his hat to him, for he felt it as an acknowledgment of his labors. He lived to see dignitaries in the church and princes in the state acknowledge the service he had done; and he fell asleep, blessed by all the true Christian men, and obtained by faith "a good report." Need I mention Fox, and Oberlin, a recent missionary, and Brainerd, and Felix Neff, and Henry Martyn, and Wilberforce, who first originated that great movement of evangelical truth which one of his sons has just tried to extinguish by renouncing the principles of his father, and adopting the dog

mas of Pope Pius IX.? These by faith inspired kingdoms, converted souls, and by faith "obtained a good report."

Men who have been misjudged by many, the Covenanters in Scotland, holding, I admit, great errors and exaggerated notions in many respects, whose indiscretions ought to be forgiven because of the testimony and the protest that they maintained, by faith have obtained, in the minds of all that can appreciate them, "a good report."

By faith, the Puritans in England protested against all the superstitions of a dominant party, and gave up their benefices, and their preferments, and chose rather to worship God in the humblest places, preferring by faith to obtain "a good report," than to sacrifice their consciences. By faith, a section of these Puritans went forth, and landed on the rocks that bound the iron coast of the western continent. By faith, they braved the storm, and kept their hearts firm, trusting in God, and their hopes undaunted; and by faith, they landed in the great western country, and, amid the blood of warm hearts and tears of weeping eyes, they planted that tree which has struck its roots deep in its now native soil, and has made America in her religion, and in her hopes and destinies, the sister of our own great England, rivals only in beneficence, fellow-workers in all besides.

By faith, too, in more recent days, men have labored, and we have entered into their labors; and by faith they have obtained, what they did not seek, "a good report."

Thus we find, by the records of modern times and from the catalogue of the past, that there never was but one true religion, and we may justly infer that there never will be but one true religion. The religion of Abraham the patriarch, and the religion of John Knox the reformer, were the same. creeds of Simeon, and Wesley, and Whitefield, were substantially the same. Justification by faith was not a new star created at the Reformation. It has been standing over head

The

for eighteen centuries, but was then clouded, and hid. All that Luther did was to dissipate the clouds, and let the star shine forth in its own pristine and native splendor. There has never been but one way to heaven; a way, I admit, very narrow, but a way, I must add, as clear, as plain, as if it were cloven through the everlasting hills, and the great mountains, and shining in the ever unclouded sunlight. No fog can permanently shade, no circumstances can really injure us. We walk in the way in which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob walked; in which Latimer, and Luther, and Knox, and Calvin walked; the way in which Simeon, and Oberlin, and Felix Neff walked, and entered into glory. Our lives may waste and wear like the dropping sand, and that sand may be swept away as the dust upon the floor, into the grave whose gates are ever opening and ever shutting, ever shutting and ever opening; but that inner life which Abraham had, which Knox lived, which Latimer enjoyed, which Simeon taught, never can waste or wear. Time writes no wrinkles upon its brow. It is no fleeting shadow, it is no vapor. It moves steadily along the way which God has opened up, and it will not cease to advance till it reach the lines of the cherubim and seraphim, and rejoice forever in the presence of God and the Lamb. All outward things die, all families change; but living Christianity lives forever. Of it, it is not written, "Thou shalt surely die."

This "good report," of which I have spoken, in many respects is most desirable for us. It is quite natural, wherever there is religious eminence, that there should be great contrast. It is a melancholy fact, in this evil world, that, the greater our light, the longer is the shadow we must project, and that the eminence on which we are placed is perilous in the ratio of its height.

"We

The world knoweth us not, as "it knew him not." know that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we

shall see him as he is." But we know that a good name, even in the world, has the precious power of spreading the everlasting Gospel. There are Christian graces which the world can admire, though it cannot appreciate them. Justice, generosity, goodness, are admired by a world that has often crucified their advocates. Hence, the Christian should try to avoid what may be misconstrued, even the appearance of all evil, that the world may have nothing to say validly against him, and no reason to urge why it should reject, or despise, or undervalue the precious Gospel, which is its only salvation: "having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you as of evil-doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ." Or, as he says again, "Having your conversation," that is, your life, "honest among the Gentiles; that, whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may, by your good works. which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." This we may be sure of, that, if the world will reject the Gospel preached by literally good men, it will much more readily reject the waters coming from a tainted fountain, — that is, the Gospel preached by a notoriously bad man. But our great concern must not be to please the world. These men that by faith" obtained a good report" did not seek its applause. We must let the "good report" come to us; we must not go after it. Our sole business is to have our eyes open to the duties, our ears open to the precepts, our heart accessible to the joys, of the Gospel. It is ours to sow the seed, and leave the fruits to follow. Duty first; praise next. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness," and "a good report," and all these things "shall be added unto you." And let this "good report," above all, be from God himself. Let us seek to have our consciences right in his sight, to be Christians in deed; and "if God be for us," our approver,- "who can be against us?" In every