Year: 1869

two young men in Germany walKin


in an open field in friendly embrac


In my Imagination l hear them plal


ning the future of life. Suddenl


the lightning from the cloud smit.


one of them to the earth. The 9th.


left is led to reflect upon the vanit


Of all terrestrial good and determine


to end his days in monastery. VIII


that studies the career of Luthe


from our present stand point, ca


fail to note the divine hand leadin


him to the accomplishment of q gres


and glorious work to result in


great and lasting blessing to all SUI


ceeding generations. In his day


persecated, despised, arraigned, cor


demned as a disturber of the publ


peace and harmony of the church an


society, but he was Gods agitatol


and i: was necessary. Bunyan show


the same thought HE plan was L


become an itinerant preacher b


was thrust into prison by the into


erence of the Stuarts.


You might have seen Bunyan il


the prison contemplating his life q


a failure, but as we look back We Sc


that he has accomplished more goo,


through the instrumentality OF hi


Immortal Pilgrims Progress thai
could have been accomplished ha'


he been permitted to preach through
!. all those twelve weary years.


God breathes upon old ocean an,
:. agitstes and gives it motion to pu
) rify. The lightning flashes from th'


storm driven cloud to give Us purel
breath. So docs God, through hu
man instrumentalities, purify society
Y Take Moses, and see how much Goo
D is seen In his career; there was sc
E little of Moses when God first pro
/ posed to him; Moses began by OBJ
stinately refusing to acknowledge it,
and excusing himself under plea Of
a slow tongue and Of speech moi
eloquent. The plan of Moses it could
not have been, but it was the plan OF
that God who, before proposing it to
Moses had been preparing him to
accomplish it by the education OF
two-thirds of his life--eighty years
of education for forty years of activ-
ity. Is that the manner of man, or OF
Him with whom a day is as thous-
and years and thousand years as
one day? Brought up in the palace
of those same Pharaohs-whose yoke
he vas at last to break from his peO
ple--and thus coming into daily con-
tact with that twO-fOld power OF
kings and priests, with both OF which,
in Gods time, he was to wrestle,
he was educating himself for future
career of which he knew nothing ;
just as a soldier is formed for the
business of war by daily exercises
in military science.


Behold Moses thus trained for forty
years, then, after brief visit to his
brethren. he adds to the forty years
passed in the study of Egypt, forty
years passed in the study of the
desert-leadlng the fiocks OF Je,hro
where afterward he was to guide
the flock of Jehovah. 1t was in one
of these nomadic excursions that
brought him to the foot of Mount
Sinai, and when he had almost ar
rived at the age Of eighty years
which he himself had assigned only
to the most vigOrous-that Moses,
thinking, perhaps, that he had reach
ed the limit OF his career, ,and sorrow
ing that he had as yet rendered no
service to his people; at last com
pretending the purpose Of his past
career, by which he had been pre-
pairing for Israel and preparing for
Egypt; preparing for the desert
and, in short, for every thing but
Canaan-which God foressw he never
would enter. All, when at the sight
of this same Canaan, and after the
forty years of real travel were ended,
Moses sleeps with God.


With what emphasis, think you.
he would exclaim in his last prayer
Thy ways, o God, are not our
ways" What, if God leads us thrO'
the wilderness, if at last we are
brought to the Mount of Triumph


Now let US look briefly at the his.
tory of nations. The people OF all
others who can furnish me with the
best illustrations are the Israeiites
their history, through the arrange
ments OF God, rendered more intelli-
gible than others by the covenant he
made with them, and more obvious
by the revelations of His word. But
take an example less frequently used;
let us take that wOndrous city
which has been the political centre
of the ancient and the religious Gen.
tre of the modern world, and which,
although its star is set, possesses
still the terrible prerogative of not
being able to comprehend those in
ward commissions which have no
counterpart in all Christendom, of
which the Ecumenical Convention
soon to assemble is but surface in
dication of deep and terrible inter-
nal cOnvulsion. If anywhere there
has ever been the appearance of a.
plan exclusively belonging to man it
was in heather Rome spreading
from people to people the network
of that political ascendancy which
appeared for long time to be en-
dowed with the singular prerogation
of strengthening itself by extension.
Or in Christian Rome, spreading
from church to church the more sub |
tie network of religious ascendancy
which We see by turns, or rather
which we see at the same time and
same place, ene-getically repulsed
and tamely submitted to, if not
courted. But when we observe more
closely We discover at a glance in
all that happened to the one or the
other Rome, the marks of plan
which has not originated in the
judgement of Pope or people, but
which takes from higher region its
period of departure and approach.
In short, the providential overrule of
the God of nations is seen. Upon the
one hand we see grssping desire
for universal empire; on the other,
at Rome, a universal church-and
Roman. But how manifest the over.
ruling hand of God, as seen in the
overthrow OF the one and lasting
check to the other, now tottering be-
fore the onward march of the Savior
who is to have universal empire.n