Happily indeed we have not been doomed to behold the massacre of innocents, or the martyrdom of saints,-yet many of the hopes of parents have been blighted before us in their bud, and many aspiring spirits in the departed year, as in every preceding one, have left this scene of conflict and uncertainty in the prime of their days, and in the full career of their usefulness. Over all these images of sorrow the tears of nature indeed must fall,—yet, let us not forget, that the glory of God has also been revealed to us, and Jesus standing "at the right hand of God." Let us, through our tears, look up steadfastly into Heaven,—and into the year which is opening upon us, let us now advance, clothed in that heavenly armour of light which may best enable us to meet the sufferings and to withstand the temptations still awaiting us upon earth.-Let the young and the ardent look forward to the course before them, less with the hopes and expectations so natural to their age, of long life and prosperous days, than with the generous purposes and resolutions of duty,-let them in the beginning of the most prosperous career, and in the midst of the world's allurements and flatteries, still assiduously cultivate the wisdom and the spirit of the Gospel,

and, full of its faith and power, be ready for either event, as it may befall,-a continuance of their years in the paths of virtue and honour, or the cheerful surrender of their spirits to "Him who gave them,” like the first and youthful Martyr, if such be rather the will of their Lord.-Let those who are advanced in life, and have become acquainted with its darkness and vanity,-and let the aged, whose eyes are dim, and whose grey hairs are drawing down to the grave, thankfully trace the steps of the beloved Apostle into "that light in which there is no darkness at all," and, grateful for all the goodness and love they have experienced during their longer or shorter course below, and weaned from the follies and the impurities of the world, let them more and more habituate themselves to repose in security under the shelter of the altar, till the hour come when they shall fall asleep once more in the original innocence of childhood, and, washed in the blood of the Lamb, be presented" without fault before the throne of God."

DISCOURSE VIII.

RETROSPECT OF THE CHARACTER OF THE APOSTLES.*

ACTS xii. 1, 2.-Now, about that time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of

the church.

And he killed James, the brother

of John, with the sword.

THESE words, my brethren, call us back to those scenes of persecution which mark the early history of the Christian church, while they relate to us the martyrdom of one of our Lord's chief apostles. They form a part of the epistle for the day on which his name is commemorated, and which was solemnized in the course of the last week; nor, as it appears to me, ought the opportunity to be passed

• Preached on the Sunday after St James' day.

over of calling your attention to the nature of that instruction intended to be conveyed to us in such solemnities, which, however apt to be neglected, are yet of no inconsiderable importance among the sacred offices of our Church. They relate to a state of society, and to a description of character, which, unlike as they may be to any with which we are now conversant, are only on that account the more interesting and the more instructive; and when we look back to that period of the Gospel in which its ministers drank of " the same cup" of suffering with their Lord, and were " baptized with the same baptism" of blood that he "was baptized with," we cannot but feel the springs of our faith purified, and our spirits exalted to a higher scale of duty.

I. There is, in the first place, much spiritual improvement to be obtained from contemplating that condition of external circumstances in which the early apostles of the Gospel were placed. They were engaged in a scene of perpetual contest with the powers and the prejudices of the world, and were never permitted to look upon the present stage of existence as their "abiding city," while there was not a day or an hour in which they might not be called upon to seal their testimony with their blood.

While the world around them was occupied with the vulgar objects of human pursuit,-while its rulers were driving their schemes of ambition,-its wise men perplexing themselves in dark disputations, and all its enticements of wealth and of pleasure absorbing the affections of innumerable votaries, these men alone exhibited the singular spectacle of persons utterly regardless of such allurements, and capable of rejecting every temptation which could mislead, and of despising every danger which could scare them from their elevated course of action. It was not success in any scheme of present life to which their aim was directed,-they were able to rejoice in the midst of persecution, and a crown of martyrdom was the highest object of their earthly ambition. However different the circumstances of the Christian life in our day, and mercifully exempted as we are from these severe trials, there is yet great improvement to be obtained from the nearer view of them exhibited to us in the history of the apostles. They show us distinctly that the external circumstances which may surround him, ought to form but a secondary object in the consideration of a Christian,-that his conduct in the midst of them ought to be the only matter of