such height as that of her to whom he said, “Oh, woman, great is thy faith!" But, in any case, if we were more definite in our petitions, and more continuous in our prayers, we should see more frequently the results for which we long. The philosophy and the discussions of our times have made us feel almost as if we needed to apologize for offering prayer; and so even the Church has been weakened by the materialism of the age. But all that is the merest folly; for if we believe that God is-or, to put it in another form, that there then he can help his creatures when they call

is a Godupon him.

They tell us of the fixed laws of nature; but who dares maintain that He who fixed these laws can not use them for the purpose of answering his people's prayers? There are postal laws in this country; but are the facilities for answering letters through these laws open to all but those members of Congress who have made them? The very

thought is absurd. And yet men who are using the laws of nature every day to help their fellows when they call on them-like medical men, for example-will deny to the God who made these laws the liberty which they are daily exercising for themselves. Nay, more; may not God, as in this case before us, sometimes send an answer to his servant, as I may say, by the hand of an angelic express? If I do not put a letter in the pillar at the street-corner, may I not in my chamber telegraph for a message-boy, and send him on with an immediate answer? and am I breaking the postal laws when I do that? Nay, I am only bringing a new cause into operation for the producing of a new effect. I may send my little liveried telegraph messenger, but God may not send his angel! Oh, brethren! when one thinks of the learned nonsense that has been written on this subject, it is hard to speak regarding it in terms of moderation. But argument will not answer it. Nothing will put a stop

to it save the earnest prayerfulness of Christ's own people. Give us a few John Knoxes in the Church concerning whom men will say, "We fear their prayers more than armed antagonists," and then we shall hear no more of prayer-gauges, and be able to defy all the objections of philosophy. The Church of Jerusalem prayed Peter out of prison. Let that fact sustain us while we supplicate for those who are spiritually imprisoned, that they may be set free.

Let us learn, in the third place, that while earthly glory fades, the word of the Lord endureth forever. See how soon Herod disappears. Like a foam-bell on the stream, he dazzled men's eyes for a moment with the reflection of the sunlight; and then, like it too, he burst and disappeared. The shouting of the idolatrous crowd could not keep away retribution from his door. No Roman sentinel could turn back from his palace-gate that pale horse which bore the rider whose name is Death. He went to his own place. And all his efforts to retard the progress of the Gospel were in vain, for "the word of God grew and multiplied."

Even as a policy, persecution is a mistake; for it always haloes with a certain glory the cause of those who suffer. Therefore, though the Gospel had been false, the course of Herod regarding it was, in the parlance of Talleyrand, "worse than a crime-a blunder." But being true, the antagonism of the king brought it only into greater prominence, and turned the hearts of the people to its acceptance.

Trial matures the Christian, and brings into greater conspicuousness the graces of patience, fortitude, faith, and forgiveness of injuries; so that they who look upon the confessor in the court, or the martyr at the stake, are moved to think of Him in whose strength alone, and for whose sake alone, these characteristics are manifested. Thus it has come that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. This has been the case in all ages. The death of Stephen

had its glorious outcome in the conversion of Paul; and in the early days of the Scottish Reformation it was said that the smoke of Patrick Hamilton infected all on whom it blew. So, in the present day, the sources of that great religious movement which has changed the whole face of the island of Madagascar are to be found in the persecutions with which the first Christians there were assailed. It is another application of the Saviour's words, " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." There are worse things than persecution for Christ's sake, and among these is that supple conformity to the world, that easy indifference, which bends to every influence, and has no principle of resistance in it. That way lies the danger of the Church of to-day; and it would not suffer from a storm if only the chaff were to be thereby separated from the wheat. Indeed, it never really suffers from persecution, for the true Church is as indestructible as Christ, and "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

I can not allow myself to conclude this discourse without bringing before you a little poem by a gifted Presbyterian minister of England,* now in heaven, which in the most exquisite manner uses the apostolic narrative to illustrate the death of the Christian, and to administer consolation to the bereaved. Never since I first saw it have I been able to read this chapter without recalling its exquisite lines to memory; and I am sure that many among you will thank me for bringing them to your notice. They are as follows:

"The apostle slept; a light shone in the prison;

An angel touched his side;

'Arise !' he said, and quickly he hath risen,

His fettered arms untied.

*The Rev. J. D. Burns, of Hampstead, London.

"The watchers saw no light at midnight gleaming,
They heard no sound of feet;

The gates fly open, and the saint, still dreaming,
Stands free upon the street.

"So when the Christian's eyelid droops and closes,
In nature's parting strife,

A friendly angel stands where he reposes,
To wake him up to life.

"He gives a gentle blow, and so releases

The spirit from its clay;

From sin's temptations and from life's distresses

He bids it come away.

"It rises up, and from its darksome mansion

It takes its silent flight;

And feels its freedom in the large expansion
Of heavenly air and light.

"Behind, it hears Time's iron gates close faintly;
It is now far from them;

For it has reached the city of the saintly-
The new Jerusalem.

"A voice is heard on earth of kinsfolk weeping The loss of one they love;

But he is gone where the redeemed are keeping

A festival above.

"The mourners throng the ways, and from the steeple The funeral-bell tolls slow;

But on the golden streets the holy people
Are passing to and fro;

"And saying, as they meet, 'Rejoice! another,
Long waited for, is come :'

The Saviour's heart is glad, a younger brother
Hath reached the Father's home."

XXI.

PETER WITHSTOOD BY PAUL AT ANTIOCH.

A

GALATIANS ii., 11-21.

FTER the escape of Peter from the prison at Jerusa

lem, he does not appear again in the apostolic narrative until the meeting of the council which was held for the settlement of the circumcision controversy. That discussion had originated at Antioch, whither certain Jews had gone from Jerusalem, and where they had insisted that conformity to the law of Moses was essential to salvation even through Christ. Paul and Barnabas, who were in Antioch at the time, and who saw the gravity of the crisis, affecting, as it did, the great doctrine of justification by faith, and the hope of the Gentile nations, met these strangers with uncompromising opposition. But as they came from the Holy City, and might seem, therefore, to be acting under the sanction of the mother Church, it was determined that certain delegates should accompany Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem, to submit the whole question to the apostles and elders there.

When the assembly was convened, there was at first considerable discussion; but at length Peter gave the weight of his influence in favor of the fullest freedom to the Gentile believers. He rehearsed again the incidents which in his own experience had happened before and after his preaching in the household of Cornelius, and characterized the law of Moses as a yoke which neither they nor their fathers had been able to bear.