awe and wonder, had, as none other had, "the words of eternal life.” He had touched their faith at its very root—in the moral basis of their being: and the anchor on which their ship rode was strong enough to keep her to her moorings, even though all these waves and storms beat over them. One-not, it is true, of these four, but who had either heard or read their tale-has pictured to us the condition of his soul-" troubled on every side, yet not distressed: perplexed, but not in despair: persecuted, but not forsaken: cast down, but not destroyed." It was the very text of the first Evangelists as they travelled to and fro, publishing the Gospel, and confirming the souls of the disciples, that spiritual conquests are not won by carnal weapons; that the Cross, both in time and in the order of the Divine Counsels, precedes the Crown; that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."

I shall not occupy your time with any detailed examination of the times and seasons-real or supposed-in which the various parts of this Divine prophecy may reasonably be thought to have been fulfilled. Expositions and interpretations of prophecy, after the manner of Bishop Newton, are, to my mind, singularly unsatisfactory, and are apt to generate a self-sufficiency and spiritual pride on the one hand, or an uncharitableness and polemical rancour on the other, which are as far removed as possible from that temper of simple religious dependence upon God-that confidence that the cause of truth and righteousness will, against all appearances, ultimately prevail-which I conceive to have been the chief educational purpose of

that light, “shining in a dark place," to which, we are told, "we do well when we take heed." The main function of prophecy is not to tempt us prematurely to draw aside the veil that hides the future, but to enable us to interpret on true principles the phenomena of "this present time."

But this, I may take for granted, will be generally allowed to have been the Church's career—a career, however, not peculiar to herself, but shared in common with many another great and good cause, whether working apart from the influences of the Gospel, or in conscious union with them, for all alike are governed by one apparently irreversible and universal law-"out of weakness she has become strong." She has made her port not with favouring gales, but "against winds that are contrary:" she holds the moral conscience of the world in subjection, not because the world loves her rule, but because it cannot gainsay her claims: she has wrestled with principalities and powers, and has prevailed. Even with shrunk sinew and halting upon her thigh, she has had power with men and her King, though He does not reign everywhere with equally undisputed sway, is yet the King of all that is noblest, best, purest, loveliest, upon the earth.

I know that unfriendly minds have given, and will give, a different philosophy of the Church's history. They will say she has won her way by unholy secular alliances-by superstitions, and wily priestcraft-by understanding only too keenly how to redeem the time— ἐξαγοράζεσθαι τὸν καιρὸν—and turn it to marketable account by compliance with the vices and follies

either of monarchs or of the age-in a word by serpentlike wisdom, rather than by dove-like innocence. And no doubt there have been passages in her history which give only too true a colour to these taunts: but they have been passages of the Church's shame, not of her glory moments when she seemed to be gaining strength, but was really losing it: apparent victories, bitterly rued by subsequent defeats. No: the Church's course has been chequered, but on the whole it has been triumphant. And it has been, not by the help, but in spite of, this soil and taint of evil, in spite of men— Princes, Popes, Bishops, Statesmen-who have used her holy name, and blessed offices, for purposes most. alien, most unholy, that her progress has been achieved. Even Gibbon confesses the "victory" to have been remarkable;" and endeavouring to discover the "secondary causes" which led to its rapid accomplishment, allows that the four prominent causes (for though he enumerates a fifth-the assumption of miraculous powers-he only mentions it to scoff at it), -allows, I say, that the four prominent causes which he considers to have brought about this indisputable success were all of them causes operating in the moral sphere, the union and discipline of the Christian republic, the inflexible zeal of the Christians, their pure and even austere lives, and that doctrine of a future state, without the support of which, as Paul testifies, they would have been of all men the most pitiable (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xv.).

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One word of explanation before I proceed. I have been using the word "Church" in a way that would be

utterly unreal, if I limited it to the senses that are often imposed upon it by this, or that, narrow ecclesiastical school. I am not thinking of the primitive Church merely, nor of the Eastern Church, nor of the Western, nor of the Anglican Episcopal Church, nor of Protestant non-Episcopal Churches. My conception was generalised from all these concrete, individual bodies (under none of whose forms is the perfection of the typical idea adequately realised), and was meant to express the aggregate of those spiritual forces radiating from Christ; which, even under the limitations of flesh and blood—of earthly passions and human alloy-have done so much for man, and, "if they had free course and were glorified," would seem to be capable of the entire regeneration of the world. We all remember Bishop Butler's description of a perfectly virtuous kingdom, when he argues for the future triumph of good over evil from present apparent tendencies in the nature of things. The dream might have been long since realised, if, according to the measure and scope of the divine purposes, the kingdoms of the world had become, in any true and sufficient sense, "the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ." Of these regenerating spiritual forces, the visible organisation to which we belong may fairly be allowed to claim her full share. But she has no exclusive proprietorship of them: and though I am preaching to a Congress of Churchmen, I should be defeating my own purpose if I tried to fortify them in what would be a superstitious, rather than a rational, belief; that the Church, to which we are justly and loyally attached, and whose power of influence we

desire to strengthen and extend by every means at our command, enjoys any monopoly of divine grace, or can presume to invite members of other communions, certainly not destitute of tokens of the Divine Presence, to seek refuge within her pale, on the ground that their salvation is impossible, or at best precarious, where they

are.

Untenable pretensions react in honest minds on those who make them. To those who appreciate the value of a solid basis for unity-of a primitive, apostolic form of government-of the security that is given by law to freedom-of a ritual at once sober and reverent -of a Liturgy breathing the very spirit of a devout and chastened piety-of a parochial system which, if truly carried out, would be the perfection of an ecclesiastical organisation-the Church of England can commend herself on solid and sufficient grounds. We shall not strengthen our cause, but the reverse, by associating with it preposterous or unsubstantial

claims.

But to pass on.

It seems natural to the human mind to exaggerate the importance both of the achievements, and of the failures, of its own day. And there are those who think the Church, and the great cause she holds, are passing now through a trial-fire, seven times hotter than any she has passed through before. Perhaps, as those whom we deem enemies have not fully disclosed themselves -are still uncertain about the positions they will eventually occupy, we are not in a condition to measure the force or the direction of the attack-cannot, perhaps, be sure that the attack will ever come, or that