THE PRIMITIVE EXPECTATIONS OF THE Advent. 283

that the universal spread of the Gospel is the surest sign of the coming of the Son of Man. The Gospel must first be preached as a witness to all nations,not necessarily a witness to be received,—and then shall the end come. This will help us to understand the mistake of the early Church, on which so much has been said, respecting the immediate coming of the Lord. They thought that the Gospel had been preached to every nation under heaven. They little deemed that, beyond the countries fringed by the Great Sea, there were other nations shrouded in forest-covered continents, waiting for the light of their morning. The mistake, so unavoidable by them, is impossible for us. The whole world is mapped out for us now, and we know that there are no longer parts unknown, uninhabited regions. We can note the rising waters, and mark the tracts they occupy. Their welcome advent encroaches more and more on arid tracts, turning wildernesses into gardens, and revealing patent proofs of the predicted end. It is that end for which we should pray, and seek to hasten. So far as in us lies-if not directly, yet by due effort and in due season-we should carry out the divine injunction to go and teach all nations. At last all tribes of earth shall become the Israel of God, and all its wide-spread territory one Holy Land.

The necessity is, that we should not only think, read, discuss, and argue about these things, but do them. There is a real danger that reading, writing,

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THE HABIT OF GOOD.

and talking about our duties may go some way towards incapacitating us for their discharge. According to that locus classicus in Bishop Butler's Sermons: "Going over the theory of virtue in one's thoughts, talking well, and drawing fine pictures of it,-this is so far from necessarily or certainly conducing to form a habit of it in him who thus employs himself, that it may harden the mind in a contrary course, and form a habit of insensibility to ali moral obligation. For, from our very faculty of habits, passive impressions, by being repeated, grow weaker, and thoughts, by often passing through the mind, are felt less sensibly." I might almost say that there is a touch of sarcasm in that word of our Lord's: “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." We all know these things-in these times we have argued and discussed them for any number of years. But there is often a chasm-deep and wide as that across which the rich man lifted up his eyes in hell-between discussion and action. We all know these things, but to do them is something very different, something infinitely more rare, more difficult, and more blessed. We must ask of God grace to run in the way of His commandments, of that great command which includes all others-the command to love. If we love Him, we shall feed His flock, and herein fulfil all law of duty. For us the flock may be few, the herbage thin, the watercourses dry, and the shade scanty; but beyond our little efforts and unfavourable

THE HAPPY WARRIOR.

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circumstances there is the True Shepherd, who will gather His own into the true fold. If we tend not even these, there may be none other who may tend them. What, too, would be the greatest without the work of the humblest?

Although I may already have carried quotation beyond its due limits, I will venture to sum up these remarks by using Wordsworth's poem of the " Happy Warrior," for which we might almost read the "Christian Warrior,”—a character how superior to the celebrated conception of the courageous man in heathen ethics! In the English poet the ethical is easily translated into the religious meaning:

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Who, doomed to go in company with Pain

And Fear and Bloodshed-miserable train!-
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.

In face of these doth exercise a power

Which is our human nature's highest dower;

Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives;

Whose powers shed round him, in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;

But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment, to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a lover, and attired

With sudden brightness, as a man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;

Or, if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need ;

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THE HAPPY WARRIOR.

He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans

To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes,-
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love:-
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpass'd:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the eart
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth;
Or he must fall to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead, unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause."

THE question of Providence in human history and life is undoubtedly one of the highest importance, and of the greatest difficulty and perplexity. Different series of observation, and different lines of reasoning, would lead us to opposite conclusions. The poet Claudian, in an often-quoted passage, has spoken of the doubt which, to men circumstanced as he was, must be constantly recurring: whether the world was indeed under the moral government of God. We know, also, that these doubts weighed on the mind of the Psalmist, and were too hard for him until he went into the sanctuary of God. From that sanctuary we,

any degree we would un

too, must obtain help, if in ravel the tangled problems which beset this great inquiry. It is not at all uncommon for Christians to suffer from that perturbation of feeling which afflicted the Psalmist before he had attained to a better mind on the subject. It was a saying of Melancthon's, that many persons look upon God's method towards the world as the conduct of the shipwright towards the vessel, who, when he has launched it upon the deep,