like; these are God's judgments, the "terrible things" whereby he makes known his ways "in righteousness."

The calamity that has befallen our city therefore, whether originating in carelessness or in malice, is to be traced eventually to the Providence of God. "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?"

But for what reason, we may inquire secondly, has God thus afflicted us? What lesson should we learn from this dispensation of his Providence?

I answer, in the first place, that it is designed to rebuke us for our worldliness and impiety. In saying this, I do not affirm that those who are immediately involved in this calamity have been pre-eminently guilty in the sight of God, and have therefore fallen under so severe a judgment. By no means. The reply of Christ to those who "told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices," is equally appropriate here. "Supye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." We are not to construe the judgments of God thus severely against individuals. The heaviest calamities do not always fall upon the worst of men. Often the most wicked are seemingly the most prospered. This is not a world of retribution. Men are not dealt with here according to the strict measure of justice under the law of God

I attach then no peculiar demerit to individual sufferers, when I say that this providence is a rebuke for worldliness and impiety. It is not a rebuke administered to them in particular. Yet, it may be said in passing, that this calamity conveys to individual sufferers, a rebuke proportionate to the measure in which they have indulged the spirit of the world. Those who are the children of God, will doubtless regard it as a part of that fatherly discipline by which he would restrain their waywardness, and bring them into closer fellowship with himself. They will cheerfully submit to this apparent evil, feeling that it is but light in comparison with their transgressions, and that it is designed for good. Those who are yet estranged from God, may well consider this a call of his Providence superadded to the neglected commands and invitations of his Word, to startle them from their dream of carnal security, and make them feel that there is a God to whom they must give some regard.

But we are seeking rather, the lessons which it inculcates upon the community. Viewed in connection with similar calamities, it is a most serious admonition to men of business, and through them to the whole community. It is but one of a series

of calamities which have fallen upon the principal cities and towns of the American continent during the present year. Pittsburg, in an adjacent state, Quebec, in an adjacent province, have suffered perhaps more in proportion than ourselves from the devouring element; while many of the leading towns and villages. through the land present similar scenes of desolation. Now why is all this? Why in such rapid succession have these disasters fallen upon the seats of commerce? Why has the same terrific agent been commissioned to destroy not what was poor and worthless, but what was costly and valued; what was at once the evidence and the element of commercial prosperity. Is it not because that prosperity has been too much our idol and our boast? God has been aiming in various modes to restrain the pride and covetousness of a nation which is advancing with such rapid strides to the summit of wealth and power. He has sent death into our high places; he has sent confusion into all the departments of trade; he has frustrated our worldly hopes and schemes, and destroyed our prosperity, till we feared and trembled before him. Yet scarcely were his judgments stayed, when men began again to throw off his restraints, and to run the same career of worldliness as before. They made haste to be rich, regardless of God's law; regardless of God's glory; regardless often of God's day; regardless of their obligations to the cause of Christ, and to a perishing world. Now nothing is more true in the history of communities, than that with an increase of wealth and luxury comes an increase of wickedness. Hence the spirit of worldliness, fostered by prosperity, needs to be checked by frequent reverses. Without such restraints men would throw off all fear of God, and tower in their impiety to the very heavens.

All the calamities that befall mankind are in some sense the result of sin. They may be the penalties of those physical laws which the sufferers have violated; but they are related also to the moral law. Death, the chief of temporal evils, has passed upon all men, because all have sinned. It is a standing token of God's displeasure at iniquity. And if this be true of the greater evil it is true also of the less. How many engines of destruction have been called into being by human wickedness!

The earth was "cursed" for the sake of man. Had man continued holy, the earth would have retained the loveliness of Eden; briars and thorns would never have sprung up in his pathway; the earthquake and storm, fire, flood, famine and pestilence, would never have been sent forth to ravage his abode; the command would have been given to each element of destruction,-"Touch not the children of my love!" All the evils under which the world now groans are the result of sin. Man has provoked them by the transgression of God's law. It is for this the sea devours his ships, the tornado lays waste his fields, and the fire consumes his cities

in a world of holy beings such evils are unknown. But with a fallen race God must resort to these severe chastisements, if he would maintain his authority over them, or reclaim them to himself. In such calamities he teaches men on a great scale his displeasure at sin, and his determination not to let wickedness pass unrebuked; he makes an exhibition of the power of his anger which should fill the world with awe. 66 My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and

I am afraid of thy judgments."

years.

It were vain to attempt to specify the sins for which God has now visited this community. There may be no one sin which has called for such an exhibition of his displeasure; but there is wickedness enough among us to deserve yet sorer judgments. Our provocations against heaven may have been accumulating for But if we cannot learn its specific cause, we should not lose sight of the fact that this calamity is a mark of God's displeasure. It is only by such calamities, involving alike the righteous and the wicked, that he can deal with communities for their transgressions. Communities must meet their retribution here.

The analogies of Providence may help us to a right view of this subject. The laws of God's providence, the principles on which he deals with men are the same in every age.-Now we find in the history of mankind that God has often visited cities and communities for their impiety, and (what is here worthy of note) has made fire the agent in their destruction. You remember the terrible doom of Sodom and Gomorrah, which whether, as some suppose, it was occasioned by a volcanic eruption, or was the effect of miracle, was threatened and inflicted by the Lord for sins which cried to heaven.

On one occasion, when the children of Israel murmured in the wilderness, the Lord heard it and "his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp." This was probably a fire kindled by lightning; but a fire kindled by the hands of men, was often the instrument of an avenging God. Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans and burnt, for contemning the word of the Lord; it was destroyed a second time, for rejecting Christ and persecuting his followers.

Jehovah threatened to destroy that city by fire for Sabbathbreaking. "If ye will not hearken to me, to hallow the Sabbathday, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day, then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof (i.e. by the hands of enemies in war,) and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and it shall not be quenched." So when we as a city suffer the breach of Sabbath without remonstrance, when we might prevent it by law, we have reason to fear the judgments of the Almighty.

* Jer. xxxvi: 16 v.

God threatened also to consume the enemies of his people by fire. "I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Benhadad." "For three transgressions of Gaza and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof: but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza; which shall devour the palaces thereof." The same doom is threatened against Tyre, Edom and Moab. So then God makes use of fire as an instrument of his displeasure against communities, and that too for sins of which we have been guilty!

In the year 1666, the oldest and most wealthy and populous part of the city of London was laid in ashes. The fire continued three or four days, and burnt 373 acres within the walls and 63 without; 89 parish churches with many other houses of worship; a variety of public buildings, and over 13,000 dwellings. This fire was preceded, the year before, by a dreadful plague, which swept ninety thousand into the grave. Now it is well known that at this time London was one of the most corrupt cities of the world. The English Court was exceedingly profligate, and the English monarch a disgrace to the name of man or king. "Debauchery, says a writer of that period, " was made a test of royalty: and a man was suspected to be disaffected to his prince, if he did not profane the name of his God."

These calamities occurred too but three or four years after two thousand of the most able and faithful ministers of Christ in the land had been ejected from their livings, because they would not violate their consciences by the observance of idle ceremonies; and the fire but six months after the passage of the five mile act,t by which these same ministers, after being turned out of their churches, for continuing to teach in private, "were barbarously turned out of their houses, and not suffered to live within five miles of any corporation, or of the places where they had been ministers."

Now was there no connection between these calamities and these sins? Were not the fire and plague the tokens of God's displeasure at the wickedness of the times? "Before him went the

"Fire, breaking out in a bakers house near the bridge, spread itse on all sides with such rapidity, that no efforts could extinguish it, till it laid in ashes a consider. able part of the city. The inhabitants without being able to provide effectually for their relief, were reduced to be spectators of their own ruin; and were pursued from street to street by the flames, which unexpectedly gathered round them. Three days and nights did the fire advance; and it was only by the blowing up of houses, that it was at last extinguished. About four hundred streets and thirteen thousand houses, were reduced to ashes." (Hume 2, 453.) These streets were mostly narrow, and the houses built of wood.

"It was enacted, that no dissenting teacher who took not the non-resistance oath, should, except upon the road, come within five miles of any corporation, or of any place, where he had preached alter the act of oblivion. The penalty was a fine of fifty pounds, and six months imprisonment. By ejecting the non-conforming clergy from their churches, and prohibiting all separate congregations, they had been rendered incapable of gaining any livelihood by their spiritual profession. And now, under color of removing them from places were their influence might be dangerous, an expedient was fallen upon to deprive them of all means of subsistence."

pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet." If these events had occurred in the days of prophecy, would they not have been predicted as divine judgments for sin? Would not the voice of the Lord's prophet have been heard in the streets of London, as in Jerusalem, saying, "because ye have profaned my sanctuary and blasphemed my name, because ye have rejected my ministers, and would none of my ways, I will kindle a fire in the midst of you and consume you." And is there no connection between our calamity and our sins? Nothing for which God designs to rebuke and humble us? Is there no fraud, corruption, Sabbath-breaking, or impiety, for which he would reprove us as a community? Let us not fail to acknowledge his hand in this event; and while we deprecate his judgments, let us seek to avert them in future by the removal of those moral evils which precede and provoke them. Oh, how should we hate those sins which expose us to such judgments! If we suffer our city to increase in wickedness, as it increases in extent, numbers and resources, it will become like Sodom a heap of combustible matter to attract and feed the fire of God's wrath. God has rebuked us sorely for our sins.

God would teach us, in the second place, by this providence, the emptiness of all earthly possessions and enjoyments, and the uncertainty of life itself. Of this individuals are continually reminded by the changes through which they are called to pass. But here we are taught it as a community on the broadest scale. Did we but believe the testimony of God's word concerning the vanity of earthly things, we should not need these repeated and appaling demonstrations of its truth. But so prone are we to fasten our affections upon earthly good, and make it the chief object of pursuit, that we can only be convinced of its insufficiency to meet our wants, by some sudden desolation like that which we have witnessed. We need these admonitions; without them we should utterly neglect our highest good. Severe though they be, they are sent in kindness, to turn off our thoughts from what is perishable to what is substantial and abiding. How plainly might we read the doom of all earthly riches and enjoyments in the light of yonder flames! Well-furnished houses, and well-stocked stores, "buildings that had been long in rearing, and treasures that had been long in gathering," were reduced to ashes and scattered to the winds. "In one hour how great riches is come to nought!" The most worldly spectator was forced to exclaim, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" That very compactness, which in a city facilitates trade and friendly intercourse, served but to make the work of destruction more easy and more extensive.

How unexpected was this destruction! How many retired that night secure in the possession of thousands, who rose impoverished, to mourn over the lost labors of years! How many who had gone abroad for recreation were hurried from the scene of