shown and in this discourse I shall undertake to

show

that the sterner trials of life do not so much to form the principle as to reveal and deepen the character; that a bad man, wanting faith and affection, is made worse by them; while a good man, whose motives are lofty, who walks in purity and with guarded conscience, will, through these very visitations, break down and sweep away all false supports, reveal what is most substantial in his life, belief, and purpose, and be made the better for them. my doctrine.

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If we would learn how great crises are great revealers of the character, we may find very striking illustrations in Christ's life and conversation. where in the world's history shall we obtain more impressive examples of the truth, that the day of God's visitation dissipates all delusions and false pretences, and discloses the reality of a people's devotion. Take, for instance, the hour when he was walking in Jewry, and addressing the nation in those deep, thrilling, persuasive tones in which he knew how to speak: "Now is the judgment of this world." He meant to say, that the very crisis of the nation's destiny had now arrived, -the exact moment when, by the proclamation of higher truth and the requirement

of higher duty, the strength of their faith and the sincerity of their professions were to be tested. God had once more come in the might of his majesty, in the storm of civil revolution and the commotion of kingdoms, and in more exacting demands upon the sincerity of their allegiance and the strength of their love. His own Messenger now walked the earth, and visited men in their lowly habitations. He sat upon the hillsides of Judæa, and gave utterance to those words of stern rebuke and gentle admonition which none could hear without emotion. He stood before them, the embodiment of the Divinity, in the midst of the formalities and vain hypocrisies of the temple, and the emblem of truth in presence of individual falseness and corruption; "and the thoughts of many hearts" were now "revealed." It was the decisive hour of the nation's trial: and so he proclaimed, "Now is the axe lying at the root of the trees; and every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Never was there a period of more solemn moral discrimination, never a clearer or more impressive voice heard on these shores of time; nor ever had a people more distinctly proclaimed their feebleness, falsehood, and utter rottenness, nor could they better comprehend their

coming destinies. The fig-tree-planted by the wayside, rocked by the gentle winds, warmed by the sunbeams, watered by the showers - stood with its rounded trunk and its fair show of leaves, but blasted and accursed, before them all, because barren like themselves. Moses and the prophets they had rejected; the Son of man- with his high commission from God, his acts of mercy, and his air of irresistible dignity and tenderness - they had scorned, and were about to put to death; and, though one rose from the dead, they would not hear. What could save them from their doom? They went on, unheeding, the way of their ruin, plunging deeper in their guilt, drawing around them a thicker shade of gloom. They stood and cried, "His blood be upon us and our children!" And when was ever doom so speedy, and ruin so merciless? Their house was left unto them desolate, their city became a waste, and they were scattered to the four winds of heaven.

But, in the order of Providence, death is the precursor as well as the sequence of life. Out of the very crisis which brings desolation and moral ruin springs that higher form of spiritual excellence which is the grand explanation of the lot of humanity. Amid the darkness and horrors which attended the cruci

fixion of the Saviour, and revealed the utmost depravity of man, was brought to light the reality of a disinterested goodness such as the world had never dreamed of before. At the very time when the temple of Jerusalem was become a heap of smouldering ruins, and the streets were running rivers of blood, and unheard-of crimes were perpetrated among the people, there was springing up in the midst the germ of a new community, rich in self-sacrificing devotion and saintly virtues. In the embers of exhausted pride, passion, and selfish ambition, were flickering the fires of a new spiritual life, just beginning to be kindled, - fires that were destined to burn in ten thousand bosoms, purify the world of its sins, and cure it of its brooding miseries. In great times, such as those of Christ's manifestation, wicked men grow more wicked, more reckless, savage, and inhuman, through the very intensity of their sufferings; while, through the same instrumentality, the truehearted become more gentle, tender, and affectionate, and the spark of divinity is fanned into a flame of inextinguishable love.

So in the history of the ages and the progress of events. Great crises have ever been affluent in the noblest and the meanest attributes of humanity.

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The earthquake, that heaves the mountains and shakes a continent, throws up at the same time mire and dirt, and the golden and the silver ore. The hurricane, that sweeps the forest, fells to the earth the old rotten trees which have stood proudly up, and overshadowed the young and thrifty wood; while the green and healthy sapling will stand, the pride of the hills, for the use and ornament of the coming time. So when nations are rent by civil and religious strifes, and a new era has come, the good and evil of men stand out in boldest relief. Then history is made; for what is its chief material but the story of the earth's great convulsions, when the extremes of human nature, the most violent contrasts, are brought into view? In quiet times, when there is no mighty stir of human passion, and no great sacrifices are demanded, the record of a whole generation fills only a single page; but the memory lingers over scenes of violent commotion, and the account runs on into volumes: for we then have to tell of the great struggle of the human faculty, of the heart's weakness and strength, of the lowest depravities and the sublimest virtues. Look at the English and French Revolutions. When they came with their heartstirring and appalling events, the English and the