mended all good; that it reformed men, made them the most pure, moral and civil the world ever saw. It was equally wonderful that the apostles should have conceived the idea of telling such a falsehood; that the idea ever should have entered into their minds of standing up in the very city, and among the very people where Jesus had been crucified only some fifty days before, and in open day, and in the gaze of thousands of the people having the fullest opportunity to know all about it of any people in the world, and telling them that he rose from the dead; and, more wonderful still, that vast multitudes believed it, not as a mere idle and curious tale, or a mere speculative story, but as a profound and awful reality, and in view of it changed the whole course of their lives, and entered into a new order of living; and, still more wonderful, that the learned, talented and influential rabbis of Israel, on the one hand, and the philosophers and civil rulers, on the other hand, could not stop it; and, most wonderful of all, that the powers of earth and the unseen world could not stop its onward march, till it had traveled the length of the Mediterranean Sea, filled all Asia with the apostles' teaching, and revolutionized the great Roman Empire from its center to its circumference!

It was manifestly no falsehood, but the truth of God; the very truth intended to bless and save the world. It had the wisdom and the power of God in it. It lived and spread there, and has continued to live and press its way down through the ages, in many instances having the fiercest and hottest contests; having been deserted by professed friends; traduced by wicked and designing men; corrupted and perverted by false teachers; but still it lives and comforts the hearts of millions of the purest and best of our sinful race, not simply in pros

perity, in the full vigor of life, but in decline and death, when this world is receding and disappearing. Surely it is not of this world. It is of God, and in it is the only light for man that can penetrate beyond the grave; the only light that shines into "an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;" the only light that can bring to our view "a kingdom that can not be moved;" the holy city, the New Jerusalem; the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. How dark and dreary is this world without this light, and what a poor citizenship is that which is only of this world and bounded by time, compared with a citizenship in a kingdom that can not be moved, not of this world, not bounded by time, nor by mortality, but extends beyond the river of death. May our hope ever be anchored there, and may our citizenship ever be in heaven, whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus the Christ, who shall change our vile bodies, and fashion them like to his glorious body. Blessed be his name forever and ever.

SERMON No. IV.

THEME.- THE CONVERSION OF SAUL OF TARSUS.

In many respects, and it may be that, in the highest sense, Paul was the most distinguished man that was ever in the Church of Christ. No man, at this day, can tell the difference there would have been in this world if Paul had not lived in it. He was a young man of distinction and note before he was in Christ, and this is simply what he was as a man, without Christ and his apostleship. In the first place, he had a good natural endowment, or understanding; or, as we express it in our westernish style, good common sense, which is the best sense in the world. Added to this, he had a firstrate education for his time. He was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, or was educated under his tuition, and trained in all the learning of his time, specially in all questions of the law, or of Judaism. His good natural endowment and fine education gave him great note and distinction, and gave him immense power for good or for evil, as he might turn it to this or that use.

He was a man of most untiring and sleepless vigilance, not only after he became a Christian and an apostle, but before; he was an embodiment of activity and industry; he idled away no time; he did not win his way to such notoriety and distinction, as he had attained before he turned to the Lord, without doing something. He made his mark. It is proper, then, to consider how he stood before his turn.

There are some who say: "Whatever any man thinks is right, that is right to him." What did Saul think was right, or what did he think he ought to do? Alluding to what he thought before he was a Christian, he says: "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem." He not only thought, but verily, or most assuredly thought, he ought to do these things. What were these things that he verily thought he ought to do? To arrest the saints, and persecute them, and when they were being put to death, to give his voice against them; to compel them to blaspheme the name of Christ; to imprison them. Did it become right for him to do these things because he verily thought he ought to do them? It was wrong for him to do these things, no matter what he thought about it. Men are as liable to think wrong as to do anything else wrong, and are held responsible for their wrong thinking as much as for wrong acting. He did it ignorantly, in unbelief. The main sin was his ignorance. He was in reach of better knowledge, and he did not know what was right because he did not try to know. He did not believe because he did not examine the evidence; did not seek nor try to find the evidence. He blindly, but persistently, pushed on without trying to know the truth.

Again, some suppose if they will follow the leadings of conscience they will always go right. But this is also uncertain. Saul lived "in all good conscience" when he was exceedingly mad against the disciples, breathing out threatenings against them and persecuting them. In all this he did not violate his conscience. His conscience approved him all the time. The truth in this matter is, that conscience is no teacher, and no guide.