single particle of doubt yet lurks in his mindthen must he be worse than mad to seek, by rushing into it, (when by merely shunning the danger he is sure to escape it,) to settle a doubt, upon the solution of which must irrevocably depend his everlasting happiness in the realms of bliss, or his eternal misery in the mansions of the damned.

Once more I would remind the duellist that he lives in a favoured Christian land; that the Bible is offered to him, the gospel is preached. If the duellist deludes himself with the persuasion that God is so kind and good to his creatures, that his mercy will assuredly predominate over his justice, he can have but a very incorrect idea of the infinite perfection of the Deity. So fatal an error on the part of any one who has perused the Bible must proceed from unbelief, it cannot be from ignorance. Enough is recorded in Scripture to prove the faithfulness of God's word when he declares (Exod. xxxiv. 7), "He will in no wise clear the guilty." Witness, out of many other examples, the destruction of the world in the days of Noah, at a time when, as our Saviour declared (Luke xvii. 27), " They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the days that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all."

66

"Likewise also as it was in the days of LotThey did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all." And these, as St. Jude says (ver. 7), “ are set forth for an EXAMPLE, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." And again (Jude 6), "And the angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." See also (Numb. xvi) where Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and all their host of men, women, and children, were swallowed up alive by the yawning earth; and read with fear and trembling the awful exhibition of God's swift destruction sent upon 14,500 people who dared to murmur at his righteous judgments. Search your Bibles for the awful accounts of these terrible instances of Divine vengeance upon the impenitent and unholy, and see if you can find any just ground to expect an exception in your favour-any fair reason to hope that in your individual case God will cease to be just, and only remember mercy.

How different is the believing Christian's hope from yours! What you fear, he trusts in. Trembling to encounter God's wrath notwithstanding

the declarations of his word, and the evidence of facts contained in it, you seek to quiet your fears by placing a blind and unauthorized dependance on his mercy alone. The true Christian knows himself deserving of wrath, but rests the firm basis of his hopes upon the immutable justice of his Judge. How is this? Because the Christian believes that God has accepted the atonement of his Son for the sins of all the believing world, and therefore the perfection of his justice will not allow any to be lost who come unto him through faith in that atonement.

All these things are to be found in the word of truth, and I would once more remind the duellist that, living in a favoured country, where the Bible is offered to him freely, the gospel preached to him faithfully, he is left without excuse if he remains uninfluenced by them; and I do entreat him to read with an humbled and teachable spirit the solemn denunciation of the eternal God, delivered, in Prov. i. 24-31, to those who have neglected his counsel: "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction

cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you; then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices."

I

114

CHAPTER VII.

THE law of honour requires from its votaries a constant display of courage, and so, likewise, does the law of God; but the courage of the man of honour, and the fortitude of the Christian, are as opposite as the laws by which they are severally governed.

The courage of the duellist consists in a readiness to stake his life, whenever the laws of honour require it. This he does sometimes, though rarely, from revenge, and principally to avoid the endurance of present inconvenience and mortification, which he might be exposed to, from the scorn and contempt of his worldly associates. This reckless risk of human life proceeds either from cowardice, or rashness that would be worthy of a madman, and must necessarily be the result of a disbelief, or disregard of all future consequences.

The courage of the Christian is a result of his faith, and consists chiefly in a patient endurance of the ills of this life, in humble imitation of the Saviour who redeemed him; and arises from an