remember that it is for no goodness that there is in him that he has been put in this place of responsibility and power, and that respect for his administration will be wholly dependent upon his good behavior, he may yet furnish reason to think that the death of President Garfield was not an unrelieved calamity. But if Providence has otherwise ordered, and it is our lot to have the spoils-system in its worst features revived; to see wholesale changes in our public offices for the mere sake of perpetuating the power of a few and of rewarding personal services at the polls; to experience a still further degradation of our civil service in the line of inflaming party passion, of making our elections mere squabbles for spoils, of turning our legislatures into mere assemblies for the ratification of the decrees of the managers of the machine,--still we will not despair of the Republic, but will believe it simply the will of Providence that the evil should grow ripe before its fall, that its monstrosity should become so hateful as to rouse universal opposition, that like slavery it should meet its doom in the very act of subjugating all things to its sway. The accession of President Arthur should be the signal, not for blind acquiesecnce in the inevitable, if that inevitable be the extension and deepening of corruption in our politics, it should be the signal for united determination on the part of all Christians and all patriots, all thinking and good men of whatever party or name, that our civil service shall be reformed, and that the accursed system of spoils shall be done away forever from our politics.

I am not unmindful that every incoming Executive is entitled to the support and confidence of the nation until he has proved himself unworthy. That confidence and support we should render him on his entrance upon his duties, and just so long as he remains faithful to his trust. May God enlighten and keep him! May God lift him up above low partizanship, and enable him to live for his country and for the future! There are many things to encourage the hope that he will do so. He is the son of Christian parents. His father was a Baptist minister. He has at least the ordinary respect for religion and for morality. His private life is above reproach. The letter in which he accepted the nomination for the Vice-Presidency, and the brief address which accompanied the final taking of the oath of office as President, will compare favorably with the utterances of General Garfield under similar circumstances. Above all, his modest and serious bearing during the weeks of suspense that have intervened between the shot of the assassin and the death of the late President, have drawn to him a popular sympathy and have awakened a general hopefulness which will prove most valuable helps in the adoption and carrying out of a truly statesmanlike policy. The country waits with patience and with good will to second and further every step in the direction of wise administration. If he shall devote himself to the reform of abuses, if he shall choose men of principle for his advisers, if he shall conduct the government upon business methods, if he shall scorn to be the servant of a selfish clique, if he shall rise to the dignity of a true President, then every Christian and every honest man will applaud him and award him a lofty place among the great men of history. We pray most devoutly that he may know and seize his opportunity. But if, with all these motives and influences to favor a right course, he shall pursue the wrong; if he shall put himself under the control of an

unscrupulous faction; if he shall set himself to turn back the current that has been running more and more strongly toward reform in our civil service; if he shall use the vast patronage of his office to raise up a new army of placeholders devoted to his personal interests and bent upon the consolidation and perpetuation of their ill-used power, then we utter to him a voice of warning; we assure him of indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish ; of implacable hostility on the part of the intelligence and virtue of the land; of opposition to his administration shown by all legal and constitutional means; of political ruin to himself and to his party; of everlasting fame as a betrayer of his country. Like the king of Babylon, he stands at the parting of the way. Two roads diverge from the spot which his feet now tread. May God save him from choosing the wrong course! May God give him grace to choose the right!

So let us all stand still, in appreciative remembrance of the life and character of the departed; in grateful recognition of the alleviating circumstances with which divine Providence has attended our sorrow; in penitent contemplation of the special sin of this people which has been the indirect cause of President Garfield's death. I suppose that if all those soldiers of Israel stood still, and looked at the dead body of Asahel, then each one individually must have stood still. Have we done this to-day? Have I individually-have you, each of you and singly-stood still, in reverence, in gratitude, in penitence? Ah, these general reflections will be of little use, unless we make them personal to ourselves. Let us hear what God the Lord will speak to us. The life and character of General Garfield were gifts of God to you and me; you and I need to render thanks for many mercies which accompany this cup of sorrow; above all, you and I need to humble ourselves for our sins, and to address ourselves to the duty of the hour. There is a mighty feeling abroad in the land a feeling strong enough and deep enough, if only organized into practical action, to remove from us the transgressions which have provoked God's anger and have endangered the safety of the nation. God will be with us, if we are but true to him. If we will only stand still, in fixed resolve to return to God and to the old paths of honesty and truth, we may also stand still and see the salvation of God,-- and, as for those enemies of our peace, we shall see them no more again forever.

XXXV.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND ITS COMING.*

The ancient world was full of unconscious prophecies of Christ. Long before the "Desire of all nations" had come, philosophy was waiting to lay her unsolved problems before the mighty Prophet, and the polytheistic religions were seeking for the Priest who could give atoning efficacy to their sacrifices. And not less was it true that all the political systems of the earth, confessing their own poverty and imperfection, were standing in silent expectation of his advent who was King by right divine. All kingdoms that preceded his, were in some sort types and prefigurations of the coming kingdom of God. The very end for which the Jewish kingdom existed under David and Solomon, was to fix in the mind of a select people the idea of a monarchy grander far in unity, strength and splendor. And the vast world-empires of Chaldæa, Greece and Rome, were they of no use or value to the humanity that bore their heavy burdens? Let us not so deny the providential ordering of history. These were but the vain attempts of human nature to anticipate God's great plan of universal dominion - attempts permitted by God to prepare mankind for the kingdom of his Son. Yes, all the self-deifying schemes of world-wide conquest which Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander and Augustus ever formed were but dim prefigurations of the coming reign of Christ. These men were but the representatives of universal longings and aspirations. Rome would never have grasped at the empire of the world, had there not been an answering instinct of monarchy in the world's great heart,— her name among the nations and her gigantic sway rested upon that deep principle of human nature which moves the race to seek blindly for the restoration of its primal unity,- her magic influence over all lands and the terror of her imperial decrees would never have been possible, had she not been the specious counterfeit of another world-wide kingdom of spiritual influences and of living dependence upon an invisible head. Rome was not herself the kingdom for which the nations longed. She was rather the great dragon of the Revelation, seeking to devour the feeble child who was the true hope of the world. But though the dragon's material supremacy was represented by the seven crowns upon its seven heads, and its control over the world's spiritual lights and rulers by the third part of the stars of heaven which were carried off by the sweep of its tail, yet this feeble child, seemingly so easy a prey, was to escape its jaws and, nourished secretly by God, was at length to rule the nations with a rod of iron — so to rule as to break their hostility and to bring them into willing subjection to its government and laws. The coming of Christ has antiquated the notion

*A Sermon before the Judson Society of Missionary Inquiry, Brown University Providence, R. I., August 31, 1869.

of any universal monarchy except his own. It is already dimly seen that the sublime ambition of reducing the whole earth under one head, and fusing its heterogeneous populations into one great empire, is hopeless of accomplishment except by the hands of him who adds to all human perfections the power and wisdom of a God.

The Psalms, in their language of magnificent metaphor, speak of the governments of the world as the "great mountains," and of warlike, oppressive, robbing states as "mountains of prey,"—and who would deny that the ancient mountains that lift their white heads above the clouds and plant their feet at the centre of the earth, watching in moveless majesty the dawning and death of the centuries, are apt emblems of those dynasties that have ruled the race for ages? But when the prophetic Scriptures would describe the kingdom of Christ, the figure is immeasurably expanded and exalted. That kingdom is a mountain also, but a mountain that grows from the smallest beginnings to an inconceivable greatness. First a stone cut out of the hillside without any agency of man and by the invisible hand of God, it rolls onward, increasing as it goes, until it crushes into dust the images men have built to take its place, and becomes a great mountain that not only overtops and swallows up every mountain of the world, but fills at last the whole circuit of the earth. In such grand symbolic language does inspiration set forth to us the truth that Christ shall reign until all enemies shall be put beneath his feet, all humanity shall be united in him as its head, and his universal monarchy shall embrace earth as well as heaven.

I address this evening a society of young men whose organization derives dignity and worth from its connection with this kingdom of God. It seeks by inquiry into the condition of the world, and the forces which God has prepared to subdue it, to determine the truest direction and methods of coming efforts for the advancement of Christ's cause. These early days of preparation for the work of life may well be spent in such inquiry, and the name that is emblazoned on your banner, the name of the greatest modern missionary laborer, may well serve for your example and inspiration. I bring to you, therefore, to stimulate your search for truth and point to you the way of duty, this prayer and promise of Christ. There is no sentence in the book of inspiration which more clearly expresses the ultimate aim of God, and thus the great end of life for us. It constitutes the dominant thought of the Lord's prayer-the thought indeed that meets us at the very threshold of it. When he who was the type and model of humanity left a type and model for men's prayers, he began, not with the expression of human wants, but with petitions for God's glory,- not first, "give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, "— but "hallowed be thy name,- thy kingdom come!" And this because the moment that prayer "thy kingdom come" is answered, the satisfaction of all human wants is sure. We cannot then in any way so enlarge our hearts or prepare us for our coming work as by contemplating this one petition into which all our human prayers, so far as they avail anything, may be resolved. May this contemplation help us to see with greater clearness the magnificence of God's kingdom, and, so seeing, to pray and labor with stronger heart that earth may be reconciled to heaven, and that both may be made the perfect instrument of God's sovereignty and revelation.

First, then, we ask "what is this kingdom?" and the most obvious reply is that the kingdom of God is a kingdom in the soul. You cannot mark out on any map its geographical limits. You cannot bound it by mountain ranges, or measure it by the length of continents. It has nothing to do with any of the natural divisions of the earth, for it is a spiritual not an earthly kingdom, and all lands are to come within its boundaries at last only because all the souls of men are to be subject to its dominion. When Nicodemus imagines it confined to a chosen land or people, he must learn that neither one's physical dwelling-place nor connection with any nation makes one partaker of its rights and privileges. "The kingdom of God is within you," says Jesus, and no protracted pilgrimages nor outward professions nor priestly manipulations will bring us into it. It is a kingdom of spirits, whose King is a Spirit, ruling not by deputies but directly by his spiritual presence in the hearts of his subjects. In earthly kingdoms, the rule is external, by written laws, by subordinate authorities. The King cannot be everywhere at once- he must delegate his power. But God is every where, and needs no representative or viceroy. The Holy Spirit, whose indwelling in the soul is the evidence of our naturalization in this kingdom, is no simple divine influence apart from God, but is the very presence of the King himself. This is the greatness of human nature, that the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity will make the soul of man his palace and his temple. Of this reign of God in the soul and his constant working and revelation there, all the methods of his rule and operation in nature are but echoes and symbols. There is a concurrence of God needful to support my physical organism in every breath I draw, whether I sleep or wake. The Hebrew prophets were far nearer the truth than our rationalizing philosophers, when they heard God's voice in the thunder and saw his beauty in the cloud-lit skies. Not only in the wrathful moods of nature, when fire and earthquake speed forth on errands of justice, but in the broad sweep of productive agencies which furnish food to the sower and bread to the eater, God is present no passive spectator, but working hitherto and forever, the motive power of all that moves, the life of all that lives. But all this indwelling and co-working of God in nature is only the rough picture-card by which he teaches us who are children, how great and blessed a thing is his indwelling and co-working in the soul. The earthly bread by which he sustains us is but a faint symbol of the true Bread that came down from heaven to nourish and feed our souls. The earthly vine to which he gives life that it may keep alive its branches is but the faint symbol of that true original archetypal Vine which has its roots in heaven, not on earth, and to which all the scattered, half-withered branches of humanity are to be reunited that they may again have life divine.

And here is God's true reign and kingdom, not in nature. In nature he has never ceased to reign,- his life sustains even the bodies of those who sin against him. But he has humbled himself to give man an independent will, by which he may cut his soul loose from God's spiritual rule, though he never can break the bond of physical dependence. This kingdom in the souls of earth's revolted millions God would restore, and it is this kingdom which we pray may come. It is little for God to rule in nature, so long as he rules not in the heart. For the soul of man is greater and grander, when