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Pope reigneth-Pio Nono reigneth." Would this be any comfort? If I had the choice, I would rather it was the Sultan than the Pope; I had almost rather be a Mahometan than a Romanist; for bad as the Mahometans are, there is no idolatry among them: they worship one God; even Mahomet is not their God, he is only their prophet; and the singular and the peculiar character of the mission of Mahomet was, when it first burst upon Europe and upon Asia, to punish the idolatrous nations of Christendom, and to save the world from the universal curse of idolatry. But if Pio Nono reigned-alas, alas! we should have the Crucifix, but not the Cross; we should have the priest to make an atonement instead of the ambassador of God to proclaim it already made; our nobles would be cardinals in red, our Bible would be clasped, our Prayer-book would be the missal; and our Queen-when Pio Nono felt it his interest or his passion to attempt it—like a previous possessor of a throne, would be paying Peter-pence for her sovereignty; or, like the German Emperor, standing in the trenches around Rome, doing penance, and seeking from a man absolution from her transgressions. Or suppose that the laws of a material philosophy reigned; matters would not be mended. We should not know what to expect, we should not be able to interpret the least, or the most perplexing, or the plainest phenomena; all would be committed to blind chance, all would be under the laws of an unbending and an iron des

potism; prayer would be useless, hope would be impossible; we could only sit down like the ancient stoic, and conclude it was a virtue not to feel, and seek in suicide a refuge from the calamities and the cares of life.

But what a blessed thought! It is not the Autocrat, nor the Sultan, nor Pio Nono, nor iron and hard and unbending law; but it is, "The Lord, our Father, reigneth; our covenant God reigneth ;” therefore what He does will be in mercy, what He decides will be in wisdom. The mightiest things shall praise Him, the least things shall honour Him, and all things shall obey his will, and promote his glory, and execute the great and beneficent ends. which He contemplates in the government and arrangement of the world.

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It is interesting to notice a contrast in two Psalms. In the 97th Psalm it is, "The Lord reigneth, let the earth—the land, Palestine, the place of his own people-rejoice." But in the 99th Psalm a different deduction is made from the same premise: "The Lord reigneth; let the people (goim)- the nations, the heathen-"tremble." "The Lord reigneth," is to his own people the richest comfort; "The Lord reigneth," is to the enemies of God the greatest calamity. "The Lord reigneth" is to his own people the greatest comfort, because it teaches them there is no chance. What kind of a sceptre would that be which had subjects. that could resist it? What a governor of the world would he be who was dependent on the fixity or

fugitive changes of things for the accomplishment of his purposes? The least incident that befalls the obscurest saint in the deepest underground cellar of London is as much the mission, and as completely beneath the control of God, as is the flight of the soaring angel that is about his throne, or the mission of an apostle or an evangelist to preach the gospel to all mankind. That blow that swept away the property your industry had amassed was from Him: that chasm which the loss of the near and dear has left irremediable behind was from Him. A Father's hand inflicts the severest blow; paternal love is in every suffering. You are not to argue, "I suffer, therefore God hates me;" but "God is my Father, therefore all that he does co-operates for good, works together beneficently to me, and for glory, honour, and praise to his name." I know not a truth more precious in the Psalms than this, "The Lord reigneth." How delightful to look abroad upon the world, to listen to the preparations at Plymouth, and Portsmouth, and Devonport; to hear the moving and arranging, and gathering together of vast armies, and to know that God's eyes see all—that those great men that are moving them are all carrying out what he designs, and that not one can take a step on earth that had not first its decision in heaven! "The Lord reigneth." There is no chance, there is no accident.

Let the man whose biography has been the barest, whose life has had the fewest eddies and

the least startling incidents, look back, and he will see that upon the turning of a corner depended the complexion of a lifetime—that upon an accidental meeting, or an accidental occasion, with an unexpected person, depended all he now is, much he now feels, and more he now hopes for. It was the turning of a straw that brought one into contact with that truth which has made him a new man it was an incidental conversation in a railway carriage, in a steamboat, in an omnibus, or some news-room, that brought another where was heard the Gospel, that will add one to the choirs of the blessed, and give a home of happiness and joy beyond the stars. If you can prove to me that God does not reign in little things, I will prove to you, with demonstration irrefragable, that there is no God at all. I say, if God does not reign and rule in the least incident that happens to a believer, God does not reign and rule at all. Whilst I use means wherever means are suggested by what is part of Christianity, common sense-while I employ every effort to promote my health, and every means within my power to perpetuate my life, and avoid every peril that would in the least degree endanger it—yet I am just as sure as I am of my own existence, that I am immortal till I have finished the work that God has given me to do. There is not a soldier upon eastern plains that has not a mission; and as soon only as his sword has executed God's behest, he will be removed from the field of conflict below, if a Christian, to the realms of everlasting repose

above. It may be thought a vulgar aphorism, but it is a most just one-"Every bullet has its billet;" and it is neither the Autocrat, nor the Sultan, nor chance, that writes the name upon the bullet; it is our Father who is in heaven: for "the Lord reigneth." The Lord reigns in the Baltic, he reigns in the Euxine, amid showers of balls, amid the roar of cannon; and there is not an accidental ball that accidentally hits a single soldier; there is not an accidental stroke that accidentally overtakes a single sailor; all is settled, all is adjusted, before the years of time began to roll. What a comfort is this! When the soldier goes forth into the field he may carry with him this absolute assurance, "My days were numbered long ago, and if I am to finish them here it must be so; if not, I am in the care and in the providential keeping of my Father, who reigneth." Yet this is not fatalism. The fatalism of the Moslem folds its hands, gathers round it its mantle, sits down, and says, "It is God's decree; we are to do nothing." But the trust of the Christian has recourse to every energy, and effort, and reasonable means, and employs for defence what God in his providence puts within his power; and the soldier that believes that his life is in God's keeping is not the less heroic on the field, or the less composed in the hour of battle and of conflict. Carry with you, then, into the chambers of the sick, feel beside the pillows of the dying, enjoy in the vigils of the long and the weary night, carry into all your trials, remember in all your

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