ready for that day, they are content to leave it with its tremendous issues to the chances of a moment, or the whimsical caprice of fate. It needs no prophetic foresight to anticipate the change that must one day pass upon the visage which looks so valiant now, and seems to scorn all danger and ignore all fear, to see it blush at the sudden, unexpected tread of the destroyer, and turn pale at the shivering prospect of a second death. Ah! it is this second death that will try the iron nerve! Soldiers have often rushed with firm unyielding foot into the very jaws of death; they have faced the bristling front of the foemen's steel; they have confronted the grim throats of musket and of cannon; they have stood unshaken where the turf beneath their feet has been slippery with the blood of their comrades in the ranks, and where the air has been thickened with the vapours of the death-gasp of ten thousand men. But when the covering of the tomb is cracked asunder and the shroud is rent, when the catacomb gives up its mouldering mouthful, when the rocky sepulchre is riven by the vibrations of the trumpet-call of doom, when we come to that awful "something after death," and realize in fact what we have vainly tried to paint before ourselves in fancy, that after death there comes the judgment; 'tis then that stout and stalwart hearts will begin to fail, and the voice which was once raised high in the vanguard of the army, disdainful of danger, and daring the foe, will be lifted up to cry in mortal and despairing terror, "Rocks fall on me, hills cover me, and hide from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand." The great day of His wrath! O it will be a day of wonders, a day of strange revealings. Secrets locked up in hard deceitful hearts through lifetimes, and kept safe amidst the corruption of the grave for centuries, will then be bruited forth before the universe, and held up for the perusal of angels and of men. Masks and disguises will then be ruthlessly stripped off, and men shall appear in their

own true seeming. The only disguise which will shroud our natural weakness, or hide our many sins, is the mantle of a Saviour's righteousness, and the panoply of a Redeemer's love. But there will be no time, or chance of putting it on then. It is now that we must clothe ourselves in this attire of grace. It is now, while we are in the world and ere the shroud en vraps us in its folds, that we must array ourselves for the coming presentation. It is not a mere ceremony, It will not be a mere parade. We shall not go filing by the throne, unrecognised by Him who sits upon it, but shall each of us be arraigned to take from His own lip our sentence. That sentence will be summed up either in the word Come, or in the word Depart; the one approving of the robe we wear, inviting us into the palace of the king; the other, spurning the proud and selfdevised disguise, consigning us to blackness of darkness for ever. It is time we began to look at these things as realities. It is time we began to bring our matter-of-fact minds to bear upon them, and took them into the calculations of our daily business. It is a common notion among some men that wrath, and mercy, and judgment, and eternity, and heaven, and hell, are a sort of dead stock in trade, only to be used by parsons to spice up their sermons, a sort of painted fire with which to give power and vividness to an appeal, or to lend force to an arguBut it is time we began to look at them as truths, for they are truths and tremendous truths too. My friend, I tell you, and I tell you on the authority of the word of God, that this judgment awaits you; that this eternity lies before you ; and that the heaven or the hell will certainly be your's. The great day of His wrath is coming. Poets have tried to realise its wonders in the throes of fancy, but they have never soared near to the reality. Milton, when his fancy built "the palaces of the fallen dominations," when he marched his ebon troops along the "beach of sulphur," and launched his daring thought upon "the ocean of fire," when he painted in his mind the Judge and all the appliances of the great assize, he never

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caught a glimmering glimpse of the true wonders of that great day. Martin, when, with a profanely daring pencil, he sought to transfer to canvas the strange mysterious features of that time, never obtained a view of one of the awful splendours by which it will be attended. 'Tis true he painted worlds rending in the midst; 'tis true he drew upon the scene an ideal earthquake, and whole empires sinking into the fire-toothed chasm; 'tis true there were myriads of human faces drawn with terror sitting like a pall upon them, as He that sat upon the throne bent His black scowl towards them; 'tis true the sea was represented as burning away like a mere bubble hissing and drying on the hot door of a furnace; that mountains seemed to quake and reel and roll out of their places; but all this will not bring home to us the true portraiture of the wonders of the great day of His wrath. It needs not that we so much anticipate the details of the scene as calculate upon its issue. Let us make that issue personal to ourselves. It need not be a day of wrath to us if we do not make it so to ourselves. If you are living in cherished sin, and careless of the coming future, wrapped up in the selfish thoughtlessness of the present, and unregretful of what is evil in the misspent past, then this storm of wrath is hanging over you now, and threatens to beat down in a tempest on your head. But there is a hiding place whither you may yet repair, and find effectual shelter. It is the cross of Christ. It is stained with blood which was shed to wash away your sins, and is surrounded with the memorials of a sacrifice made for your redemption. To that cross, the voice of mercy now invites you; the echoes of the day of crucifixion still vibrate round about it, and the intercession seems to be audible from the very blood that dyes it "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The angels near the throne are bending down ready to strike up a song of fresh rejoicing if you will but come; the Spirit and the Bride together wait in fond suspense to see you come; while every good and holy man on

earth would fain become an ambassador for Christ and bid you come. We want volunteers for Christ; we want to reinforce the armies of Immanuel. Who will enlist beneath His banner? Who will take up the sword of holy valour, and fight for the standard which is dyed with a Redeemer's blood? It is a glorious contest to which we summons you; a glorious victory which shall attend it; and a glorious reward which shall succeed it. "Arm! arm ye brave; a noble cause, the cause of Heaven, demands your zeal." O, it is a spirit-stirring thing to hear the martial band sound forth a nation's proudest anthem whose burden boasts that "" Britons never shall be slaves." God grant they never may be! But it is a nobler thing to see the servants of the living God, robed in the uniform of their Leader's army, rejoicing in their own emancipation from the slavery of sin, and glorying in the liberty wherewith Christ has set them free. While they thus glory they would invite those yet in thraldom to unite with them, and if there are any here who still wear the millstone of unrepented guilt about their necks, we would point them to the refuge, and cry "turn ye to the strongholds, ye prisoners of hope." And just as the British Volunteer should fight" for England, home, and beauty," so would we urge the Christian Volunteer whose service we would fain enlist, to fight for heaven, and Christ, and glory; so that when the conflict is over and the victory is won, he may be hailed by angels into the joy of his Lord, congratulating himself on having come off more than conqueror, and anticipating the delight of laying his laurels and casting his crown before the feet of Him that hath loved him, shall cry "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day."

The Great Prize Fight."

THERE are certain terms in the English language which, though bearing very different significations, are often mistaken as meaning one and the same thing. For example, the words fame and notoriety are often confounded together; and a man is spoken of as famous, simply because his name is in everybody's mouth. I know the derivation of both words would assign to them a pretty synonymous meaning; but intelligent social usage has learned to make a distinction between them. Then again, we sometimes hear of persons being spoken of as great men and distinguished men, simply because they are public and prominent. In this matter-of-fact day notoriety seems to be taken as the test of greatness, and the man who can draw together the largest crowd, and get the greatest number of sycophants to talk about him, is regarded as the greatest man, Lord Macaulay was incomparably a greater man than our Lancashire idol, John Bright-indeed it is an insult to the sacred memory of the gifted historian to mention the two names together; and yet it is not difficult to say which of the two would draw the largest and most enthusiastic crowd together if they were to appear upon a public platform in