must pass before a rule established by force can be maintained in security and peace.

In the late terrible struggle, however, between the established government of India and a perfidious mutiny and perilous rebellion, we have to bless God for a marvellous and speedy success against unparalleled odds, a success due in the first place to the Providential disposal of many incalculable events, and in the second place to that peculiar strength which the same Providence, by an ordinance for ever, has attached to a good cause.

On this occasion, if the chivalrous heroism of the British soldier has achieved wonders against the most disproportionate numbers of ferocious and desperate men, it has been in a great measure due, I say, to the good cause in which he fought; if one has been enabled "to chase a thousand," it was that that one was fighting for the rescue of wife and child, of sisters and brothers, whilst the thousand were fighting against those whose salt they had eaten, conscious of wrong doing.

Neither were the highest religious elements wanting on our part to this success, for so it was that many of the chief commanders in this war were distinguished not only as soldiers, but as eminently good and christian men, widely differing in that respect from some of those whose profligacy of conduct a few years ago conduced to the terrible disasters which befell our arms in Affghanistan.

When the names of Havelock and the two Lawrences rise up to our recollections, as those

of men whose early exertions rendered it, humanly speaking, possible to save the lives of our countrymen and maintain the dominion of Great Britain in India, remember, brethren, the high principle as well as the high daring of these truly great captains, and rejoice to observe in them, whether dead or living, the conscientious sense of duty, commanding the confidence of men and crowned with the blessing of God.

All of us have heard of the lamented Sir Henry Lawrence, whose Indian administration, and whose farsighted provision for the safety of the garrison of Lucknow, in the defence of which he perished, have been so deservedly celebrated. But few, perhaps, are aware of the munificence with which that distinguished soldier and statesman founded and supported, chiefly by his own exertions and influence, large schools for the Christian education of the children of the English soldiery on the hill stations of Sanâwur and Mount Aboo. The need for such institutions lay in the debilitating climate of the plains in which the barracks of India are situated, and not less to the demoralising influences which surround barrack life. On this subject the Rev. W. J. Parker, principal of the military asylum founded by Lawrence at Sanawur, on the Himalaya mountains, writes thus:-"The children in the plains die so early that only one in about five is found surviving the fifth year of Indian sojourn. Here they flourish like English children

in healthy country districts; when left with their regiments, if they get any education at all, they are subject to the vitiating influence of example which makes education useless. Here they grow up virtuous and happy, and ready for usefulness in the departments of Government when of sufficient age." In these schools the children are admitted between the ages of three and ten years, and remain in them till the age of sixteen; destitute orphans are maintained and provided for in life. Fatherless children are received free of expense. The recent calamities in India have already thrown many of these unfortunate orphans, and must throw many more, on the charity of these asylums. A third asylum on the Neilgherrie hills had been projected by Sir Henry Lawrence before the mutiny, as if prophetic of the approaching need, and has since been erected as a fitting memorial of one of India's truest benefactors, and the foremost man whom the mutiny struck down.

In September last, at a meeting presided over by the Bishop of Madras, it was resolved to establish another such institution for that Presidency, for which large subscriptions have been collected in India, and subscriptions are now solicited from England to effect its completion. Simultaneous steps were taken for the establishment of one likewise in the northern district adjoining the Indus, by the other no less celebrated Lawrence, who, as Chief Commissioner of the Punjaub, not only controlled

during the mutiny the hardiest of all the nations under our rule, but sending them forth to the aid of that small British force which stood facing a host of enemies ten times their number, was the principal means, under Providence, of all the successes that followed.

I am enabled to quote to you the words of that eminent man, who, after expressing his wish for two more asylums in addition to those which I have named, says,—“I am sure there would be as many applicants as all these institutions could maintain. The demand of a suitable refuge for the poor orphans of the soldiers in India is in my mind of paramount importance."

And now, brethren, to the account which I have given you of the purpose for which your Christian liberality is solicited on this day of thanksgiving for the Divine mercy vouchsafed unto us in a great crisis of England's fortunes, I will only add that as there is no reward which will be dearer to the survivors of those brave men, for whose high-principled prowess we ought all to feel grateful, than to see that their countrymen at home interest themselves in the care of their children, so also to Him to whose protecting providence a still higher gratitude is due for having raised up for us those "weapons of war," no offering can be more acceptable than that of contributing our aid to Institutions which are thus humanely and judiciously discharging the duty of visiting in their affliction those whom the war has left fatherless and unprotected.

The Present Time a Probation.

Assize Sermon, York Minster, Dec. 21.

2 PETER, iii. 3, 4.

"THERE SHALL COME IN THE LAST DAYS SCOFFERS,

WALKING

AFTER THEIR OWN LUSTS, AND SAYING, WHERE IS THE PROMISE OF HIS COMING? FOR SINCE THE FATHERS FELL ASLEEP ALL THINGS CONTINUE AS THEY WERE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CREATION.'

IN

N these words the Apostle intimates, that, as the years roll on and bring with them no change in the common course of nature, scoffers would arise arguing that things continue for ever as they were, and discarding all the moral restraints which spring from the expectation of a day of account and retribution. St. Peter warns us against entertaining such sentiments as these. He reminds us that with the Lord a thousand years are but as one day; he tells us that the day will come "when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up ;" and he would have you consider, brethren, "since all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ye ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness."