is shut up and taught to eat civil meat, and suffer the authority of a man, he sits down tamely in his prison, and pays to his keeper fear and reverence for his meat; but if he chance to come again, and taste a draught of warm blood, he presently leaps into his natural cruelty.

Admonitæque tument gustato sanguine fauces :

Fervit, et a trepido vix abstinet ira magistro.

He scarce abstains from eating those hands that brought him discipline and food. So is the nature of a man made tame and gentle by the grace of God, and reduced to reason, and kept in awe by religion and laws, and by an awful virtue is taught to forget those alluring and sottish relishes of sin, but if he diverts from his path, aud snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards, and remembers the lasciviousness of his unwholesome food that pleased his childish palate, then be grows sick again, and hungry after unwholesome diet, and longs for the apples of Sodom.

The Pannonian bears, when they have clasped a dart in the region of their liver, wheel themselves upon the wound and with anger and malicious revenge strike the deadly barb deeper, and cannot be quit from that fatal steel, but in flying bear along that which themselves make the instrument of a more hasty death; so is every vicious person struck with a deadly wound, and his own hands force it into the entertainments of the heart; and because it is painful to draw it forth by a sharp and salutary repentance, he still rolls and turns upon his wound, and carries his death in his bowls where it first entered by choice, and then dwelt by love, and at last shall finish the tragedy by divine judgments and an unalterable decree.-Bp. Taylor.

THE GREAT BATTLE FIELD.

This world is a theatre of conflict. For nearly six thousand years the contest has been going on between opposing forces. Such a conflict is, doubtless, an anomaly in the history of all other worlds. The character and relations of the combatants are such as angels might weep over. Memorable scenes have been witnessed-scenes never to be forgotten in the history of man, while time lasts or eternity endures. The consequences to all concerned deeply affect the destiny of man, and stretch away onward beyond the issues of the final judgment. From all periods in the coming future, this world will be looked back upon as the great battle-field of the universe-as the theatre of a strange and unnatural conflict between man and man-between hostile and contending nations, by a race of beings in rebellion against their rightful sovereign.

Few spots are visited with more thrilling interest or longer remembered, than the spot where once was fought some memorable battle. The mountains of Gilboa, the plains of Marathon, and the fields of Waterloo, will be remembered and celebrated while the world stands. Those renowned fields were once the scene of terrible conflict. They were strewn with the dying and the dead, who, by thousands, passed in a moment for ever beyond the din of battle into the deep, profound and awful solitudes of eternity. What a change, what a transition for moral and accountable beings, from the rage, and strife, and noise of battle to the bar of God! What a horrid business is war among mortal men, and what a melancholy spectacle to angels is the nature and results of any great battle!

But it is not the mere conflict of contending armies strewing the fields with the slain, and filling the air with the groans of the dying, terrible as it is, that will render this

world memorable as a battle field in the eyes of the universe. It is rather that mighty, moral conflict between the Lord of hosts and his rebellious subjects, that will forever excite the astonishment of other worlds. Never before did the universe behold such an array of contending forces. The King of kings, leading forth the armies of heaven, and all the faithful on earth, on the one hand; and, on the other, the Prince of the power of the air, having under his banner the hosts of apostate angels-an army of wicked men and devils. This army of the aliens have pitched their tents all over the fallen world. Out of their camps have come, for ages past, these visible and invisible enemies of God, to make war upon the interests and subjects of Jehovah's kingdom. There has been a wonderful unity of design in all their movements, indicating that both fallen angels and wicked men are under the direction and command of one mighty leader and presiding spirit, the Prince of darkness. There is no other way of accounting for the prolonged, and determined, and united hostility of wicked men from age to age, than their allegiance to the Prince of the power of the air. In all countries, and among all nations, the same spirit is manifested. Various and memorable have been the conflicts of these contending armies in ages past. Sometimes there has been a mighty gathering and combination of forces by the Prince of darkness, and a terrible onset made upon the camp of the saints. At one period ten memorable battles or persecutions followed each other in rapid succession, in which the enemy employed the sword, fire and faggot, but the soldiers of the cross increased faster than they fell. To fall in conflict with the powers of darkness, is to gain a victory and a crown. Innumerable have been the struggles and the conflicts between the friends and foes of God from ancient times till now. In these modern days, the Prince of darkness seems to have been studying a new system of tactics, and 2 B

preparing for a new and more determined onset, "knowing that he hath but short time." The crisis seems to approach. The times are ominous. There is a noise and a movement in the camp of the enemy. Their great leader is summoning his forces to gird themselves for the battle. The Jesuits are busy in all parts of the world, enlisting recruits, and tempting all who are of doubtful allegiance, and carrying out the grand designs of their great leader. They have been successful. The advocates of forms, and ceremonies, and ancient rites, have lent a ready ear to overtures for a friendly alliance, and have manifested a willingness to go over to the enemy's camp which has surprised and alarmed half of Christendom. Some famed leaders have bridged the gulf between Protestantism and Romanism, and taken up their line of march, it is said, for the camp of Antichrist. It is not strange; they were not true men. Others there are, who seem to be looking wistfully in the same direction. These signs of the times are not to be mistaken. They are ominous of a coming crisis. And one sign, not the least ominous, is the divisions, and alienations, and conflicts in one small camp among those who claim to be of indespensable importance to the grand army of Israel. They are not ready for the battle. They have no leader.

The times require true men, and men of unflinching courage. The watchword is already sounding forth, "Who is on the Lord's side; who?" It is time for every man to gird on his armour anew, and to know on whose side he is, and come out and be separate. There is a great battle to be fought. The final and decisive conflict for the mastery is coming on between truth and error, between sin and holiness, between the hosts of heaven and the armies of the aliens. The result of the battle cannot be doubtful. The great Captain of our salvation hath these sources of the universe at his command, and can summon at any moment more

than twelve legions of angels. But the visible battle is to be fought by human instrumentality; not with carnal weapons, but with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And though, on the other hand, the terrible weapons of flame, and faggot, and persecution, may be resorted to by the enemy, as doubtless they will, yet must the soldiers of the cross stand firm at their posts, and having done all, to stand. When the battle is over, as it soon will be, there is a sceptre and a crown of reward in reserve for all who fall on the field, or remain faithful to the end. But a terrible overthrow awaits all who are found fighting against God and opposing the redemption of this world, which has been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and belongs to him.

ANECDOTE OF DR. NETTLETON.

It is related of him, that on occasion of an ecclesiastical meeting, he fell in with a young student in divinity, who had zealously embraced the self-love theory of moral action, and radiant with the new light, had come to attend the Association;-whether especially to obtain license for preaching, or to illume the body convened, it were not easy to say. Happening to be closeted awhile in the pastor's study with Dr. N., he could not refrain from the charitable labour of initiating the benighted evangelist into the mystery, glory, and wisdom of his new theology. Mistaking the tolerative silence of his auditor for speechess conviction, and anxious to seal the impression by an ad hominem appeal, he exclaimed, "Does not your own mind, Sir, attest the fact that the ultimate end of moral action is, with all men the pursuit of their own happiness?" "Certainly, Sir— certainly," was Mr. Nettleton's quiet answer: "and that is the very reason why all men need regeneration by the Holy Ghost."