TO MEN OF WEALTH.

3. The last part of the Church's message to the man of wealth touches the matter of rightful influence.

Very remarkable is the demeanor of David towards Nabal, as contrasted with his demeanor towards Abigail. In the one case, defiance, and a haughty selfassertion of equality: in the other, deference, respect, and the most eloquent benediction. It was not, therefore, against the wealthy class, but against individuals of the class, that the wrath of these men burned.

See, then, the folly and the falsehood of the sentimental regret that there is no longer any reverence felt towards superiors. There is reverence to superiors, if only it can be shown that they are superiors. Reverence is deeply rooted in the heart of humanity, -you cannot tear it out. Civilization, science, prog. ress, only change its direction; they do not weaken its force. If it no longer bows before crucifixes and candles, priests and relics, it is not extinguished tow ards what is truly sacred and what is priestly in man. The fiercest revolt against false authority is only a step towards submission to rightful authority. Emancipation from false lords only sets the heart free to The freeborn David will not do homage to Nabal. Well, now go and mourn over the degenerate age which no longer feels respect for that which is above it. But, behold-David has found a something nobler than himself. Feminine charitysacrifice and justice- and in gratitude and profoundest respect he bows to that. The state of society which is coming is not one of protection and dependence; nor one of mysterious authority, and blind obedience to it; nor one in which any class shall be privileged by Divine right, and another remain in perpetual tutelage; but it

honor true ones.

is one in which unselfish services and personal qualities will command, by Divine right, gratitude and admiration, and secure a true and spiritual leadership.

O let not the rich misread the signs of the times, or mistake their brethren: they have less and less respect for titles and riches, for vestments and ecclesiastical pretensions; but they have a real respect for superior knowledge and superior goodness; they listen like children to those whom they believe to know a subject better than themselves. Let those who know it say whether there is not something inexpressibly touching, and even humbling, in the large, hearty, manly English reverence and love which the working-men show towards those who love and serve them truly, and save them from themselves and from doing wrong. See how David's feelings gush forth (v. 33)-"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me; and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand."

The rich and the great may have that love, if they will.

To conclude. Doubtless, David was wrong; he had no right even to redress wrongs thus. Patience was his divine appointed duty; and, doubtless, in such circumstances we, should be very ready to preach submission, and to blame David. Alas! we, the clergy of the Church of England, have been only too ready to do this: for three long centuries we have taught submission to the powers that be, as if that were the only text in Scripture bearing on the relations between the ruler and the ruled. Rarely have we dared to

demand of the powers that be, justice of the wealthy man, and of the titled, duties. We have produced folios. of slavish flattery upon the Divine Right of Power. Shame on us! we have not denounced the wrongs done to weakness: and yet, for one text in the Bible. which requires submission and patience from the poor, you will find a hundred which denounce the vices of the rich; in the writings of the noble old Jewish prophets, that, and almost that only; that in the Old Testament, with a deep roll of words that sound like. Sinai thunders; and that in the New Testament, in words less impassioned and more calmly terrible from the apostles and their Master: - and woe to us, in the great day of God, if we have been the sycophants of the rich, instead of the Redressers of the poor man's wrongs:woe to us if we have been tutoring David into respect to his superior, Nabal, and forgotten that David's cause, not Nabal's, is the cause of God!

26*

XVIII.

FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.

JOHN viii. 32. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Ir these words were the only record we possessed of the Saviour's teaching, it may be they would be insufficient to prove His personal Deity; but they would be enough to demonstrate the Divine Character of His mission.

Observe the greatness of the aim, and the wisdom of the means.

The aim was to make all men free. He saw around Him servitude in every form, - man in slavery to man, and race to race: His own countrymen in bondage to the Romans, slaves both of Jewish and Roman masters, frightfully oppressed: men trembling before priesteraft; and those who were politically and eccle siastically free, in worse bondage still, the rich and rulers slaves to their own passions.

Conscious of His inward Deity and of His Father's intentions, He, without hurry, without the excitement which would mark the mere earthly Liberator, calmly said, "Ye shall be free."

See, next, the peculiar wisdom of the means.

The craving for liberty was not new, it lies deep in human nature. Nor was the promise of satisfying it new. Empirics, charlatans, demagogues, had prom ised, and men who were not charlatans nor dema gogues, in vain.

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1. First, they had tried by force. Wherever force. has been used on the side of freedom, we honor it; the names which we pronounce in boyhood with enthusiasm are those of the liberators of nations and the vindicators of liberty. Israel had had such: Joshua the Judges-Judas Maccabæus. Had the Son of God willed so to come, even on human data the success was certain. I waive the truth of His inward Deity; of His miraculous power; of His power to summon to His will more than twelve legions of angels. I only notice now that men's hearts were full of Him; ripe for revolt; and that at a single word of His, thrice three hundred thousand swords would have started from their scabbards.

But had He so come, one nation might have gained liberty; not the race of man: moreover, the liberty would only have been independence of a foreign con.

queror.

Therefore as a conquering king He did not come.

2. Again, it might have been attempted by a legis lative enactment. Perhaps only once has this been dono successfully, and by a single effort. When the names of conquerors shall have been forgotten, and modern civilization shall have become obsolete,-when England's shall be ancient history, one act of hers will be remembered as a record of her greatness: that act by which in costly sacrifice she emancipated her slaves.