-one that will not fail; and investment in this is effected only when in the name of Jesus we "lay up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal." (Matthew vi. 20.)

This is both a property and a life insurance office. "Your life is hid with Christ in God, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then ye shall also appear with Him in glory." Colossians iii. 3, 4.)

It was wisely said by the Duke of Wellington, and has been repeated in reference to the waterworks investment, that "large interest means bad security;" and that is so in the science of this world, but not in the science of heaven; for whoever invests HIS ALL in Jesus will have unfailing security and interest beyond all computation; there we invest our weakness, guilt, and danger, and receive His strength, pardon, and deliverance, for "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans vi. 23.)

It is security for ourselves and our property-our souls and our fortune. "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, RESERVED in heaven for you, WHO ARE KEPT by the power of God through faith, unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold which perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter i. 3—7.)

and

Here the "inheritance" is "reserved in heaven" above all floods accidents; and we are preserved on earth so that whatever manifold trials overtake us here, we still "greatly

rejoice" that we shall get well through them, and arrive there at last, where trials cannot follow us.

Every one knows that there is danger, but here is the only science of protection -no scepticism can successfully wave off destiny;" The Logic of Death” is the dreary title of a dreary Atheist tract, and was at one time held up as a wicker-work shield against the burning lava torrent of God's final judgment: this was the defence provided by irreligion for the "fool" who" said in his heart there is no God," and who yet knew that there was DEATH, and wondered how to get over THAT!

But "death" has a "logic" which no atheism can refute; it is CHRIST ALONE who hath ABOLISHED DEATH, and brought life and immortality to light by His Gospel." (2 Timothy. i. 10.)

We have had on earth the inundation of sin, which brought "death into the world and all our woe;" desolating fields and gardens, and polluting houses with slime and mud; stopping all the machinery of man's works, and leaving him helpless and defenceless; but Christ has come to stem this flood, to provide for us the water of life; to restore our powers, to renew the beauty of the earth as Eden, to purify our homes and make them an introduction to the purity and blessedness of His Father's House.

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There is another inundation yet to come; an inundation which has overtaken many, but has not yet reached us; it is the ruthless wave of death, led on with the swiftness of time, sweeping man into the abyss of eternity.

There is no place sheltered from its approach-in dales, on hills, in plains, by sea and land, in poverty or riches, youth or age, in health or sickness, in the highest chamber as in the lowest cellar, it finds and overflows us; it will carry all the bodies of all the present inhabitants of the town on the top of its waves into the Cemetery; no one will escape nor choose his own time, their is only one spot of safety-not from its approach but from its terrors; and that is on the "Rock of Ages;" "the foundation of

God" which "standeth sure." (2 Timothy, ii. 19.) "For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is JESUS CHRIST. (1 Cor. iii. 11.)

Whoever builds the edifice of his hope on this, will be able to defy the rains and wind and floods, which will beat down and carry away every other shelter. The poorest and weakest bedridden man may find his way to this rock, and there survive the flood of death. We are told of some who called in vain for aid and shelter during the late floods, but "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be

saved." (Acts ii. 21.)

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This is what we are all concerned in ; what we shall all need, and what too many forget; it is what God in His providence once more thrusts on our notice, it is the Sermon which He preaches through these stones" and trees scattered by the flood; a sermon preached especially to those who hear no other Sermons, who find their Sunday instructions in " Nature;" and here Nature speaks as plainly as it is possible, .saying:- -"Be ye also ready;" it can, indeed, speak only of danger, it utters the voice of warning, to lead men to enquiry and reflection, saying "how shall we escape," for the flood will reach us, and the storm beat down our earthly house of this tabernacle;" have

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a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?" (2 Cor. v. 1.)

"O that men were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" (Deut. xxxii. 29.) That they might make this their earnest prayer::-"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom!" (Psalm xc. 12.) May God in His infinite mercy, touch the hearts of wanderers and lost ones, that they may be brought to reflection, be found by the Good Shepherd who gave His life for them, and who is seeking now to gather them into His fold where they will be safe against the wolf of danger, and every desolating wave; as to the troubled conscience-looking forward with terror to death and the judgment, He says:fear not, I give unto you eternal life and you shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck you out of my hand!

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But before going into detail, it will be as well to make some general observations upon the preaching and theological culture of the French Protestants in our day.

The eloquence of the pulpit shone in our ancient churches with resplendant lustre. Calvin had vigorous powers of reasoning, a clearness of intellectual

vision, and a simple and masculine style, which rendered his sermons very effective. Theodore Beza, more varied, perhaps, in his topics, and more elegant in his language, interested the mind and moved the heart. Other preachers, such as William Farel, had popular modes of address which deeply agitated the masses. In the following century, Dumoulin, Daillé, Dubosc, and Claude, presented models of sacred eloquence. If the Protestant preachers who flourished in the reign of Louis XIV. were inferior to Bossuet and Bourdalone in sublimity and propriety of diction, they certainly surpassed them in a knowledge of human nature, in soundness of reasoning, and in the application of Scripture to the wants of the human heart.

After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Reformed Church could yet reckon, in a land of exile, preachers of the highest order-especially the illustrious James Saurin, who deserves to be numbered among our classical orators. Endowed with an elevated and powerful intellect, grasping in every subject which he touched the most important points, skilful in his arrangement, so that every part of his discourses contributed to the effect of the whole, a vigorous dialectician, animated in his mode of argumentation, rapid and resistless in his style, Saurin must be ever attentively studied by those who are desirous of attaining to eminence in the pulpit. Other French preachers, such as Superville and Chatelain, also acquired an honourable reputation in foreign countries.

In France, alas, great preachers were to be found no longer. The ministers of the Gospel had received a defective education, and, compelled to hide themselves in wild retreats, they had neither tranquility of mind, nor leisure to write their sermons with care. Modern apostles, they came before their hastily assembled flocks without preparation, and fed them as they could with the bread of life, not troubling themselves as to the more or less elaborate manner in which they accomplished their noble task. Perhaps in the recesses of those deserts, beneath the starry vault of heaven, some of these preachers had their moments of sublime and energetic eloquence. But their voice has not come down to us: having served to keep alive in the hearts of others the flame of Christian piety, it was hushed with them in the silent tomb.

When religious liberty was restored to us, there was neither sufficient piety among the members of our flocks, nor sufficient orthodoxy among the pastors, to produce models of the oratorical art. Latitudinarianism is rarely eloquent. Socinianism is cold and dull in its discourses, and for this reason: impart life to preaching, it is necessary to have living convictions in the conscience. If we seek eminent orators, therefore, we must come down to the time of the religious revival, which in fact, reanimated and strengthened the tone of Protestant preaching.

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the revival there came men, who, like St. Stephen, mighty in word and deed, appear worthy of being placed beside our preachers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

I should be affirming too much, however, were I to say that the eloquence of the pulpit has regained, under the influence of the revival, all the qualities which it ought to possess. With some four or five striking exceptions, the orthodox pastors themselves do not seem, in this respect, fully to apprehend the greatness and the difficulties of their work. Many of them, trusting to the faith by which they are animated, have fallen into the dangerous habit of preaching sermons literally extempore. These they call meditations; but the term is incorrect, for the discourses in question have been meditated on very little. Taking different texts, they repeat the same ideas, the same arguments, the same quotations from Scripture, the same features of style: it is one identical sermon, which, with some insignificant variations, is perpetually delivered over and over again. The hearer knows beforehand what is going to be told him, and the ennui of this monotonous preaching falls on the Gospel itself. Others have a small number of written sermons, which, with hardy assurance they constantly repeat: these are, so to speak, sterectyped compositions, which, appearing and reappearing at certain periods with the utmost regularity, lead many persons to neglect public worship. Will pious pastors never learn that labour, reflection, and variety, are indispensable to the Christian pulpit?

If we rise to more general considerations, there is a defect which will strike us almost everywhere in the Protestant preaching of our age and country; I mean the want of speciality. Two distinct elements should enter into

pulpit discourses: one relates to the truths which the Bible has revealed to us respecting God and man, and the means of salvation; in short, respecting those things which it is our duty to believe and practise: this is the universal and permanent element of preaching. The other includes all that characterises a particular people at a given time-its manners, opinions, and tendencies, together with the facilities or obstacles which it offers to the propagation of the Gospel: this is the local and variable element. The just equilibrium of both constitutes true and proper preaching. There is then diversity in unity: unity in the great and immutable doctrines of Christianity; diversity in the manner of teaching them to the hearers, and in the means employed by the preacher to lead successive generations to the foot of the cross. Assuredly Polycarp, Irenæus, Augustine, Chrysostom, Bernard de Clairveaux, Luther, Calvin, and Saurin, had different styles of preaching, though they all proclaimed the same great truths. We even find these two elements in Holy Scripture. Moses, David, Isaiah, St. John, and St. Paul, present at once admirable harmony and remarkable diversity. They agree in what is essential, and differ in detail, application and language.

Now, of these two parts of preaching, many orthodox pastors take the first only. They are faithful in matters of doctrine, conscientious in their expositions of Christian duty; but they have not studied the opinions and tendencies of the age; they are ignorant of its true characteristics. Hence their discourses contain no living pictures, no actual realities. There is something incomplete, vague and empty about them, which leaves the hearer indifferent and uninterested.

To this it must be added, that our Protestant pulpit is not always marked by the simplicity which is desirable. We have retained too much of the somewhat stiff and formal manners of the seventeenth century. The preacher divides his sermon under three or four heads, very regularly; he makes long periods, speaks ex cathedrâ, and seems, when he has put on his gown, to be altogether a different person from what he was before. That freedom, without vulgarity, which so well becomes the sacred desk, is very rare; there is no spontaneity and abandon; instead of remaining himself, and opening his

heart, the preacher has often recourse to conventional forms of speech, which weaken the influence of his admonitions.

We have, then, improvements to make in our mode of preaching. As to the culture of theological science, it is still very imperfect in the Reformed Churches of France. We are in this respect very far below our fathers. Theology occupied a great and noble place in their labours. Our divines of the seventeenth century were held in high repute both at home and abroad. Their strength of reasoning, their precision of style, and that sobriety, that accuracy of judgment which distinguishes the French mind, had secured for our theologians a legitimate influence and authority in European Protestanism. But events to which I have already more than once had occasion to allude, having destroyed our seminaries and broken up our arrangements for systematic instruction, theology has not yet had time to recover itself among us.

At the commencement of the religious revival, more pressing things had to be done. Before science is faith: before academical studies is the return of

piety; before doctors we required evangelists and missionaries. Theological research, therefore, has remained almost a nullity in our communion. One might seek in vain, in the catalogues of our booksellers, for a new systematic treatise on dogmatical or ethical divinity. We have no recent commentaries on the Bible, nor any elaborate works on ancient ecclesiastical history. In a word, theology, properly speaking, has no existence among us; and when we wish to study it, we are obliged to have recourse to England or to Germany.

This sad state of penury is owing to several causes. Let us acknowledge, first, that the times in which we live are not favourable to long investigations, like those which occupied the leisure of our ancestors. Great books are becoming more and more repugnant to our taste. Then, our revival has been rather a resurrection of the past than a spontaneous production of the present. Moreover, our religious writers must necessarily produce practical books before thinking of scientific compositions. Lastly, the readers of such treatises would not be sufficiently numerous. German or an English theolgian, after having devoted several years to the writing of a good work on any branch

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of sacred learning, is sure to be repaid for his labour by the public. Not so in France. A didactic production, in several volumes, would be little read by our pastors; by laymen, it would not be read at all; and the author would have the pain of seeing the fruit of his long studies remain almost untouched on the bookseller's shelves.

Professor Jalaguier-a man equally distinguished for his piety, his learning, and his character-undertook, some years back, to publish at Montauban a Theological Review. This work was conducted with talent and conscientiousness. It had readers, doubtless; but it did not receive sufficient active or extensive encouragement to induce the worthy professor to continue it; and the attempt will not, probably, be renewed for a long time hence.

To supply, at least in part, the religious literature in which we are deficient, we have published some translations of foreign works. Thus, Baxter, Milner, John Newton, Bogue, Paley, Chalmers, Henry Blunt, Keith, Miss Kennedy, and among American authors, Hodge, Abbot, and others, have furnished the Christians of our land with a rich mine of instruction and edification. Germany has also afforded its contingent of useful researches and solid thoughts. There exists at Neufchâtel, in Switzerland, a society, whose special object is to transfer into our language the best productions of the learning and piety of Germany.

I would carefully abstain from censuring these numerous translations. He who is poor must borrow from his neighbours. Besides, good religious books do not belong to any people in particular; they are the common treasure of humanity. Thanks to those devoted persons who have placed in our hands a portion of the theological and literary treasures of Germany, England, and the United States. These writings have done, and will continue to do good; they have opened a new horizon to our view, enlightened the ignorant, strengthened the weak, and warned the indifferent; and in the last great day, many of our countrymen will, I feel persuaded, confess that they owe their first religious impressions to these admirable interpreters of the Gospel.

It is just to say, however, that hitherto our original works have not been sufficiently numerous. Whatever be the merit of foreign authors, their books

do not entirely correspond to the ideas and the character of another nation, especially in the case of didactic compositions. I willingly admit, that a good historian may be read with the same interest and equal benefit in all countries; for he simply relates facts, and every one is free to draw from these, according to his national or individual genius, what inferences he pleases. But books of intellectual speculation or of practical life should be adapted to the state of mind and heart of each nation which never completely obtains in translated works. Thus, apologetical works which suit England do not fully answer the objections current in France, and the same with other branches of theology.

Having frankly confessed our indigence in relation to preaching and religious literature, I may be permitted to say, that we possess some men who would be a treasure and an ornament to any Protestant nation in the world. Not wishing to establish any preeminence among them as to their talents or their services, I shall mention them according to the respective dates of their birth.

First, then, stands M. Louis Gaussen. He was born at Geneva, on the 25th of August, 1790. Having received a good theological education, he was appointed pastor of the parish of Satigny, which had been previously under the ministerial care of the venerable Cellérier. There he fulfilled the duties of his sacred office with zeal and success. He was tenderly attached to the flock which the Lord had confided to him, and his fervent piety, as well as his superior understanding, obtained for him universal respect. But in the eyes of the venerable company of Genevese pastors, M. Gaussen was guilty of a very grave offence: he had adopted the principles of orthodoxy and had used his influence in propagating them. Publications, sermons, conversations, everything that came from him, bore the impress of the same fidelity. His antagonists were the more irritated as he stood high in the esteem of the public. A vulgar Methodist might have been patiently tolerated: M. Louis Gaussen was not.

In 1830 an occasion of dispute presented itself. The company of pastors had established the use of a catechism which, edition after edition, took a more decidedly Arian or Socinian character.