looks askance, if not with bitter envy, at the man who no longer cares a rush for him, his family, or his toil.

If it pleases God, my friends, ever to exalt you in this way, do not kick down the ladder by which you rose; but do for Wolverhampton what a Mark Firth can do for Sheffield; and you, too, will become a citizen of no mean city.

This fact, this feeling, this pride of citizenship has a mighty and ennobling force. It helped, I think, to fit St. Paul for his life's work. Once a Hebrew of the Hebrews, who according to the strictest sect of their religion lived a Pharisee, exclusive, jealous for the Jewish law, persecuting those who seemed to vary from it; this citizen of Rome— the mistress of the world, the world's civilizer and rulerinfluenced to some extent, as many phrases in his epistles testifies, by this feeling of citizenship, though not without the powerful grace of God, widened out in range of vision and in broadest sympathy, till at last he was fitted to open under God the kingdom of heaven to the Western World, to become the missionary of all mankind, to earn the proud title of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Such is one instance of what the idea of citizenship can help to do.

III. But there is another city, another citizenship—the heavenly Jerusalem, the Christian life. Christ founded this city; He gave it its constitution, its laws. He placed me on its roll of citizens at my baptism; He looks to me to support the dignity of that citizenship, to do nothing unworthy the burgess of so Divine a State. Still in this life, I do not see it perfect. Christ, our fellow-citizen, yet our King, sore wounded in the fight, yet the Captain of our salvation Christ, our brother man-He is perfect.

But all we the rest, citizens of Zion it may be, have, nevertheless, our shortcomings, and our faults; and these individual failings reflect themselves on the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth. Still there is a tone, an instinct, an attitude of soul in every true, however weak a citizen of our heavenly Jerusalem, which drawn on and fostered, tends to better the Catholic Church of God. If we recognise disunion among ourselves, the drawing of one from another, through selfishness it may be, or through waywardness; if we feel our human frailty unable at all times to cope with human temptations, and falling back from the high ideal of the Son of Man; if we see others striving, yet sinking, struggling with their sins, yet being slowly overcome; shall we not as citizens of the city of God remember the privileges conferred upon us by our King, of approaching Him acceptably at all times through Christ, of craving and of obtaining pardon, grace, and blessing; and with full faith in this prestige, the heavenly prestige of our no mean city," ask God for help, and then go forth to live, and in our way to help others to live as befits those whose conversation, whose citizenship is in heaven

In the City of London, at her stately banquets, the loving cup is handed round and drunk by all in token of fidelity to her institutions, and of amity and goodwill among fellow-citizens. The City of our God passes round another and a better cup, the cup of Salvation; and those who drink of it pledge themselves to her two principlescharity to man and loyalty to Christ our God. These are at the bottom of all our religion, of all our real work; these colour our thoughts, and fashion our characters;

these give tone to our motives and savour to our actions; these are found, more, it may be, or less, yet are found in every one who realises at all his relation to Christ his Saviour.

Men and brethren, cultivate these two civic principles of the City of God-loyalty to our Head, charity to our fellows; and then will the Church of Christ, which even now is "no mean city," become "that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it."

123

SERMON XIII.

The Volunteers.

PREACHED BEFORE A RIFLE CORPS.

ST. MATTHEW VIII. 8-10.

THE CENTURION ANSWERED AND SAID, LORD, I AM NOT WORTHY THAT THOU SHOULDEST COME UNDER MY ROOF: BUT SPEAK THE WORD ONLY, AND MY SERVANT SHALL BE HEALED.

66 'FOR I AM A MAN UNDER AUTHORITY, HAVING SOLDIERS UNDER ME: AND I SAY TO THIS MAN, GO, AND HE GOETH; AND TO ANOTHER, COME, AND HE COMETH ; AND TO MY SERVANT, DO THIS, AND HE DOETH IT.

66 WHEN JESUS HEARD IT, HE MARVELLED, AND SAID TO THEM THAT FOLLOWED, VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, I HAVE NOT FOUND SO GREAT FAITH, NO, NOT IN ISRAEL."

READ here three marks

of a true soldier,

humility, trust, and obedience. He thought

lowly of himself and his performances—" Lord,

I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof." He trusted One whom he knew to be over him

-"speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." He knew how to obey-"I am a man under authority." I read, also, two marks besides of a good officer, first, care for his men-" Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy;" and, secondly, discipline— 66 I say to this man, go, and he goeth; and to another, come, and he cometh; and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it." I shall not have time, to-day, to speak of all; let us speak chiefly of discipline, and see whetherover and above its going far to ensure victory in the field, and even in defeat, honour and some degree of safety-it does not tend to go down to the roots of a man's nature, and make him a better son, citizen, and father; and so, sometimes, to prepare the ground of his heart to acknowledge and to receive the Fatherhood of our God.

I. This man was a soldier of the Emperor of Rome. What an empire that was! From the Grampian Hills in Scotland, passing by where the Russo-Turkish War was lately raging, in Bulgaria, to where the Shah of Persia rules his people, far on into Asia—well' nigh three thousand miles-so wide did that empire of Rome extend! Nor was it a fleeting sway, For seven centuries before Christ was born, ever extending, and without one serious check; for five centuries afterwards twelve centuries in all,-did this greatest of empires last. Its people, in its best days, were soldiers, statesmen, patriots; but towards their enemies, stern, unyielding, cruel, false: and thus, by their virtues and their faults, they built up a splendid fabric of conquest. But the world so conquered was not left to drift into anarchy; they were