rear, is the Church and the people of God. Christ stands before them in the progressive and resistless and immutable march of Truth eternal, and the house of God can never fall nor fail in his overshadowing power. You will notice, however, on this side of the Rock, pushing with all his weight and might, a little preacher, who represents overzeal. He is trying to keep infidelity from turning the Rock of Ages over, or to keep the infidel batteries from knocking it down. He has a zeal in this direction without knowledge, and he represents a class of preachers and other people presumptuously defending Christianity against every attack which comes along, always alarmed for its stability and progress, ever gloomy about the future outcome of religion. He is pre-eminently a pessimist. Hence he is always preaching or writing about infidelity instead of preaching the gospel. He wars with might and main to show that Ingersoll is mistaken about the mistakes of Moses, and he is perpetually trying to overturn Spencer's "First Principles" or Darwin's "Descent of Man." He has the gravest apprehensions that the Rock of Ages will be turned over or be battered down, especially if he does not hold it up; and he feels that he is called and ordained for the set defense of the gospel against the world. In most cases he advertises infidelity instead of rendering any efficient defense of the truth, and often he puts tangled brains to thinking more favorably of Ingersoll and Tom Paine than before. In fact, the simple and powerful assertion of the gospel is its best defense in the main; and its exemplification or illustration in Christian life and character is its most unanswerable argument. Let the light shine; let the Sun of righteousness beam out in full-orbed

glory, and the moles and bats of infidelity will hie away into the congenial atmosphere of their midnight habitation and association. Preach the word and practice the life and wear the character of Christ, and there will be but little or occasional need for airing infidelity. Let the sun shine, and the plants and flowers of Christianity will spring up and bloom and grow and fructuate in spite of all the clouds and storms of infidelity and atheism.

By all this it is not meant that no defense is ever to be made against infidelity. There are times when heavy blows may be struck, and there are writers and orators who are specially gifted in offense and defense against all forms of error and skepticism. There are some "set," as it were, for these things, who can contend not only earnestly, but skillfully, for the faith "delivered once for all to the saints." Nevertheless, no one preacher can afford to be always hammering away upon any one subject before his congregation, even infidelity; and a man makes a great mistake when he leaves the impression that he is ever foreboding the failure of the cause, from any given standpoint, if he does not defend it. When necessary, God has always raised up leaders for special and revolu、 tionary purposes; but such leaders have ever been like Moses-modest and shrinking before their responsibilities. They trusted God and were guided by his counsel; and of all the men who ever felt their humble insufficiency they were the men. They never, never dreamed that the Rock would turn over if it were not for them; and they never formulated creeds nor.organized institutions for selfish and ambitious purposes, claiming themselves to be the greater part of the work they set on foot or accomplished. There

are two kinds of leadership not of God: 1. Those who fanatically imagine God could not get along without them. 2. Those who wrap themselves up in a bundle of peculiarities in the name of Jesus, and set out to build for themselves. The true leader, raised up of God, is least when he is greatest; and when he would rule, he becomes the servant of all. He is, like Paul, the servant of Christ and the servant of his brethren for Christ's sake.

So much for the little fellows on both sides, both of whom imagine themselves of greatest importance as for and against the Rock. Thank God, the Rock will stand, whosoever presumptuously opposes or defends it; and it will stand, whether it have any defense or not, against all the opposition of this world!

"How shall one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up? For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges." "There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God." He is the "Rock of our salvation" and of our "defense;" and while we do stand up to our Rock in offense and defense, yet we need more the protection of our Rock than the Rock needs of us. In our defense of this Rock we should feel that we are sheltered in it as our strong tower and fortress, and we should realize that our defense results from the very protection by which we are sheltered from the darts of the enemy. We "stand up for Jesus" by standing in with Jesus; and when we imagine that we are standing up for him, independent of his defense, we are about as insignificant as the little fellow on the other side of the Rock trying to turn it over. It is hard to tell

which is the bigger fool-Ingersoll, with his little lever of infidelity, on one side trying to turn it over, or the overzealous and presumptuous little preacher on the other trying to hold it up.

Finally, our enemies should remember that this Rock of ours is a Rock of offense. Jesus tells us that whosoever stumbles or falls upon this Rock shall be broken to pieces; and upon whomsoever this Rock shall fall he shall be ground into powder. Terrible and awful catastrophe to a lost and ruined soul! The wicked shall call in that great and notable day upon the rocks of the hills and mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the face of an avenging God. These rocks will not answer to the call, and even if they did, they could not hide the sinner from God's all-burning eye. There is a Rock, however, that wil fali upon them, not to hide them, but to crush them, already broken, to infinitesimal dust in the misery of everlasting perdition. We have seen people crushed in this life. We have seen melancholy and woe settle down upon the unfortunate, the discouraged, and the hopeless; but we can have no conception of the crushing wretchedness and despair of an eternal and unmitigated hell-such a hell as the New Testament describes in the very language of Jesus. Deliver me from "the wrath of the Lamb!" There is something infinitely awful in that expression. Nothing is so furious as human love injured and abused; and nothing can be so fatal and damning as divine love and mercy trampled on through life and finally and forever spurned by the impenitent and unbelieving sinner. Think of God's last overture rejected, his last loving appeal scorned, his last cry of mercy unheeded! Then comes the wrath of the Lamb. Then comes the crush

ing fall of that mighty Rock which will grind to powder every enemy of the cross. Alas! the awful doom which brings the lost soul under the final crash and crush of this Rock of Ages!

To death-an endless hell-the soul is sent,
And this is called "eternal punishment!"
We need not rack these awful words, 'tis said,
Nor make them shriek out fierce their import dread;
At best, the hell of best and noblest man

Is God's unmixed, eternal, hopeless ban.
Forever? Yes, forever writes its name

On every tongue that tastes the quenchless flame,
On every link of darkness' binding chain,
On every sigh of woe and cry of pain,
On every memory's past reflection sad,
On every hope of future-hopeless mad,
On every leap of downward flight inclined,
And every bent of evil heart and mind.

O God! this doom let men forego and live;
Why will they die, when thou wouldst heaven give?
Amazing grace! the gift of life above!

Amazing madness! man rejects thy love,

To reap through sinful pleasures stung with pains
Eternal woe engulfed in endless flames!

Awake thy Church! that sleeps o'er men insane,
The torch relume of Truth o'er hill and plain;
O save us, God! by hope of life eternal,
Nor let us reach this doom of death infernal