tifications of habit where the Tempter is
entrenched, I ask how is all this to pass away? And the answer is--only
by the spirit of Christian Love, sweeping these impediments of
selfishness from the heart, and animating us to effort. _With_ Christ
the work certainly can be done. In this Gospel-beating amidst the guilt
and sorrow of the world like the pulsations of a Divine heart--in the
few leaves of this Testament--there is an illimitable power, before
whose inspiration in the purposes and deeds of men no evil thing shall
stand. And the spirit and exercise of this Love _is_ Religion. It is the
up-shot of all that is preached--it is the open and tangible test of
every mystic experience that drifts through the soul--it is so deep, so
broad, and runs so far, that it comprehends all requirements; and they
who cherish it, and practice it in the low and dark and desolate places
of the world, are the true saints. Nothing else will do in its place.
Not Churches, nor creeds, nor rituals, nor respectabilities. Without it
we are not friends of Christ, nor co-workers with God. Without it we
deepen the channels of human woe, and prop the strong-holds of
wickedness. Without it, whatever we may not be, we are Allies of the
Tempter. The Saviour says to each of us to-day, placed amidst these
antagonistic forces of Life--"He that is not with me is against me."

THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR.

DISCOURSE VII.

THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR.

The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto
them.--LAMENTATIONS iv., 4.

The writer of these words bewailed a state of War and Captivity--a state
of things in which the great relations of human life are broken up and
desecrated. But it is strange to find that the most flourishing forms of
civilization involve conditions very similar to this. For, if any man
will push beyond the circle of his daily associations, and enter the
regions of the abject poor, he will see how the hostile forces of
privation, and hunger, and unguided impulse, have laid waste the
sanctities of existence in the abodes and in the breasts of thousands as
with sword and with fire. There is no essential difference in
starvation, whether it ensues from the ravages of an invading host or
from the lack of means. Temptation is a fierce legion; and death looks
no more terrible under a Babylonian helmet, than it does upon the gaunt
faces of men who die upon the bare floor or wallow in rags. The worst
cal