a
Christianity that shall not relax one iota of its obligation to God or to
man. That shall not bate one jot from an entire consecration of heart and
life to God; that shall walk closely with God, and feel as deeply as human
weakness can feel, the necessity of watchfulness and of divine care to
keep it from temptation. I challenge any man to draw undue license from
the principles I have asserted. But I want more joy brought out of the
world by Christians. I want the gospel carried boldly into some things
from which it has been kept aloof. I want Christian life to be in the
spirit more than in the letter. I do not plead for less but for more
conformity to the spirit and teaching of Christ. Not for a lower but for a
higher Christian life; for a wider application of gospel principles, a
more implicit trust in the leavening power of truth; a more practical
belief in the assertion that the weapons of our warfare are mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds. I want Christian conscience
clothed with principles and not with dogmas. I want the word of God read
and interpreted fairly, and that allowed which it allows. I protest
against its being twisted and perverted into rules for the unnecessary
abridgment of Christian liberty, where it lays down only general
principles for the conscience. I want less of the religion that is

"Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,"

and more of that which is full of child-like trust in the love of God and
the power of truth, and of freedom purged by love from license.

THE TRUE NONCONFORMIST.

A Communion Sermon, Delivered Sept. 16, 1866,

In The First Presbyterian Church, Troy, N. Y.

Rom. xii, 2. "_And be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what
is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God_."

By itself, this command is ambiguous. Common sense testifies that, in very
many things, every Christian _must_, more or less, conform to the world.
Many of the world's customs are not only harmless, but salutary,
beautiful, ennobling, necessary to the very being of society. We need some
test by which to interpret this command.

Let us first endeavor, as a means of discovering it, to clear away a
preliminary error, viz.: the not uncommon idea that difference from the
world is a matter of any value or consequence of itself. A great many
persons, lament