as the sun; and men shall be blessed in him; all nations Ishall call him blessed. And blessed be his glorious name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and amen!"* 66 66 Even My Lord, this beautiful passage will find an apt response in your breast. You can see at a glance the matchless, the immortal glory of the character, whose features are here presented. How remarkable is the intimation, that, in his days, "the righteous shall flourish." To all nations once, except the Jews, the 'righteous" was a character but little known. now, in many lands, such characters are so few that a child might write them;"† and, in the most enlightened countries, they constitute only a small minority. But this order of things will not endure for ever. It is most distinctly intimated in the book of God, that "the wickedness of the wicked shall come to an end, but he will establish the just." Passing by the fact that prayer shall daily be made for him, I beg leave to notice the intimation of the perpetuity of his praise. Praise from the wise and good is dear to the generous bosom, while that of the ignorant and vicious is as offensive as it is worthless. A world teeming with enlightened and happy people, all looking, and looking daily, to one man, and acknowledging that man as the author of their felicity;this, this is glory! Nothing, my Lord, is so changeful as public opinion; the winds of heaven are its chosen emblem. But why is it changeful? Because it is seldom truthful, and the multitude is never wholly and permanently just. In the days of this great King, it will be otherwise. Mankind will not then be weakly ruled in classes and parties by individuals not better, but only abler and more cunning, than themselves. The cultivated millions will then think ; they will all think, and all think aright, and, therefore, 66 think as one. It will not then be permitted to proud philosophy to designate the largest portion of the human race-of creatures capable of bearing the image of the Most High God, as the " swinish multitude." No, my Lord! There will not then be an ignorant man under the canopy of heaven; and, therefore, neither war nor wickedness. Hear the prophets : "Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times." All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established; thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear and from terror; for it shall not come near thee."+ The nations of our world will then be governed by public opinion, and that opinion will be founded in truth, and held by men of truth. Hence the glory of Christ, the King of this new kingdom, will know no abatement. His fame will 66 go on increasing till the end of all things. of contrast with all other royalty in these words, " His name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued as long as the sun!" My Lord, a good king has never wanted a grateful people, but sceptred goodness has been a rare thing in our world. Of kings and governors, with two or three small exceptions, the best have been bad! Mankind are not naturally unthankful to their rulers; but, on the contrary, they have always betrayed a foolish fondness, and displayed a measure of esteem far exceeding the desert of its objects. The human race have been so unaccustomed to acts of kindness, of real patriotism and philanthropy, that the slenderest deed of this description has been always received with a fawning, a servile, and a crouching gratitude, equally degrading to its authors and its object. Only let mankind have justice, and even now-ignorant, vicious, and prostrate † Isa. liv. 13, 14. * Isa. xxxiii. 6. N as they are they will not be wanting in a proper manifestation of the best feelings; and if you enlighten, purify, and elevate them, their gratitude will rise to the pitch of their obligation. That, in the ages to come, this fact will be most abundantly exemplified, is strikingly set forth in those words already recited-" MEN SHALL BE BLESSED IN HIM; ALL NATIONS SHALL CALL HIM BLESSED. What a volume of instruction to rulers and to statesmen is comprised in these words! They have hitherto sought glory mainly through mischief, and claimed gratitude for destruction; they have failed; let them reverse their plan! How original, striking, and pertinent to this question, was the remark of Christ, on observing the rising spirit of conquest in his disciples!" There was," says the historian, "a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest and he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called Benefactors; but ye shall not be so; he that is greatest among you let him be as the younger, and he that is chief as he that doth serve. "** Here, my Lord, we have the principle of true greatness; it is shown to consist, not in the cruel exercise of despotic authority, but in laborious, self-denying, and servant-like exertions to promote the good of man. I need not point out to your lordship the beauty of the passage, nor the greatness of the principle involved in it; for in your own speech at the Liverpool election, nearly thirty years ago, you supplied a noble illustration of it, in the following words :-" 1 stand up in this contest against the friends and followers of Mr. Pitt, or, as they partially designate him, the immortal statesman now no more. miseries of his devoted country! wounds of her bleeding liberties! *Luke xxii. 24-26, Immortal in the cruel wars which sprang from his cold miscalculating ambition! Immortal in the intolerable taxes, the countless loads of debt which these wars have flung upon us-which the youngest man amongst us will not live to see the end of! Immortal in the triumphs of our enemies, and the ruin of our allies, the costly purchase of so much blood and treasure! Immortal in the afflictions of England, and the humiliation of her friends, through the whole results of his twenty years' reign, from the first rays of favour with which a delighted Court gilded his early apostasy, to the deadly glare which is at this instant cast upon his name by the burning metropolis of our last ally !* But may no such immortality ever fall to my lot—let me rather live innocent and inglorious; and when at last I cease to serve you, and to feel for your wrongs, may I have an humble monument in some nameless stone, to tell that beneath it there rests from his labours in your service, AN ENEMY OF THE IMMORTAL STATESMAN A FRIEND OF PEACE AND OF THE PEOPLE." 999 Happy, thrice happy were you, my Lord, in making the glorious discovery that wise, humane, and patriotic service is the price of moral power, the condition of real and lasting greatness. This has been the secret of your great success. There is but one way to the temple of true fame, and, with respect to the general principle, your lordship has found it. Just in proportion as you walk in the footsteps of Christ and his apostles, will you find the path of solid renown. It only now remains, my Lord, to show how this universal, glorious, and happy kingdom is to be established. Its character determines the instrumentality. As it is to be a moral kingdom, it can only be established and upheld by moral means. Physical power, and the force of human legislation, cannot promote it. * Intelligence had that day arrived of the burning of Moscow. Nothing can advance it but the illumination of the human mind by knowledge. In this your lordship will frankly concur with me; for you have spoken and written glorious things in support of the abstract proposition. But, my Lord, while we are at one with respect to knowledge, we are much at variance concerning the subject of it. A careful examination of all that you have written on this point, has led me to the most unsatisfactory conclusions. If the Scriptures of truth are the rule of judgment, the doctrines of your lordship do not meet the wants of man. I have taken the utmost pains correctly to ascertain your opinions. I can most truly say, that I have sought with a desire to find, in your speeches and writings, sentiments in harmony with the volume of Inspiration; but I am constrained to state-and I do it with deep and poignant regret that the search has been unsuccessful. In all that you have published, I remember not a sentence which Socrates or Seneca, Epictetus or Plato, might not have written. In much, in very much, of what you have said, Christian scholars, of course, fully concur. They would have the people taught, and taught thoroughly, all that you suggest, and a great deal more; they would rejoice in seeing the bulk of your plans carried out to the utmost extent. With you, they one and all maintain, that "real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration." With your lordship, they deem it utterly preposterous to imagine that the enlargement of our acquaintance with the laws which regulate the universe, can dispose to unbelief;" and with you they conclude, that "a pure and true religion has nothing to fear from the greatest expansion which the understanding can receive by the study either of matter or |