SERMON I. Christ the Type of Christian Courage. 1 COR. xvi. 13. Quit you like men, be strong. F there be one virtue which the world patronises, it has no honours too great, no praise too lavish. If a man has devastated the world by his wars, has stood by, terrible and unmoved, while his cannon were mowing down human beings like grass and sweeping living souls into eternity, him the world hails as a hero and falls down and worships. Now, to be thus brave is something very great and very awful. Great, because such a man is very powerful for good or for evil; to save life or to destroy; to be a blessing or a curse; to be the servant of God or to be the champion of Satan: and awful, because such men are often messengers of God sent to make the judgments of heaven known upon earth; scourges in God's hand to scourge the nations and the people that forget God. Such ministers of His vengeance, however, have been rare. In His just wrath God is pleased ever to remember divine mercy; though we have often merited His vengeance, He has rarely sent B His avenging angel. It is because of His mercies that we are not smitten; because they are new every morning and fresh every evening, that we are spared to live from day to day. The war The courage to which I have alluded is one kind of courage. Of it there may be a thousand forms, but the essence is the same. One colour may have a thousand shades, the rays of light are innumerable,— there is but one sun. So this courage. In degree and mode it is infinite, in its nature one. rior has it who burns to rush to battle e; the man has it who hunts the lion and the bear, who braves the perils of the deep or the drought of the wilderness, who for the strong love of adventure, or of nature, or of science, scales the Alpine peak, who dives to save a drowning man, or who is bold to defend the weak and to relieve the oppressed. Of these and other instances, however different they may appear, the principle is the same. It is the courage of man as a rational animal, not courage such as beasts have,-for that is purely instinctive and animal,-but human and rational courage. At times, indeed, it may sink almost into instinctive rashness, whilst at others it may rise sublimely to the confines of spiritual fortitude. Its province, however, is between these extremes: it is the courage neither of the animal nor of the spirit, but of the reason-the courage of man as a rational being. But there is, my brethren, another kind of courage, another bravery to which we are heirs: higher, |