THE TRIALS TO WHICH THE CHRISTIAN IS EXPOSED.

or citizens, or fellow countrymen. The Christian therefore receives back the gift of justice which Adam lost, under circumstances widely differing from those under which Adam first received it. Adam, after having received it, may not impossibly be supposed to have enjoyed even an increase of outward peace and calm. But when the Christian has the gift restored to him, owing to the guilty and unconverted state of those with whom he may be surrounded, he is liable to have every one of them up in arms against him. Thus, St. Paul had occasion to say to his Hebrew converts : "Call to mind the days wherein, being illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions: on the one hand, indeed, by reproaches and tribulations, you were made a gazing-stock, and on the other you became companions of them that were used in such sort."

If Adam and Eve had never listened to the serpent, they would have had nothing to fear in the way of temptation from each other, and as the serpent was an intruder in their Paradise, nothing would have been easier than to have ordered him out, instead of listening to him. But with the Christian who has the gift of justice restored to him, not only does the same wily serpent who deceived Adam and Eve constantly hang about his path-not only are the commandments that he has to

THE GOSPEL SUPERIOR TO THE TIES OF NATURAL AFFECTION.

keep increased as to number, and the ways of transgressing them become almost infinitely more various— but the Christian may have a totally new enemy of whom Adam had no experience, in his wife and children, father and mother, brother and sister, friend and acquaintance, fellow townsman and civil governor; each one or all of whom may be the worst possible enemies of the gift of justice which he has received, whilst it may be altogether out of his power to avoid coming in contact with them. Now, considering the strength of natural ties, which are in themselves good, until they are over-ruled by something higher and Divine, opposition, false persuasion and enticement, in these quarters may become instruments of a trial to the Christian, quite distinct from anything to which Adam and Eve were subject; and the extreme pain and stress of the trial will lie, in its making that its point of attack, where the Christian is most open to assault. Natural affection is strong and in its own order good, and if it be true, as Solomon has said, that " as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man,” how much more will it be true that the heart of the father answers to that of the son, and the heart of the husband to that of the wife!

And yet to all these ties of natural affection, the

HE WHO LOVETH FATHER OR MOTHER MORE THAN CHRIST IS NOT WORTHY OF HIM.

Christian must, if called upon, show himself superior. "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me," says our Lord. "Think not,” our Lord had said, "that I came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies shall be those of his own household."

"Remember my word that I said unto you―the servant is not greater than his master; if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. These things will they do to you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me.

"I have spoken unto you that you may not be scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues; yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." (St. John, xv. and xvi.)

What our Lord here foretels, St. Paul explains to have been always from the beginning: "As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, so also it is now." "The sensual man," says St. Paul, “receiveth not the things that are of the spirit