2. Morally, it gave him boldness and tenderness. Many men are bold, yet tyrannical withal; many tender, yet effeminate and weak. The perfect character joins both.

Observe Moses when his fellow-countryman is injured-one moment more, and the Egyptian is in his own blood at Moses' feet. Wild, irregular justice was permissible in those wild times, when there was no legal redress to be had.

Again, observe him in defence of Jethro's daughters at the well. He is ever the champion of the oppressed. The shepherds drive the women away. Moses says, "Not so; this is God's well; you shall not have it. By the law of the Most High God might is not right. I stand one man against you all."

High and noble spirit!

But, now, was this tyranny? Nay. Moses was no quarrelsome person, no seeker-out of brawls. Witness his attempt at peacemaking: "Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?"

This is a noble disposition; to be firm, daring, true, a man that can't be put down in the cause of right; yet, at the same time, tender, gentle, loving.

3. But Moses was more. He was mentally great, morally good; but, besides, Moses was religious.

This is shown in his reverence: he takes off his shoes in humble adoration.

In obedience: God says he is to go before Pharaoh, and God's will is law; he will brave the angry king.

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In meekness: he was humble as a child; a deeply gifted man, but self-distrustful; very meek above all men who were upon the face of the earth."

A beautiful thing it is to see all excellencies crowned by religion.

And now remember all this was the effect of education. This is what we mean by education: it is to produce mental power, moral worth, and religious character.

(II.) The public results of Moses' education; that is, its results on his nation and on the world.

The result on his own nation was chiefly the elevation of the laboring classes.

Let us describe the political degradation of Israel. There were

two classes in society, a ruling and a ruled. In all ages there is something similar; but in this case it was not the question between rich and poor, but between superior and inferior nations, like that between the whites and the blacks in slave countries. The Egyptian policy was to keep the Israelites down, to refuse them educational and political privileges, to prevent their increase of population. And the task of Moses was the emancipation of his people.

So is that of every Christian. Let us define what we mean by the education and elevation of the laboring classes. It is not to exempt them from toil; this were no blessing. Labor is a blessing. The rich would be happier if they were forced to spend some hours each day in manual toil. Labor brings out strength of character. A world where all was rest would make the human race degraded. Neither is it to introduce them into society, for there is the misery of fashionable life. It is not to break down classes. Christianity levels; education levels; but they level up. Mistaken men would level down. Elevation of the poor is to give them moral and religious worth; to strengthen their minds; to raise them above the almost brute life they lead to the higher life of the spirit; to make them men; to make them like the Israelites, free. But observe, free from their own selves, the worst of all tyranny. "He is a freeman whom the truth makes free." Had Moses freed Israel and given them no education and no religion, it would have been but a poor boon.

And now observe. Egyptian policy prevented all this. The wisdom of Egypt would have been to say, "These Israelites are a great people; let us treat them as brothers. Let us so treat them that their inventions, their skill, their labor, shall be shared by us; so that when Egypt is invaded they, feeling it their home, may fight side by side with us, the Israelite and the Egyptian, for a common country." They did not do this; therefore, at last, by apparent chance, the Israelites got intelligence, they got numbers, and they learned their power. They said, "We will be free." Egypt might have raised them gradually. Raised suddenly, a revolution was the consequence. The hosts of Egypt were buried in the Red Sea as the result of their own infatuated policy; just because they would not give Israel's lower classes a national education.

There might have been a pyramid erected on the shore with this inscription: "Here lies a nation which perished because . . ."

Let us say a few words of application. Thank God, the time has passed when English policy was the policy of Egypt. Fifty years ago the insane cry was raised, "The people must not be educated because it will unfit them for their station, and teach them to cope with us." Thank God, the echo of that cry has

died away.

Egypt's sovereign said, "The people shall be crushed down." A voice from England's throne has said, "My people shall be instructed." Egyptian aristocracy sided with their sovereign. The horsemen who perished with their chariots in the Red Sea wave sided with their sovereign, and would have kept the Israelites slaves. And English aristocracy have also sided with their sovereign. I speak as the mouth-piece of a society composed of English clergy and English nobles when I say, "Let us raise our poor brethren to our own level." "Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?"

Thank God for this. The mighty chasm between rich and poor is filling up. That selfish, useless indolence, that savage, sullen hatred, are alike disappearing, and men are beginning to feel the very reverse of the Egyptian policy. If England is to be happy and great, we must be one nation, not two; rich and poor joined together in bands of unity and chains of love.

Yet there is a discouraging aspect also. History tells that the struggle between rank and numbers has sometimes ended in a satisfactory adjustment. But in the struggle between wealth and numbers we have had no example yet; there has been national ruin in every case.

Therefore, my first appeal to-day is to you as Englishmen. The only thing which stands between us and national revolution is to educate our poor, to make them feel that we do not monopolize wealth and education; that we are their friends, not their enemies.

My second appeal is to you as Christians. Egyptian instruction is not education. It must be joined with religion, and that on the basis of the Bible.

VI.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

(FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.)

Oxford, July 11, 1847.

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."-Luke xvii. 20, 21.

THIS passage was occasioned by the sarcastic question of the Pharisees: "He was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come."

If we ask what was the expression most frequent on our Redeemer's lips, the answer is, "The kingdom of God." It was this which occasioned the fear in Herod, and the slaughter of the Innocents: "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" It forms the subject of a petition in the Lord's Prayer: "Thy kingdom come." Again, in the parables, the kingdom of heaven is likened unto leaven, etc. A voice was heard in the wilderness: "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It was the definite announcement of a Church to be set up on earth.

A man who is filled with one idea, repeating it, is looked upon as a dreamer, an enthusiast. People smile when they hear his project, as a kind of monomania. So the repetition of "kingdom of heaven" became at last ludicrous in the ears of the Pharisees. The same words were repeated again and again. But months and years rolled by. Jesus continued teaching simply as usual, and there was nothing resulting. Then they would smile and sneer. At last they came to Him, and said: "Well, when is this kingdom, that we hear so much of, to come? We have heard of it long, we should like to see it."

Jesus then unfolded his own meaning, and explained why they had not seen it.

His answer divides our subject into two branches:

I. What is meant by the "kingdom of heaven?"

II. The false expectations of men concerning it.

I. What is meant by the kingdom of heaven? Let us define our notion of a kingdom. Literally, it is a place where a sovereign's influence rules; in this sense it is the reign of a person. Figuratively, it means the domain in which one principle predominates; in this sense it is the reign of a principle.

The vegetable kingdom is the place where vegetable life reigns. The animal kingdom where sentient, conscious, feeling life reigns. And this is not bounded by locality, by earth, air, or water; not "Lo here, lo there." Nor is it limited by form. We see it in the small green insect on the leaf, and in the whale tumbling in the seas. It presents no outward uniformity; it is a kingdom within. Again, take the kingdom of England. Wherever the laws of the English sovereign are acknowledged, there is the kingdom. Not in this bounded isle alone, on land or water, in Europe or Asia, so that we can say, "Lo here." Nor can it be recognized by dress, language, color, for the kingdom is within-it "cometh not with observation." Wherever a foreign flag is lowered in token of admitted superiority, there is the English empire of the seas. Wherever the colonist's axe hews forests away under government protection; wherever the royal salute is fired, and the submission of the subject paid; and wherever the offended majesty of British law claims a victim-the hangman's rope drawn, and the hangman's bolt let fall-there is the kingdom.

Observe, there are four ideas connected with the notion of a kingdom-the expansion of the kingdom; the power; the glory; and the right of judging.

These four you find in the Scriptural notion of the kingdom of heaven. Wherever God rules, and God's character prevails, and God's laws are recognized.

We see the idea of expansion in the parable of the mustardseed; here is colonization.

The idea of power: "He shall reign for ever and ever;" here the flag lowered.

The idea of glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, and in the archangel's trumpet; here the salute of the universe.

The idea of punishment: when the kingdom of God came in the destruction of Jerusalem; here the right of execution.