holy, let him be boly still." We cannot recall the past: in this we are utterly helpless. All the wealth of all the courts of this world cannot call back a day. We cannot cancel a deed we have done; we cannot wash out by a whole ocean of tears a sin that has stained its current. But, blessed thought! we can seek forgiveness; and as sure as we seek it we shall have it. Blessed thought! we can plead the atoning blood of the Lamb; and as sure as we plead it its baptism will be upon us. We cannot recall past years; but we can present this day at the throne of grace; and we can seek, for all our thoughts, and words, and deeds, and transactions before it and in it, that cleansing which the guiltiest may have, and the purest and holiest can never do without.

LECTURE XIII.

THE GREAT MULTITUDE.

"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."— Rev. vii. 9, 10.

thousand. thousand.

JOHN says, "I heard the number of them which were sealed; and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand," and so on. And then, passing from the number of the saved on earth to the palm-bearing multitude in glory, he says, " After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God." John says, "I beheld." This was a special favor, a great privilege. The veil was rent or drawn for a moment, the glass through which he saw dimly was broken, the intervening distance was spanned; and he beheld the shining groups of the redeemed

out of every land, clad in robes that were white like the snow, each bearing the symbol of a glorious victory; and he revealed it to us not to satisfy our curiosity to know the numbers of the saved, but that, cheered by the bright spectacle, forgetting the things that are behind, and surrounded and encompssed by so great a cloud of witnesses, we might run with patience the race set before us, looking not to them, but to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.

He says there was "a great multitude." There will be more in heaven than the bigot will admit; there will be fewer in heaven than the latitudinarian dreams; there will be a great multitude. One can easily gather the elements of our expectation, not ⚫ curious, but Christian, that the vast majority of the human family will be saved. It may be very true that the majority of an existing generation does not give the evidence of being Christian; but a day comes when they shall all be righteous, and the teeming millions spread over the world in which we live shall all be baptized in spirit, the heirs of glory, and the sons of God. One looks forward with joy to the blessed hope that heaven will contain a great multitude; and they that are not there were never shut out by God, but were self-excluded. In that great multitude will be patriarchs of ancient days, prophets, saints, apostles, martyrs, evangelists, and ancient Christians, Abraham, Isaac, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John, and Augustine, and Vigilantius, and Peter Waldo, and Luther, and Calvin, and innumerable others, clad in white robes, with palms in their hands, saying, 66 Salvation to our God." Some will come from the sands of distant deserts, some from the depths of

the unsounded ocean, some from beneath the battle sods that have grown green over the remains of them that lately fell in their country's cause and service in the East. The icebergs in the Polar realms will rend asunder when the trumpet sounds, and the dead that are there shall come forth. They that expired in the fires of martyrdom are there; thousands who have suffered and been silent- the martyrdom the heart feels, but the trumpet does not roll abroad with its echoes - will also be there. Not one blossom will be withered, not one sheaf will be lost, not one gem will be wanting. The complete number of the sons of God, the heirs of glory, will constitute the Church in heaven, the mighty multitude that no man can number. Not one trace of disease, or of the smoke of the fires; not one channel for a tear, nor memorial of one that has rolled in it. All the clinging garments of the grave are put aside; all the marks of corruption have disappeared; and innumerable as the stars in the sky, countless as the sands on the sea-shore, brilliant as the morning dews in an unsetting sun, beyond the limits of sect, unscathed by the distinctions of party, will be a great multitude that have no head but Christ, no name but Christian, and no song but salvation to our God and to the Lamb that sitteth on the throne.

But whilst we rejoice to look forward to such a bright group as this, let us try to see in detail what its component elements are. It is a great multitude of all nations. The Jew restricted the gospel to his own; he believed that beyond the plains of Palestine no glad sound could ring, no offer of mercy could be made. He thought religion was inspired for him,

and for nobody in the world besides; the limits that God laid down he made tighter, the distinctions that God recognized he wrote deeper. But now this multitude is composed not of Jews, but of all nations; the monopoly of the Jew has become the heritage of all mankind. The national reservoir which was once so full in Jerusalem has now overflowed and become a mighty stream, and where handfuls once drank whole nations now slake their thirst. The Jewish is now Catholic; the religion of the Hebrew has become the religion of humanity, and this is the essential character of Christianity; it is a religion not for a coterie, nor a sect, nor a Church, nor a party; and he that tries to limit it to his own, is sure to lose half its life, its excellence, and its value. If you trace its history, what land has it not visited, what color and clime has it not touched and transformed! Tongues have ceased, tribes have withered to the roots. Priests have passed away without a word to declare that they once were; temples, and basilicas, and cathedrals, and pyramids, are in ruins; but this divine Levite still walks the world, consecrating it wherever it comes; this angel with the everlasting gospel has stretched his pinion, and it neither faints nor wearies under equatorial suns, nor is it numbed amid polar snows he gives token of a strength renewed as he flies, till the whole earth be covered with God's glory, and a mighty multitude stand before the throne, that no man can number. But not only has the Jewish ceased in reference to Christianity, but families, whole families, have been introduced into it. "Of all nations," it is said, " and of all kindreds," that is, families. Shem, Ham, and Japheth once met in the ark