and on this evening they kneeled down, for the first time, in united prayer.

The morning fixed for the departure of the hunters was uncommonly beautiful.

brow, too, not a cloud remained. Fear had vanished from his heart; and he would even have taken the feather from his cap, if his wife had not urgently entreated him to let it remain. A large quantity of game was killed in the course of the day, and at night the hunters sought shelter in the cave of a bear, which had been shot by one of them. Its flesh afforded a capital roast for supper, and its skin, spread upon a bed of leaves, a soft warm couch in the long November night.

occasion between the young couple, halt, and the next moment a powerful buffalo rushed out. These animals generally rove over the prairies in immense herds, consisting sometimes of thousands; but occasionally a single one is On Sullivan's met with. The buffalo stood still a moment, then rushed upon the hunter. Sullivan took aim, but the beast was too near to admit of his aiming calmly and surely; and, although slightly wounded, its onset was only the more furious. Sullivan, although a very strong man, was completely exhausted by his long fasting and wanderings: but desperation nerved his heart and steeled his arm. With great presence of mind he seized hold of the long hair which fell over the animal's forehead, while with the At the earliest dawn the chase left hand he drew out his knife to was renewed. Sullivan, who was plunge it in its breast. But the pursuing a roe with too great eager- combat was too unequal. The ness, became separated from his buffalo hurled him to the ground companions, and while seeking that it might stamp him to pieces them lost his way. In vain he with its feet. At the same instant, strove to regain the path out of William heard the sharp crack of a the dense forest, through which rifle behind him, and the next scarcely a sunbeam could pene- moment the animal gave trate; and more than once, when bound upwards, then fell heavily he fancied he saw the piercing eye to the ground, partly upon the of a lurking Indian, he raised his prostrate hunter. A dark form, in rifle, determined to sell his life as the Indian costume, glided forth dear as possible. and plunged a hunting-knife deep into the buffalo's neck.

one

Towards sunset he came to a more open part of the forest, and Sullivan, who had meanwhile found himself on the borders of an managed to crawl forth from immense prairie, overgrown with beneath the buffalo, now turned long grass, and interspersed with to the Indian, and with mingled clumps of brushwood. A stream feelings of hope and fear-for he ran through this broad plain, and did not know whether he belonged to it Sullivan directed his steps; to a hostile tribe or not-begged he was wearied and well-nigh him to show him the way to the famished, for since breakfast he nearest settlement of the white had tasted nothing. On the bank men. of the stream there was a good deal of underwood. Sullivan approached, therefore, with caution, holding his rifle full-cock, so as to be prepared for any emergency. He was distant only a few yards from the bushes, when a rustling among the leaves brought him to a

"If the wearied hunter will wait till morning," replied the Indian, "the eagle will show him the path to the nest of his white dove."

Then taking him by the hand, he led him through the deepening shades of night, to a small Indian encampment on the banks of the

How astonished and rejoiced was Mary when she saw the Indian again, and learned from her husband the service he had performed! All this you can imagine. Karkutschi was treated not merely as an honoured guest, but as a brother; and a brother, too, he did become in time. He paid many visits to the dwelling of Sullivan, on whom the wild Indian's example was not without its effect. It helped to bring him to see his sinfulness before God: he began to repent, and to seek forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ. He and Mary became truly converted.

stream. There he gave the hunter a token that he had forgiven his an abundant meal of maize cakes brutal conduct; and the Indian and roast venison, spread some yielded to his prayers. skins for a couch, and left him to his repose for the night. The first streaks of the morning had not yet appeared in the east, when Sullivan was awaked by the Indian; and, after a slight breakfast, they set out on their way to the settlement of the white men. The Indian walked first, and wound his way through the forest, which was still enveloped in darkness, with an accuracy and rapidity only to be looked for in one of his race; and ere yet the golden sun had sunk behind the tops of the distant rocky mountains, Sullivan was once more approaching his beloved home. There it lay in calm repose. At the Karkutschi's benevolence was remuch-loved sight William could not paid him a hundredfold. The more suppress a cry of joy. Turning to William and Mary felt their obligathe Indian, he poured forth from a tions to him, the more earnestly did full heart his thanks to him for the they desire that he too should be a service he had rendered him. The partaker of the happiness which red man, who till then had not they found in Christ. They taught shown his face to the hunter, ex- him the Gospel as well as they cept in the imperfect light of his could. But it was long before hut, now let the rays of the sun fall there was any visible change in upon his form, and revealed, to his heart; at length, however, it William's astonishment, the fea- pleased the Lord to bless the untures of the Indian whom he had wearied efforts of his friends, and so cruelly repulsed. An expression to hear their prayers. Two years of proud though mild reproach was afterwards, an American mison his countenance as he looked sionary came to a station in the upon the blushing Sullivan; but, neighbourhood of Sullivan's dwellwith a soft, gentle voice, he said to ing, and Karkutschi became one him, "Five months ago, when I of the Indians who were taken came to you, wearied and famish- under instruction preparatory to ing, you called me an Indian dog, baptism. He was the first native and drove me from your door. baptised at this station. And our Last night I might have taken friend-for I am sure he is dear to my revenge; but the white dove you all-was not contented with gave me some food, and I spared this: he became a preacher among her husband for her sake. Kark- his heathen countrymen, and utschi now bids thee go home; and laboured among them to a good if ever again thou seest a red man old age. After his strength bein distress, then do to him as I came exhausted, he returned to have done to thee! "" Farewell! his white friends, and lived many months with them, till the Lord permitted His servant to enter into his rest.

He waved his hand and turned away; but Sullivan sprang before him, and besought him in the most earnest manner to go with him, as

Many years have passed since

then. Of Sullivan's dwelling not a dwell in the town which has trace is now to be seen; William been built upon the spot, and if and Mary rest in the same church- you were to go there, you might yard where the bones of Karkutschi still hear them tell the tale of lie; but their descendants still "The Indian's Revenge."

TEMPERANCE,*

BY THE REV. J. W. LANCE.

"The fruit of the Spirit is. . . . temperance."-Gal. v. 22, 23. THE subject we approach to-day is so wide and comprehensive, so many-sided, that if I were to attempt even to touch upon all that it includes I should exhaust the time, and still leave the object unattained.

I shall confine myself, therefore, to one particular branch of it, that one which, as it seems to me, may be most practical, and which the exigency of the times is most pressing upon us. To put it plainly, I shall preach to you this morning a temperance sermon. When we consider what intemperance is, what it is doing in the world, in the Church, and in our families, how appalling its practice and its results, no one, I feel sure, will deem a sermon on this topic out of place. I may add to this that as drunkenness is named in the dark category of the works of the flesh, in opposition to that fruit of the spirit which is temperance, it seems probable that the apostle especially, though perhaps not exclusively, had in mind that particular phase of temperance on which I am about to discourse to you.

The point from which I start, and which I ask you to impress at once upon your minds as the clue to all that will follow is this, that the word temperance as it is used in the New Testament means generally self-restraint. It is more than moral courage; it is power, selfpossession, selff-government. It sets before us the idea of a man able and willing to control himself; one who applies the curb and the rein, and holds himself in as occasion arises for the exercise of this power.

As to the objective sphere in which it works, the objects to which this self-restraint refers, we might at first sight be disposed to say that temperance implies always the use of a thing, while abstinence, however much it in many cases may be a duty, is yet a duty of another kind. A closer examination leads me, however, to the conclusion that temperance includes abstinence. I find in the Greek Dictionary that, while the first meaning given is moderate enjoyment of the pleasures of life, the second is abstinence from a thing;" so that the popular and modern definition of temperance, that it consists in the moderate

* The last of a series of sermons on the fruit of the Spirit, preached at Newport.

use of things that are good, and abstinence from things that are bad, is not very far from the scriptural meaning; always, however, bearing in mind that both the moderation and the abstinence are voluntary and self-imposed.

This being so, it follows that you cannot by any external force make men temperate. You can make a man sober, and compel him to remain so by cutting off from him all access to that which can make him tipsy. You may shut him up in prison, subject him to prison discipline and prison fare, but there is a world of difference between an enforced sobriety and a true temperance, which in its very nature is voluntary. This surely is what the Bishop of Peterborough meant when he said that if he had to choose between England free and England sober he would choose England free. The alternative suggested by Dr. Magee is not England free or England temperate, for in temperance freedom is included, and herein consists its virtue. For a man to be truly temperate, he must have presented to him opportunity for the reverse; he must have access to those indulgences in the use of which, or in abstinence from which, he holds himself in restraint.

There occurs in the thirty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah a notable instance of temperance in the case of the Rechabites, exhibiting itself in abstinence. Jeremiah, as commanded by the Lord, sets before these sons of Jonadab pots full of wine and cups to drink withal, every appliance, and even says to them, giving a sort of sanction to the whole by its being done in the house of the Lord, "Drink ye wine; " but they said, "We will drink no wine, for Jonadab our father commanded us," &c. Yet that they were still free men, and by no means in blind bondage to the mere letter of the patriarchal precept, is evident from the fact that while they were also commanded to dwell in tents in the open fields, and not in cities and houses, they had removed from the open country to the city of Jerusalem for a sufficient reason, viz., the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, and doubtless would, if there had been any good reason for it, have drunk the wine now so freely offered them. obligation they were under was purely a moral one; there was no coercion, and they would have suffered no pains or penalties had they chosen to break it.

The

In the second chapter of John's Gospel we have, on the other hand, an example of temperance exercising itself in moderation. At the marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee our Saviour supplies to the guests a quantity of wine, practically without limit. Whether you think all the water in the water-pots was turned into wine, or whether it became so as the servants drew it out, is of no importance; there was enough, and more than enough, for all the guests to drink as freely as they pleased, and yet there is no hint that any one of them drank to excess, nothing in the narrative which suggests to us a single intoxicated person, or that anybody had taken "more than was good for him." I am aware, of course, that there is an explanation of this offered, which excludes the exercise of the virtue of temperance altogether so

far as this incident is concerned.

It is said the wine thus made was not intoxicating, and therefore no one could be intoxicated with it; that there are two kinds of wine mentioned in the Scripture, one of them unintoxicating, God's gift making glad the heart of man; the other intoxicating, and therefore a mocker, and at last biting like a serpent and stinging like an adder. Dr. Temple, however, Bishop of Exeter-himself a zealous temperance reformer and total abstainer— tells us, in a sermon recently preached in the advocacy of temperance principles, that this distinction cannot be maintained; that wine is good or bad, like other things, just as it is used or abused.

There is a little light thrown on this question, quite incidentally, in the discussion which has lately taken place beween Cardinal Manning and Lord Redesdale. The cardinal says Pope Gelasius in the fifth century ordered the administration of the Sacrament in both kinds to detect the Manicheans, who refused the wine because, as they said, it was evil, was not a good creature of God, and had been created by the devil or the evil principle.

The Manicheans, let it further be remembered, propounded their heresies earlier than this, some time indeed in the third century, and thus we have testimony to the rejection of wine as such, with no hint of another kind, the fair inference being that it was considered evil because it was intoxicating, and led in many cases to evil results. Temperance, then, as I have said, consists in the exercise of selfrestraint in the use of that which is evil, if not carefully guarded against, or in abstinence from it, which also is the free exercise of the will.

Let it, however, be noted that there is nothing inconsistent with this freedom in the taking of a pledge, for the temperance pledge itself is self-imposed, and therefore comes within the scope of self-restraint. We take pledges in other matters besides this in which we are still free agents. You pledged yourselves in baptism to serve and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are under obligation to do so, but the obligation is purely a moral one. You continue to serve Him because your profoundest convictions tell you it is right to do so, and should these change or become weakened, as alas they often do, you would cease to serve Him. You pledged yourselves in particular to the fellowship of this Church when your names were entered on the list, but your only obligation here is a moral one, and should your opinions change, or your preferences, you are as free to leave as you were to come. choose to remain in the exercise of your own free will. Just so with the temperance pledge: there is nothing to compel a man to hold to it should his convictions alter; by giving it up, indeed, he may lose in pocket, in health, and in self-respect, but all these are considerations which, as a free man, he must weigh for himself.

You

The practical question that now arises for us is what is a Christian's duty in reference to this special work of the flesh," drunkenness," which has attained amongst us such gigantic proportions, and