given a description of it, than which it would be difficult to conceive one more animated and energetic, or more beautifully appropriate. "Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God."

And, in the first place, truth is to be the military belt, the cincture of the loins, by the aid of which the garments, that might otherwise impede the free motion of the limbs, are kept high and close around the body, so as to allow the feet to proceed safely and rapidly in their onward course, without stumbling and without delay. Where this girdle is wanting, the loose vesture is sure to cumber, if not trip, the wearer. Nothing is so well calculated as a clear perception, and firm conviction, of the truth and justice of the cause we advocate, to ensure firmness of step, and speed of movement; to give us confidence in ourselves, and impel us forward to communicate to others what we know. "Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth;" -and "having on the breastplate of righteousness." Truth and righteousness, a correct theory and a virtuous practice, must go together. The sound

judgment will avail nothing without the pure and honest heart. "Let this be your wall of brass," says a heathen author, "to have nothing of which to accuse yourself, to grow pale with no fault." "What stronger breastplate," says our great dramatist,―(had he not the words of the Apostle in his view when he thus wrote ?)-

"than a heart untainted?

Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

Of the value of this part of the Christian armour Paul could speak from experience, for he had worn it through many a day of trial, and experienced its protecting power in many a sharp conflict. "Herein had he exercised himself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man." We may rest assured, my friends, that there is nothing like it: uncorrupted integrity of heart and life, virtuous consistency of conduct, is not merely a breastplate,-it is a whole suit of defensive armour, a panoply, clothed in which a man may go where he will, and fear no foe. "He who is sound of life and pure from crime," says the classic poet, in a passage with which our boyhood was familiar, "stands in no need of Moorish javelin, or bow, or quiver full of poisoned arrows, but may journey, if he will, unharmed over the wildest and most inhospitable regions of the globe." ". Who is

he that will harm you," says one on whose authority we set higher value, "if ye be followers of that which is good?" Put on, then, brethren, the breastplate of righteousness. And "have your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace." Let your tread be noiseless as it is firm. Modestly, meekly, unobtrusively advance in your onward course. When duty urges you forward bate not an inch of ground; but take your position calmly and quietly; give no unnecessary offence, sound no note of noisy triumph; let not your feet be shod with iron, either to clatter as you pass, or to trample with needless violence on the fallen foe. "In meekness instruct those that oppose themselves." Prove by your conduct even to your bitterest enemies that you have not forgotten that the Gospel which you preach is the Gospel of peace.

"It

Above," or, as it should rather be translated, in addition to, "all these," proceeds the Apostle, "take the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." was customary among the ancients," says Dr. Chandler, "to make small firebrands in the form of arrows composed of various combustibles, which they shot among their enemies to disorder and annoy them; these the soldiers used to receive on their shields." The meaning of the apostle seems obvious,--let firm faith in the presiding providence

of God, and in His sure promises by Jesus Christ, serve as a broad impenetrable shield, on which all the burning shafts of malice, the calumnies, and slanders, the threatenings, execrations, and anathemas, by which your enemies will endeavour to wound or terrify you, shall fall harmless, soon to send up from the earth an expiring flame. What are the noisy denunciations of human vengeance, or even the temporary wounds which it has sometimes power to inflict, to him who can repose a well-founded confidence in an approving Saviour, and a protecting and rewarding God? Take, then, the shield of faith.

Take also the helmet of salvation. "Take for a helmet," says the Apostle, in another passage (1 Thess. v. 8), "the hope of salvation"; and this doubtless is his meaning here. Let the hope, that is, of eternal life through Jesus Christ be the defence of the Christian warrior's head, the noblest part of his frame, the seat of thought. Cheered and invigorated by this hope, let his mind preserve its equanimity amidst the various trials and temptations of life, not suffering its composure to be unduly disturbed, or its attention distracted from the one thing needful. What are the troubles of earth to him who has his hope in heaven? Wherefore should they excite in him any anxious thought? Why should they disturb his peace? "The hope of salvation," says an able commentator, "built on

the promises of God, will preserve from the fatal effects of temptation, from worldly terrors and evils, so that they shall not disorder the imagination, or pervert the judgment, or cause men to desert the path of duty." Take for a helmet, then, the hope of salvation.

Finally, says the Apostle, "Take the sword of the spirit which is the word of God." No other weapon of offence, of attack I should rather say, for of offence the Christian would gladly know nothing, is mentioned: it is, in truth, the only one in the Christian armoury. "Though we walk in the flesh," says St. Paul, in another passage, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." By the aid of the word of God, my brethren, and of this alone, must we work these wonders both on ourselves and on other men. In the book of Nature, and in the book of Revelation, for in both of these God's true and powerful word is written, we must search diligently for authentic declarations of the Divine will. These, once discovered and clearly understood, we must endeavour to impress deeply, first on our own minds, and then on the minds of those