the fragments of some mighty shipwreck. Cast your eyes half that time forward, and our modern skeptics will augment the map of desolation. Christ is taking to himself his great power. The signals are out; the trumpet is sounded; and woe, woe to him, whoever he may be, that throws not off the panoply of resistance to so certain and so glorious a consummation.

CHAPTER XXII.

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ."

1 Peter, i., 1.

It is a very common, and, within its proper application, a very just remark, that Christianity changes the disposi. tion, but not the temper. The meaning is, that the habits -the settled tendencies-or, what is the same thing, the dispositions of the mind, are turned by the Gospel into a new direction, while the peculiar excitabilities of the mind -its involuntary and unthinking sallies-or, in other words, its tempers, will always adhere to the individual, no matter how deeply Divine grace may have made him the subject of moral renovation. It is on this principle, I presume, that we discover between the saints of the New Testament so plain a difference, at the same time that all of them carry upon their characters the impress of genuine piety. Each man's peculiar temperament gives a cast to his religion : one of warm and lively affections frequently appears precipitate, and another of more calm and sedate feelings, sometimes wears the aspect of languor, inactivity, and sloth. In fact, it is in the walks of Christianity precisely as it is in the ordinary developments of life. The Creator has made us with different peculiarities of mind, which betray themselves upon our conduct wherever we go, and in whatever course of action we engage; and while hundreds may be pressing forward to Heaven with equal certainty and equal zeal, they may all the while carry along with them, each one for himself, a sui generis of character, which marks him conspicuously out from every other individual upon the road. In exemplifying these remarks, I know of no instance more striking than the life of the apostle Peter. In looking over his biography, we shall find on the one hand a constellation of the most noble qualities. Sanguine in his hopes, bold in his plans, generous in his views, and fearless, not to say impetuous in his movements, he wins our unlimited applause. But, on the other hand, we see these same dispositions leading him often into difficulty,we detect failings which piety can never palliate, and yet so evidently do they result from the ardent and intrepid temperament of his mind, that Charity drops a tear over the very foibles she is compelled to reprove.

Where this illustrious apostle was born I am unable to say. His place of residence at the period of his coming upon the sacred pages, was Galilee, where he followed the humble pursuit of a fisherman. In the present instance, therefore, as in most others, the Saviour chose the heralds of his mercy, not from the inmates of a court, who might push forward the triumphs of the Gospel with the arm of power, nor from the disciples of philosophy, who might ascribe the success of his cause to the talents embarked in it, but from those obscurer classes of society where "wisdom," if found at all, would be found under the most conclusive evidence of being "not of this world." The first interview of Peter with Jesus Christ is worthy of notice. He had lived a long time in the same neighborhood, without the least curiosity to see him, till at last his brother, unexpectedly becoming a Christian, prevailed upon Peter to accompany him in a visit to the Saviour. The result was successful, and from that moment we find them both enlisted, heart and hand, under the banners of Christianity.

Need I tell you, my hearers, that this little incident is one of the most affecting and impressive character? You see the issue of a single solicitation from a pious friend. And let me ask, if no godly brother or sister, or parent, now perhaps sleeping in the dust, let me ask, has never offered, by advice, by prayers, by tears, to lead you to a Saviour's Cross? Has never pressed upon you with all the urgency of affection, the importance of a preparation for eternity, and wrung in your ears the solemn, it may now be the forgotten alarm, that there is no peace to the wicked? But I have said that Peter, from that moment, became an earnest and thorough-going Christian. Receiving shortly afterwards the appointment of an apostle, he walked abroad among the children of superstition and sin, proclaiming the messages of the Gospel. No hostility could check his ardor-no obstacle arrest his progress. On several occasions, when the other disciples began to yield to a feeling of discouragement, Peter stood forth and rallied their sinking hopes. Once, especially, the concourse of followers whom Christ had collected around him entirely withdrew, and the apostles themselves had secretly formed the same design. But this illustrious man, unmoved by the terrible array of threatened persecution, remained by his deserted Master. "Lord," said he, with his characteristic warmth, "to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe-we are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." The same bold and decided fidelity to the Saviour embodied itself in all his conduct : and if at this period he had a fault, other than the common frailties of nature, it was, that impatient at the meek and gradual advance of Christianity, he wished to push it on with a rapidity proportioned to its real claims, and a violence corresponding with that employed in opposing it. He seemed desirous, few and feeble as were the littte band of Christians, to lead them at once against their bloodthirsty enemies. And if the Messiah had resorted to the sword in establishing his religion, there can be little doubt but Peter would have kept the field at every hazard, till he was a corpse or a conqueror. By this warm though blinded attachment to Jesus Christ, the apostle became unusually endeared to him, so much so as to draw from his lips that celebrated, perhaps difficult, expression in Matthew, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church." Of this passage there is no time to decide, at present, the precise import. You all know that it is by many supposed to have given to Peter a supremacy over the other apostles, which, we are told, has descended, of right, to his legitimate successors. That such is not the meaning of the words, I should be wanting to my subject not to offer you a few brief reasons. In the first place, Peter never claimed and never exercised the least authority. In the second, St. Paul declared himself nothing inferior to the very chiefest apostles. In the third, no one ever pretended to be Peter's successor till nearly three hundred years after his death. In the fourth, St. Peter might very justly be called the rock on which the Church was built, for he was the man who established the first Christian Church among the Jews, and the first Christian Church among the Gentiles. In the last place, Christ says to Peter, "I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose shall be loosed, and whatever thou shalt bind shall be bound." But a little farther along, he says the very same words to all the apostles together; so that whether the expression mean little or much, it has nothing in it peculiar to Peter.

But, waiving this question, we have now arrived at a period in the apostle's life, which, if his own tears, or the tears of the Church, could recal it, would never have remained on the annals of Christianity. Were it possible for repentance to annihilate the deed over which it mourns, the Scripture writers would have passed in silence the melancholy scene which is now coming up-and surely, it furnishes a distinguished evidence of their impartiality, that they have