made from the beginning, and he well knew that if he served GOD he must do so at the risk of personal ease and life itself.

And now, in order to measure the power of his example, notice for a moment the nature of the sacrifice he made. We have read not only of men of ancient and modern history, who were prepared to die for the cause that they believed in, and did die for it, but also of those who have devoted the most brilliant powers in such causes. We have read also of those who gave up youth without a sigh in defence of what they believed to be true and noble. But in each of such cases, or nearly so, the cause has been one that has been honoured by mankind, and the sufferer has gone to his death attended by the shouts of the multitude. The laurels that girt the brow of the martyr to political or military glory have been gathered from the noblest bays and woven by the hands of the great and free; an immortality in the future of mankind gleamed like the dawn of morning before the eye of the sufferer, and the edge of the axe has been blunted, the fire of the stake quenched.

Such was the incitement which bore up Mucius when he drove his hand into the pan

of coals, and such the soul-inspiring support which urged Curtius as he leapt into the chasm to save Rome. The magnificence of a state glorious throughout a long future of coming ages gleamed like a waking vision before the eye of Codrus when he leapt into the battle; the thanksgiving of grateful thousands rose in dreamy echoes round the sense of Guyon of Marseilles as with his dying hand he dissected the livid corpse; and the eternal thankfulness of a ransomed country surrounded Eustace and his comrades as they marched beneath the gates of Calais. But all this we can easily understand; man has done it, and man will do it still. But when we are called upon to lay down life for a dishonoured cause, for one which no one respects, and which has, as yet, been untested in its results by the human race; when we have scarcely a precedent in history for our self-sacrifice, and scarcely a heart to sympathise or a voice to approve; that is hard indeed! And when, as in the case of the proto-martyr, the shame of a malefactor's death was flung so recently round the memory of his Master, and all that was noble, all that was wise, all that was lovely, all that was of good report, all that was tried and

tested by the experience of man, with one consent gave voice against the cause for which he was to die, the sacrifice must indeed have been great, and the faith burning which led to it.

But there is a further thought still. S. Stephen was the proto-martyr. When Ignatius looked on the gazing amphitheatre and folded his arms on his bosom at the roar of the advancing lion; when Cyprian walked forth. amid the hymns and prayers of the Carthaginian Church to his happy martyrdom; when Augustine bared his bosom to the Vandal, as he burst into his sanctuary; when the victims of the rage of Huneric sang praises to GoD from their tongueless mouths, they could each one of them look back on an already lengthened past, and count a long procession of martyrs of days gone by. The echoes of a hundred hymns of death sounded round their ears, and they entered the storm of the battle as the rearguard of an army whose van had nobly fallen; but to be the first was difficult—a martyr and a proto-martyr. True! Calvary rose behind him, and the Cross cast its shadow on the heap of stones. True! he saw JESUS standing at the right hand of God. It was enough,-" go and do thou likewise."

LX.

SOLOMON.-PART IV.

THE BIRTHRIGHT OF TRUTH.

PROV. xxiii. 23.

"BUY THE TRUTH, AND SELL IT NOT."

1. "Buy the Truth, and sell it not." This forcible passage from the Book of Proverbs, speaks directly home to those who are in any way concerned with education. It declares two great truths. First, that truth is a matter of purchase; and, secondly, that there is a possibility of selling it, and an inclination to do so. The two branches of the text refer to a long process of acquiring, and a strong temptation to part with a great treasure. Before I examine the difficulty of the purchase, or the hazard of the barter, I will try to determine what that is which is deemed so valuable.

2. Truth is, of course, in itself, one, perfect and eternal; it was existing in its perfection in the days when the early races of man had discovered but its simplest element; it is somewhere perfect now, while we, like mariners upon the great sea of discovery, are trying to determine its limits; and at the end of time, Truth will still be, unaltered and unincreased since the moment of her birth. The continent of the New World, channelled by a hundred rivers and mountain streams; fringed with forests of unrivalled magnificence; girt by its belt of lakes-the connecting bond of two oceans, and sentinelled by the volcanic Andes, lay out in all its lustre beneath the sun, when Abraham rescued Lot; when Israel passed the Red Sea; when David ruled at Jerusalem; when Themistocles fought at Salamis, and Pompey at Pharsalia; and yet generation followed generation, and went down to the grave without knowing of its existence. At last, when discovered, it was discovered by slow degrees; but it was all there. Such is Truth, perfect yesterday, today, and for ever; lying out beneath God's eye, yet only known to us by slow and uncertain degrees. Each discovery swells the