the captive. He redeemed the slave. His wounds are our healing-his groans, our songs-his death, our lifehis crown of thorns, our crown of glory. But could not Christ achieve this great work, without becoming incarnate? No. Human nature had sinned. Hence, human nature must suffer. For, "without shedding of blood, there is no remission." Blood, then, must first be possessed, before blood could be shed. Hence the absolute necessity, that the Redeemer should become man-man to set us an example, man to enable him to sympathize with humanity, man to suffer death in the room of the guilty. Equally essential was it, that He should be God; otherwise, his sufferings and death, however agonizing, could have had nothing meritorious, no more than the death of the martyrs. Christ must needs be man, to qualify him to suffer; he must needs be God, to impart to his sufferings infinite merit. And by virtue of his being both God and man, he of all beings in heaven and earth, is qualified to be the Redeemer of the world. By the union of the two natures, the blood of Calvary becomes efficacious, and mercy flows down to a lost race. "Behold the man! How glorious He."

Are you guilty? We bring you good tidings; Christ hath delivered us from the curse of the law. Are you tempted? Here are good tidings. "He is able to succor them that are tempted."

Are you bowed down under the troubles of life? Hear him saying, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden."

Are ye poor? He is the poor man's friend. Are you afraid to die? He hath abolished death, and become the conqueror of the king of terrors. Finally, to one and to all, we bring good news. In the effects of his wonderful incarnation, you are all interested-of the

fruits of his death, you are all invited to partake. Because he became man, you may become kings and priests unto God. You may, however, neglect the offer-refuse the message turn a deaf ear to tidings that made all heaven glad; the time will come when this strange indifference will be over. "Pleasure will fold her wing, and friend and lover shall to the embraces of the worm have gone." The moment you enter eternity, how changed the scene. The love of Christ, the infinite felicity of being saved, the unspeakable misery of being lost, will occupy the vast capacities of the immortal soul.

THE HOPE OF THE NATION.

Preached in Houston, Dec. 16, 1864, by request of President Davis.

"For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted."-Isaiah 60:12. Nations exist only in this life. Hence, they receive all their rewards and all their punishments here. And they are rewarded or punished in proportion to the degree in which they obey or transgress the laws of Heaven. It is a truth susceptible of the clearest moral demonstration that righteousness exalteth a nation as well as an individual, and that "Godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come." If the Gospel were permitted to exert its proper influence upon the kingdoms of the world, the highest degree of temporal happiness and prosperity would be the sure result. Civil liberty is perched upon the standard of the Cross, and will visit every land where that standard is unfurled. In the religion of the Bible we have an unfailing antidote against all those moral maladies which in past ages have brought ruin on nations. The Gospel proposes to change the hearts of men-to soften their tempers-to impart a holy direction to the governing purposes of the soul-thus leading men to be moral and virtuous from principle; not from constraint, but from choice-not from the dread of temporal punishments, but from a cheerful preference. The Gospel is opposed to ambition, the bane of empires. It forbids

revenge, the usual cause of national conflicts. It condemns avarice, the prolific parent of oppression, dishonesty, and fraud. It denounces idleness, and declares that "if a man will not work, neither shall he eat." It imposes a solemn restriction on the animal appetites, "teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world," thus cutting off ten thousand avenues to misery, violence, and blood. The Gospel inculcates the fear of an invisible but omnipotent Jehovah, and thus leads men to be virtuous in secret-to reverence the obligation of oaths, upon the observance of which property, reputation, and life so frequently depend. It likewise teaches us to love our country-to defend our rights-to obey magistrates-to pity and help the poor. It elevates the female sex, and gives woman her proper rank in the social state. It proclaims the original equality of the human race, and thus frowns upon the arrogant claims of kings-the divine right of the few to rule the many, of the strong to oppress the weak.

Are such some of the pure and elevating principles of our holy religion, all must at once perceive that their belief and practice would exalt the nations of the earth, and make them great, glorious, and free. And therefore, must not every community in which these principles are unknown be poor and abject-a prey to misrule and faction, and, in its gradual but sure decline, soon exhibit a melancholy illustration of the truth of the text, that "the nation and kingdom that will not serve God shall perish; yea those nations shall be utterly wasted?"

But if it be true that the belief and practice of the precepts of the Gospel can alone make nations great, the remark applies with most peculiar force to a country like ours. Here the people govern themselves.

All

authority and all power emanates from them. Hence if the people be not enlightened and virtuous, our experiment of self-government must assuredly fail. If the fountain be impure, the streams will be polluted, and will form a river of death, which will desolate and curse our fair inheritance. The waves of our unquiet sea will rise and swell as high as our mountains, and shipwreck the hopes of patriots and the world. For who, then, can rally the nation and roll back the burning tide? Who then can guide the bark of liberty, amid the raging and the roaring of such a sea of fire?

It is idle to say that the enforcement of our wise and equitable laws will, without the moral power of the Gospel, ensure our continued prosperity. How can laws bind the heart and purify the motives? How can laws repress selfishness, or curb ambition, or eradicate voluptuousness and pride? The worst enemies to civil liberty are offenses which human laws can never reach. Human laws are restricted to the government of external actions, and only such actions as are grossly wrong, and which can be proved by competent witnesses; while the great mainsprings of vice and corruption, lying deep within the soul, remain unreached and unchecked. There must then be a profound reverence for Almighty God resting upon the spirit-an inward love of virtuea solemn regard to the retributions of eternity, or crime and passion will rage in defiance of all law. The streams of corruption, originating in the recesses of the unsanctified heart, will rise and swell until they burst through every barrier, and our glory and our country will sink down amid the vortex of revolutions. Nations are like volcanoes; they contain within their own bowels the seeds of ruin; and if God takes off his hand they will explode, scattering far and wide the fragments of their greatness. "Manners," says Chatham, "have