There is a word of "faint praise" or direct blame for all to whom they are nearest, and whom they are bound by every principle of honour to defend and sustain. What insufferable meanness all this implies. How one longs, if it were orthodox, to kick such persons out of our sight. How the sentiment starts involuntarily to our lips respecting them

“But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,

Save, save, oh save me from the candid friend."

They make us pay for their friendship by scarification, by a hot blister, or by a wet blanket, applied as in their judgment may be most suitable to our case. A word of cordial appreciation, of genuine sympathy and honest commendation, they rarely or never utter. They arraign us evermore; charge us continually with shortcoming or defect of some kind; criticize all our doings; make us feel extremely small even when we have done our very best; and we slink away from them from time to time conscious, or at least afraid, that we have broken all the Ten Commandments, and are unworthy even of "the crumbs" of comfort which poor human nature sorely needs to cheer and help it in its terrible battle with the realities of life.

To the robust and cheerful this produces little harm; for they can "take joyfully the spoiling of their goods," laugh at the impertinence of their persecutors, and go on their way, making good their foothold and defying detraction. But to timid and shrinking natures it is ruinous-it is death. They naturally undervalue themselves. It would be difficult, even with all the generous encouragement we can give them, to make them feel self-reliance or self-confidence. They feel that they seldom do anything right, let them try to do it never so well; and it only needs a "candid friend" to ruin them for ever; to drive every element of force out of their nature, and to settle them for life into a moody, listless, melancholy, which unfits them for every noble aim and for all persistent effort. Many a child has been so ruined by harsh and unsympathetic parents; many a minister has been so ruined by ill-timed and ill-tempered criticism; and those who "have a mission," and feel a pleasure in hackling the flesh off our bones, and crushing the soul out of our bodies, by a course of conduct such as we have described, had better look out, for they will have much to answer for in the great day of accounts.

We are about to notice a spirit of a widely different stamp; a character of heaven-born excellence, in the presence of which one's soul glows with human sympathy, with noble patriotism, and with brotherly loyalty.

"FOR MY BRETHREN AND COMPANIONS' SAKES, I will now say, Peace be within thee" (Ps. cxxii. 8).

None but a hero, none but a warm-hearted generous soul, could have said this; yet, in saying this, he said no more than we all ought to say. There is nothing romantic in the sentiment; nothing that passes beyond the limits which reason and undeniable obligation prescribe to us in our sympathy and co-operation with our companions and brethren. We have many obligations of an abstract character which it is our duty to fulfil, and which it would be our duty to fulfil if there were not another human being in the world but ourselves. It is our duty to love and serve God if no one helped us in that service, or even knew that such a service existed. It is our duty to exercise our minds in spiritual things, although only we and our heavenly Father were parties to the obligation. Thought is abstract, volition is abstract, and in this sense every man has in him and sensibly feels the forces of a hidden world of passion and conviction which daily sway him in the direction of good or evil.

But our whole being is not inward or abstract; the larger part of our time and of our thoughts and affections are spent, and must be so, upon what is social and relative. We cannot move in life except in companionship. If we refuse the alliances with others which nature and our own necessities have decreed, we shall be borne along by the social current whether we will or no. "No man liveth to himself." No man can live to himself. We need help and we owe it. We are individually parts of the social machine. Our first gaze in infancy is upon "companions and brethren." Our first wants are supplied by them. All the tenderness and care required in our childhood—all the education and training of after years, come from the same source. Society makes a very large investment of money, time, and affection in us before we are able to render any return; and when that return comes, how imperfect and halting it often is. In some it never comes at all. Sickness disqualifies them; but oftener an indolent, impracticable, and useless habit of mind. These have to be carried on other shoulders as long as they live. They become crosses to be borne by those who have a right to demand their aid, all through life's jour ney; and the saying of an old divine is, alas! too true, that most of us have to become like a saddled horse, to carry ourselves and a rider besides.

In our religious life it is the same. So soon as we are born again we are born into a family. The social relation is established from the very first dawn of our spiritual existence. Union with the Church is not only naturally sought, but becomes at once a necessity of our spiritual being. And for us here, as in the relations of social life, a complete system of means has been provided to our hands for the support and development of that new life we have to live. Ministers, ordinances, sanctuaries in which to worship-missions, schools, and various other appliances are all provided for us, and our

Christian relation becomes from the first a relation of companionship and brotherhood.

Are we introduced into that brotherhood without stipulations, and free to do in it and with it as we please? In human society force is employed to compel an observance of our real or implied obligations. In our spiritual relations all is left to a sense of honour and the force of love. The sword of the magistrate comes into play in the former case, whenever we rebel against established law; although even this cannot reach every case of delinquency, or deal effectually with those it does reach. It cannot coerce the heart. It does not prevent or punish our secret sins. A man may be as foul as sin can make him, yet if he abide within the limits of outward law, he can conduct a business and move in society without hindrance. Many such men have been counted respectable, and when they have died society has shouted their praises. But in our spiritual life there is no outward coercion. What a man is here he is voluntarily. The magistrate is not chairman or assessor of church-meetings, and if holiness of life and honest hearty co-operation with our "companions and brethren" cannot be secured by honour and love, they cannot be secured at all. What the heart does not yield neither Christ nor his people can accept.

Hence the value of a principle of action such as the Psalmist enunciates. He was under a law to God, but he was under law to his "brethren and companions" also. He said of Jerusalem, "Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good." But he also said, and he said it first, "For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee." Even when his sense of duty to God moves him, he does not say because of the house of the Lord my God, but our God. The idea of brotherhood and companionship was present to his mind, when at the same moment he felt the obligations of duty to his God. He served his God, but he served him with his brethren and companions.

case.

Now let us see what applications this sentiment admits of in our

1. Take it into the Church.

No church on earth is perfect, but whatever church we belong to it should be the best on earth to us. If we do not belong to the church from an intelligent conviction that, on the whole, it is the best we can find the best at least to us-our position in it must be precarious. A relation established by accident, or whim, or animosity to others—or even convenience, does not rest upon a sufficiently firm foundation to last. We should all be able to account for our spiritual position, and having accounted for it, we should stand by it. It is very true that young persons are often induced to join a church because their first good impressions were implanted in it, or because

their parents are members of it; while at the same time they have given no particular thought to the question of church government, or why one church is to be preferred to another. To these and to others there may come searchings of heart, and a change of conviction or feeling, which may result, and not always unreasonably, in a change of church relations. But this in no way interferes with our duty to our existing relations. While we remain as we are, and where we are, we should "be loyal to our friends." We should not dishearten them by our isolation from their activities; by our coldness or hostility in the execution of their general aims; by making our association with them a means of underinining their attachment to what they deem to be the truth, or of hindrance to the accomplishment of their designs. For instance, the ministry of the church we belong to should be held up before our families and the world as sharing in our affection and esteem. The schemes of that church, whether literary, missionary, or educational, should be generously sustained and promoted. There should be no crying down, but a crying up, of our own people, our own church, and our own enterprises, whatever either charity or generosity may prompt us to do as regards others. Is it right to see, as we have sometimes seen, advertisements of the publications of other churches or organizations hung up in our schoolrooms, and those of our own church banished? Is it right to make depreciatory remarks respecting these latter, while we laud to the skies the former? What if there is a slight difference in the price in favour of outside publications-owing to an enormous circulation— or to the fact that some of them are sustained, in part, by a direct subsidy in the shape of public subscriptions-shall they take the place of our own on that account? Are not our own intrinsically as good as can be found? Are we not all working as hard as we can, and as economically, to push on the work in all its relations? Cannot we all work cheaper with larger sales and extended patronage and more hearty co-operation? Is it not in human nature to do its very best when it is cheered on by sympathetic words and smiles; and is it not in human nature to do its worst under opposite influences? Come, brother, let us have your heart and hand. Give over grumbling. Come and help us. Come and mend us if we need it. Come and show the noble, generous, manly sentiment of the Psalmist: "For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee."

Some will say all this tends to bigotry. All this is out of harmony with the spirit of the age, which is a spirit of compromise and comprehension. We have buried bigotry, and all the churches were at the funeral and rejoiced in its entombment! may be so, but bigotry is not dead or buried yet. there are worse things in the world than a little bigotry.

Ah, well, that And, moreover, Bigotry in its

bitterness we hope is dead; but bigotry in its preferences still survives, and we, for our part, hope it will survive as long as we live, and a little longer. A "broad" church, as we have seen, heard, and read of it, does not appear to be much of a church at all. What it teaches is not easy to define, except that it is right to receive the pay whatever we may teach. That is about all its creed; and we confess we would rather have a little staunch bigotry and sectarianism than this; we would rather have loyalty to our "brethren and companions," to whom we all owe so much, from whom we have all received so much, and who are looking on and looking up to their common brotherhood for sympathy, help, and a cordial, lasting, and successful co-operation. "Companions in arms!" companions in labour, in suffering, in crossbearing companions in life's rough way to eternal rest, peace and strength be unto you and to the whole Israel of God!

2. Take the sentiment into the Ministry.

Of all men in the world ministers have need to pray for largeheartedness, noble-mindedness, and a freedom from all mean rivalries. Their relations are so intimate, their influence so great, and their hearty co-operation so essential to the best interests of the Church, that there can be no greater misfortune to the Church than detraction and small rivalries among them. Especially is this the case in the mode of working the Methodist system. There are often two or more ministers in the same circuit, each having his own gifts-and those gifts widely diverse from the rest. How hard it is for any of us to be eclipsed; yet we sometimes have to be. We have sometimes to live in a borrowed glory, and to feel that we are patronized. Our brother attracts crowds, we, only the discerning few. Our brother is popular, born to be so, has the knack of becoming so, studies human nature, the "philosophy of rhetoric," and we know not how many philosophies besides, and he rises and shines, and everybody applauds. While all this is going on we walk and work in his sublime shadow, and we may feel tempted to run him down as we have opportunity, and, at all events, we can easily glide into the assertion that "it is not all gold that glitters." On the other hand, the brother of weaker powers may be undervalued by the stronger, and thus alienation and ill-will may be engendered, which will hinder the work of God and disturb our cordial relations as brethren. For all this the Psalmist's disposition and sentimentswould be a remedy. Weak or strong, highly or less highly gifted as we may be, " we be brethren" and companions. We have a work to do in common, and because we are brethren and companions we are bound to comfort and sustain each other; to hold each other up before the Church and the world; to avoid all detraction, all unkind and depreciatory criticism; for we should remember the question, "What hast thou that thou hast not received ?"