keeps unbroken snbbath; "from a ''frozen tempest of black, weather-worn, rugged mountain peaks,'' the Hebrew Church went forth to witness for God. Nowhere, perhn.pR, under the whole heaven is there 11, more arid and rugged and desolate and uninhabitable land. Yet God chose it to be the school and training-·ground of His Church. 2. The Christian Church was ca8t in the clay. Not in Greece, amid the schools of philosophy, not in Rome, among senates, and armies, and subject kings, but in Palestine, a despised corner of the empire, among Jews, who were h!l.ted of all men. And in what part of Palestine ? Not in J orusalem, among the scribes and doctors, but in the provinces, in "Galilee of the Goim." The question was often asked, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? (John i. 46.) The answer was ofLcn given," Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet" (John vii. 52). Surely this was clay ground. Yet there it pleased God to found the Holy Catholic Church, And this, which is true of the Chm·ch, is equally true of its vessels. For- 3. The lawgivers and prophets of the Jewish Church were shaprd in the clay. Moses, it is true, was bred in the cow-t, but he was not prepared there for his work. No, it was necessary for him to leave the com·t in order to become a "vessel meet for the Master's use." It was in this same dese1-t of Sinai, amitl the Bedouin, while kee1Jing an Arab's flock, and leading a nomadic life, after forty years of soli- tude, that God appeared unto him. The lawgiver himself came from the clay. So did Elijah, the restorer of the law. He was a Gileadite. It was a wild, un- settled, semi-civilized, trans-J ordanic region gave- to the wol"ld the greatest of the prophets. And he too must go into the desert, and must be trained for his work at Horeb-the "dry ground" (1 Kings xix. 8). And the same remark applies to nearly all the prophets, judges, &c. Occasionally we have a Jeremiah, the son of a high priest (J er. i. 1), or a Daniel of the royal seed (Dan. i. 3), but more fre- quently a herdman, a gatherer of sycamore fruit (Amos vii. 14; 1 Kings :xix. 19), or a captive by the river Chebar (Ezek. i. 3), rises up to speak for God. 4. The apostles and preachers of Chriotianity were fashioned and prepared in clay ground. (1) The founder of Christianity was well called a "root out of a drl.J ground " (Isa. liii. 2). "Is not this the carpenter's son?" (Matt. xiii. 55). "Jesus of N aza.reth, the son of Joseph" (John i. 45). "How knoweth this man letters, harag never learned?" (ib. vii. 15.) (2) The apostles, too, came from the :fisher- man's boat at Bethsaida(John i. 44), and from the receipt of custom (Matt. ix. !l) in Capernaum. Only one out of the entire college had studied in the schools (Acts xxii. 3). They were justly described as "ignorant and unlearned men" (ib. iv. 13). (3) And the same may be said of nearly all the early Christians and confessors. It was a most unpromising and unlikely soil in which the Church first took root. "Publicans and sinners." M. Renan has given a graphic description of the early Christians of Rome-a "longshore population," sleeping on the straw, "clad in mn.lodorous stable slops," "smelling of garlic," "with fetid breath like that of ill-fed people," &c. It is not improbable that the bulk of the early Christians were men of this sort, tentmakers like Aquila., slaves like Onesimus, gaolers like him of Philippi, soldiers like those of Ciesar's household. And eighteen centuries have only served to establish more :firmly the truth that "not many mighty," &c. It is curious and suggestive that so many of the saints of the Roman calendar are said to have been of noble birth. It is easy thus to glorify dead so,ints, but if, with Chateaubriand, we ask to see living ones, we frequently find them in the homes of the poor, and almost invariably amid cares, worries, temptations, hindro,nces, per- secutions of every kind. The saints are still fashioned in the clay. II. But let us now assume tlrnt this foundry of the Jordan valley was not a bed of natural clay, but that the soil had been prepo,red by stamping. We shall find that both (1) the Churches and (2) the messengers of the Churches have been pre- pared "in the thickness of the ground," under the heel of persecution and oppres- sion. And first of the Chtwrchea. 1. The Jewish Church came out of the house of b<mdage. " Out of the iron 1urnace" (Dent. iv. 20; 1 Kings viii. 51: cf. Exod. v.) "Dealt subtilly with our Kindred, and evil entreated our fathers" (Acts vii. 19). It was among the brick- Cll, Vil, 1-51.] THE FIRST BOOK OF KINUS. 143
fields-the thick Nile mud-of Egypt, and their hardships and oppressions, that Gcd disciplined and prepared His people. 2. The Ohristia;n Ohwrch has come out of great tribulation. Its history begins with a shameful cruci.fixion,and it is a history written in blood, a history of" stripes" (Acts xvi. 23; 2 Cor. vi. o), beatings (Acts v. 40), stonings (ib. vii. 59; xiv. 19), the sword (ib. xii. 2), "great persecution" (ib. viii. 1), and the like. Nero, Decius, Aurelian, Diocletian-what trngedies are connected with these names! Yet" the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the Church," and in-the reign of Con- stantine the empire awoke to find itself Christian. Persecution only evolved progress (Phil. i. 12, 13). And what is true of the pillars is also true of the vessels. For- .3. The heroes of the Jewish Chwrch passed through fire and sword. l\Ioses must flee his country, must learn obedience by the things which he suffered. Elijah-'-they sought his life (1 Kings xix.10). Jezebel sought to slay the prophets of the Lord. Daniel is cast into the lions' den; the Hebrew children into the fire; Jeremiah into the ntlre and clay (Jer. xxxviii. 6). Isaiah is sawn asunder (Heb. xi. 37). Zechariah is slain between the temple and the altar, &c. See Heb. xi. 34-38. What evidences of stamping are here I Surely the ground bears the marks of a struggle I 4. The saints of the new dispensation h(111Je been made perfect through suffering. For St. Paul, see 2 Cor. xi. 23-33, and remember that this list only extends, at the lates·t, to A.D. 58. That "chosen vessel" was first showed" what great things he must suffer" (Acts ix. 16). For the early Christians see Rev. ii. 10. 13; vi. 10; vii.14, &c.; 1 Cor. iv. 13; 2 Cor. vi. 5-10. Polycarp, Augustine, Cyprian, Chrysostom- the time would fail me to tell of those bright vessels of grace, some in the dark ages, 6ome in our own time, who were prepared for the ministry and the inherit- ance of the saints in "the thickness of the ground,'' and who, " after they had suf- fered a.while,'' were made _perfect.