this privilege, and the right to say: When I see I shall believe, Jesus said to Thomas: Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed! that is to say, their faith is better still than thine, and their recompense will be better than thy recompense. What wisdom and equity in these words! What a just division established between the cotemporaries of Jesus on the one part, and on the other, the believers who preceded him upon the earth, and we who come after him! What justice is this, which weighs thus the faith of the entire world in its balance, forgets not to place in the line of the account the difficulties or facilities that one finds in believing, measures the success by the efforts it costs, and approves in proportion to what it has been necessary to do in order to be approved.

*

See, then, how senseless are the regrets and murmurs that one sometimes hears in regard to the eighteen centuries elapsed since the gospel. We have come too late into the world, say these imprudent Christians, and if we had seen Jesus Christ, we should know him better. Ah! how many of these rash men would then have seen only the son of Mary? How many, perhaps, would have taken him for a Samaritan, an impostor, a rebel? How many, the day after the resurrection, would have said: If I do not see the wounds of the crucified, I will not believe? and Christ would have replied to them as to Thomas: Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed! This one expression re-establishes the equilibrium between the cotemporaries of Christ, and ourselves, and all the generations of the earth; this one phrase recognizes to each his rights, assigns to each his hopes-it proves that salvation is open to all, and that no one is forgotten in the mercies of the Lord. * * Patriarchs and prophets, illustrious examples of the world, you who believed your. selves to be only strangers and sojourners upon the earth, you who hailed from afar the day of the Lord, trembling with joy, blessed are you, for you have not seen, and yet you have believed. People of all places, generations of all ages, to you also salvation is offered, and your faith may attend without uneasiness the moment to be changed to sight. Let us adore, O my brethren, these boundless. mercies where we have each our part. Let us be persuaded that our faith is as acceptable to the Lord as that of any of his children. Let us be persuaded, that, in grace as in Providence, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day; let us not look behind, but advance toward the end which is proposed to us; let us keep the faith in a pure conscience, and walking with a firm step amid that which is but show, content with the assurances which are given to us; we shall prefer to these marks of the cross, to these signs of suffering and death, even to the open tomb near which the remembrances of this day reunite all believers, the glorious vision of Stephen, who saw the heavens opened, and the Son of man at the right hand of God; and from the depth of our hearts will arise this unanimous adoration: My Lord and my God!

** * *

"It would be impossible," says Dr. Baird, "to name in France a Protestant family more truly or more justly esteemed for its virtues, or for the number of its eminently useful members, than that of the Monods." The father was a sincere and honest Christian minister, and conscientiously desirous of doing his duty, as far as he knew it. He was a native of Geneva, where he received his education. When he entered the ministry, which was before the first Revolution of France, he could only find a place for laboring in French Switzerland, or in the French chapels of Germany and other foreign lands. He went to Copenhagen, and there preached to a small French congregation for many years. While occupying that position, he had it in his power to minister to the wants of not a few Frenchmen, whom the 'Reign of Terror" in France drove from that land. Among them was Louis Philippe, son of the infamous Duke of Orleans (or Prince Egalité, as he chose to be called), who for a while figured in that bloody drama. This was not forgotten by that distinguished exile, when, nearly forty years afterward, he became King of France. As Mr. Monod was called to occupy a post in the Reformed Protestant churches of Paris, which were opened by the orders of the great Napoleon, he left the Danish capital and took up his abode in that of France, and was for many years before his death (which occurred, we believe, in 1836) president of the Consistory of those churches.

"

Eight sons survived the father's death, four of whom were ministers: Dr. Adolphe (now deceased), and Reverends Frederic, William, and Horace. Of the other four, Henry and Edward are merchants in Hânse, distinguished for their intelligence and probity, and both members of an evangelical church; one (Gustavus) is a highlyesteemed and useful physician in Paris; and another still (Valdimir) is a banker or broker in the same city. There are also three sisters, one of whom is married to a Protestant minister.

The Rev. William Monod is older than was Dr. Adolphe, though younger than his brother Frederic. He was, more than twenty years ago, pastor of a Protestant church in St. Quintin in the north of France. His health failing, he resided some time in France, and was afterward a minister in the Canton de Vaud, in Switzerland, and more recently in Algiers and Rouen. Since the death of his brother Adolphe, he has been pastor, in Paris, of the National church, where he has taken the place of Dr. Grandpierre, which was vacated by his being chosen the successor of Dr. Adolphe Monod.

He is an excellent man, of a truly evangelical and devoted spirit, and a strong preacher.

Says the Rev. Dr. Stevens, in his European correspondence: "Rev. William Monod reminds me of Channing. He looks feeble, and yet intellectually strong and elevated, as did Channing; and there is a striking similarity of feature, especially of forehead, though none of opinion, between them. He is, withal, a man of similar benignity-mild, amiable, tenderly courteous in his manners. No man here has made a deeper impression on my own heart. He is the great man among the great men of the Monod family, to whom French Protestantism is so much indebted. He has a thrilling eloquence; and the most powerful speech delivered at the convention came spontaneously from his lips in an appeal to French Protestants to have more faith in the signs of the times for their cause. He, too, has stood through troublous times; he is now the chief representative of Protestantism in old Normandy."

The sermon which we have translated for this work will increase his reputation on this side of the Atlantic. It bears the marks of great originality and mental power. Some of its passages, for strength of expression, are rarely equaled. It was published several years ago in pamphlet form, and is kindly furnished us by M. Edoir Stapfer, of New York city, himself a relative of the Monod family. The title of the pamphlet, in the original, is, "Le Procés de l'Eternel avec son Peuple."

GOD'S CONTROVERSY WITH HIS PEOPLE.

"For the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel: 0, my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam."-MICAH, vi. 2-4

WHAT is this controversy between God and his people; and what is this plea which the Almighty uses? It is not a controversy which God has begun with Israel, but, rather, a controversy which Israel has begun with God. It is a plea in justification, offered by the Almighty, who regards himself as accused by his people. It is man who is the plaintiff in this astonishing process; and it is God who appears as the defendant to argue in his own behalf.

Israel has, thus far, said nothing; and we are at a loss, at first, to understand how God should regard himself as the accused. Israel has complained neither of the severity of his laws, nor of the severity of his judgments. But God has perceived in the conduct of his people something equivalent to a formal accusation-something proving that, while they honored him with their lips and their sacrifices, they had, no sincerity, and they regarded his service as grievous and fatiguing.

For this reason, God thus begins his plea: "What have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me." He summons Israel to an explanation; he bids the people to show what he has done to merit their ill treatment, and wherein his service is wearisome to them. He summons them, not as the sovereign judge of the universe,

but as a friend who complains of the coldness of one still cherished—as a husband who complains of a wife to whom he is devoted, and upon whom he does not cease to bestow the most tender names. He speaks as with a consciousness of his innocence, and as if determined to do all in his power, not to triumph over his accusers, but to conciliate them, avoiding all that can wound them, and reminding them of none of their wickedness, except with evident regret that he is compelled to do it. In pleading against them, he does not fail to call them his people: "O, my people, what have I done unto thee; and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me."

The expression used by God in the writings of the prophet, and which is translated by these words: "Testify against me," is a plain invitation. to his people to bring forward complaints against him. And what will they do? The field is open to them. God has allowed them to justify themselves in accusing him, and expressing in words what they have expressed in deeds. They may show all the stripes with which he has smitten them; all the evils with which they were suffering, even at the moment when he was addressing them; they may bring forward their objections to his commandments and to his word; but they do nothingthey show nothing-they object to nothing-they say nothing. Why this silence? Why this speechlessness on the part of a murmuring people, when God himself, thus to speak, had invited them to murmur? Might it be that the love with which their God had addressed them could not fail to confound them, and to make them feel that it would be folly to pretend to prove him to be their enemy? Might it not be that their conscience warned them, that in each particular in which they might accuse the Almighty, he would be able to accuse them, and, likewise, to justify every stripe which he had laid upon them by iniquities as numerous as these stripes, and fully deserving of them? Man does not cease to murmur against God, as did Job in the midst of his griefs; like him, man could wish to be able to reason with, and utter his complaints before God; but if God should suddenly appear, and say to him, as he did to Job: "Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me," he would, like Job, fear to open his mouth. Such, indeed, was the meaning of Israel's silence.

God, then, undertakes to answer for the people. He enumerates the evils which he has brought upon them, and shows in what manner he has wearied them. He wishes, as it were, to confess his crime, and thus proclaims it: "I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.”

Do you understand this language, my brethren? It signifies, that, from the first moment of his connection with the people of Israel, God made himself known to them as a God of love, and that the establishment of his alliance with them was a work of love; that he drew them

from servitude, and gave to them as leaders, not tyrants, but prophets full of gentleness, charged with guiding them toward the land of promise; that it was by this commencement, and by this work, that the people of Israel ought to judge their God; and that neither his word. nor his dispensation can contain any thing that does not proceed from this same love. This language signifies, in short, that God's benefits themselves have spoiled the people of Israel, and that his solicitude for their welfare has wearied them; they took advantage of his mercy toward them in Egypt, and thought that they might sin against him without fear; and the tender appeals of the messengers of God, who exhorted them to love and serve him, wearied them; and thus it was that they abandoned God and closed their ears to his prophets.

Need I tell you, my brethren, what application we have to make of these words of the Almighty? Has not each one of you repeated that application to himself, and anticipated the aim, and almost traced the plan of the discourse of which these words form the subject? The people are ourselves--are Christians in general; for the people of Israel have been, throughout all their history, a prophetic image of the Christian world, or of the Christian church. The plea of the Almighty is that of God manifest to us in Jesus Christ, who complains that we seem willing to fall out with him, as if we found fault with what he has done, and as if we were weary of his service. He summons us to specify our complaints, and wishes to justify himself against us. This is the justification which I am about to pronounce in the name of God. I shall plead his cause. I shall plead as he has done, not to triumph over you, but to convince you of his love, and to gain your love by his love. There will be, however, a difference between my plea and his. I shall re-establish what he has suppressed; I shall recapitulate the works by which we have, as it were, accused him, and proved that we regard the Almighty as a grievous master, and his service as a burden. If God has suppressed this part of his plea, it is to leave it to our conscience to re-establish it.

O God, who contendest not with man, although man contends so often with thee, or who contendest with him in order to bring him to thyself; O God the Saviour, justify thyself in presence of thy sinful creatures, and gain thy cause in saving them! Amen.

I. The first point upon which Christians have made a controversy with God, is his worship.

And what is the worship of God—I mean the worship established by his word? It is not difficult to answer this question under the old dispensation, that under which God called to his knowledge the Israelites alone; for God had taken care to explain to them the worship which they ought to render to him, even in the minutest details. He himself had traced the plan of the tabernacle, and subsequently of the temple, where he wished to be publicly adored; he had determined the form of