into a well-disciplined host, that virtue and patriotism may be filled with well-grounded alarm and aroused to that conflict which finds in union strength, and in patriotic valour, victory.

Association therefore becomes wisdom and power for evil or for good in proportion as it is the combination of the wisdom and power, the virtue or the vice, of many. And while in itself it is only an abstract principle, having no vitality or will, it be comes endued with marvellous potency, and generates even the principle of LIFE. Life depends not upon the existence of any individual particles or even of organic structures, but upon a body in which many such are organically united and fitly joined together by that which every joint supplieth, and the whole animated and controlled by one living spirit. And so it is not in any single separate member of a class of people that their social, civil, political, moral, or religious life is found, but in the association of that class in some form of organized and well-conducted union. Osiris, whatever we make this mythological character to represent, is dead and inoperative so long as his members lie scattered over the world, and becomes instinct with life and power only when these disjecta membra are reconstructed in one living body. A body may be organically perfect in every limb, joint, and muscle. The lungs may play and the heart beat. The eyes may see and the ear hear, and the hand grasp and the feet move.

And, while the mouth can receive and the stomach digest nourishing food, that body may live and move and have being. And yet it may be a paralyzed, feeble, halting, and imbecile body, incapable of any active, strenuous, energetic exertion, of any high, patriotic, or benevolent enterprise. But let those various organs receive the vitalizing, sustaining cooperation of all the myriad invisible nerves; let these, however silently and involuntarily, contribute each in their own minute locality their proportion of strength; and, by that association of parts and powers, a body otherwise feeble and inoperative becomes strong, and powerful, and capable of indomitable energy.

The power of any body, therefore, lies not in the combination of organs all equally strong, vigorous, and important. Some are and must be such. Some are and must be prominent :—the eye to see, the tongue to speak, the head to plan, the hands to execute, and the feet to convey and sustain. But these are not on this account more essential, though more observed and honoured. The lungs which play, the heart which beats, the nerves which feel and receive and give quick and lightning sensibility, are equally essential. And, in like manner, an association of men, to be strong, must combine rich and poor, humble and great, learned and ignorant, wise and simple, thinkers, labourers, soldiers to fight, sappers and miners to prepare the way and remove obsta

cles, those that "wait beside the stuff" and manage the internal concerns, and the poor wise man whose counsel on an emergency may save the city.

Thy servants militant below

Have each, O LORD, their post;

As thou appoint'st who best dost know
The soldiers of thine host:

Some in the van thou call'st to do

And the day's heat to share;
And in the rearward not a few

Thou only bidd'st to bear.

Blessed and most gracious encouragement to allin all times, ages, circumstances, and with whatever of strength, talent, means, or influence-to associate together in the Lord's service, under the Master's eye, and with the Master's promise that if there be only a willing mind it is accepted, "not according to what a man hath not, but according to what he hath," and to what he purposeth in his heart.

By no new path, untried before,
Thy servants dost Thou lead;
The selfsame promise as of yore
Supports the selfsame need:

The faith for which thy saints endured

The dungeon or the stake,

That very faith, with hearts assured,
Upon our lips we take.

Though scatter'd widely left and right,

And sent to various posts,

One is the battle that we fight

Beneath one LORD of hosts.

We know not, we shall never know,
Our fellow-labourers here;

But they that strive one strife below
-Shall in one joy appear.

They need, O LORD, thy special grace
That fight in this world's view,
But in the sick-room face to face
Is Satan vanquished too:
Both need the same protecting hand

To keep them undefiled,

And both shall in Thy presence stand,

The martyr and thy child!

But association not only concentrates knowledge, accumulates power, and creates social life; it awakens sympathy. As face answereth to face, so 'does the heart of man to man. It is instinct with sympathy. It responds with electric force to every impulse from kindred souls. Individually, man holds his opinions timidly, and ventures to act upon them cautiously and with doubting unbelief. But when they are embodied in a constitution, adopted by others, and represented in living acts, they receive a strength which is ever augmented by the play of sympathy in a community of associated efforts. Common principles, interests, employments, and enjoyments, are its very life-blood and impart at once vitality, energy, and sympathy to any society.

Association is, on all these accounts, the fountain of PLEASURE. It draws together. It inspires con

fidence. It gives play to all the social tendencies. of our nature. It entices a man out of his own solitary egotism, vanity, and pride; irradiates his gloom; sweetens his bitterness; cheers his solitude; dries his tears; inspires hope; kindles ambition and. rivalry to excel; and enlarges, ennobles, and elevates. by the full activity it provides for all the powers both. of mind and body.

But, to pass on from this very fruitful topic, I would only further remark that association secures PERMANENCE, STABILITY, and GROWTH. Life in one may wane, while it waxes strong in another.. Faith in one may be weak, while in another it is vigorous. Hope may shine tremblingly in one, and yet burn brightly in his neighbour. Health may fail in some, and yet increase and strengthen in the rest. Interest in the common object may lose its power over some, while others become ignited and rekindle the expiring fire. And thus, while existing members may perish, yet this takes place so gradually that THE ASSOCIATION may remain unchanged, or even strengthen and increase

ALL ASSOCIATION POWERFUL-CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION GLORIOUS.

As an ASSOCIATION, therefore, we cannot but regard this society as a body which commands our most lively and earnest attention to its PRINCIPLES