the Christianisation of the nation, or to a renewed nationalisation of Christianity.

Upon each one of these three stages of its primitive development and organic progress Christianity was opposed, in succession, by the fierce onslaught and obstinate resistance of one of the following mortal enemies: the Jews, the Romans, and the Mussulmans. Jewish fanaticism sought to strangle Christianity at its birth, by shedding the blood of Christ and His apostles. Roman heathenism and despotism persecuted the youthful Churches with imprisonment, tortures, and death. Asiatic Islamism, that mysterious compound of a fanatical faith and an iron tyranny, strove, with all its might, to cast Christianity from its political pinnacle and to rule the nations in its stead. These three historic adversaries of the Kingdom of God, widely as they differ amongst themselves, are yet inwardly united against Christianity by the same malicious spirit they breathe and the one impious aim they pursue.

But Jesus Christ being the sole Monarch, who is immortal, and whose kingdom is 'an everlasting kingdom,' every attempt to dethrone Him and to overthrow His kingdom cannot but fail, and eventually recoil with overwhelming force upon the guilty heads of the enemies themselves. The fanaticism of the Jews was unable to exterminate the Christian believers, and to prevent them from uniting into Churches: but their own commonwealth has ceased to exist for the last 1800 years. The sanguinary and protracted persecutions of the humble Christian communities, by the Heathenism of the Roman Empire, only gave rise to the remarkable saying, 'The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church;' and Pagan Rome herself became for centuries the capital of Christendom. Islamism so palpably failed in its gigantic attempts to dethrone and denationalise Christianity in the world and to supplant the Cross by the Crescent, that now the remaining Mussulman Governments exist only through the forbearance of the rulers and nations of Christendom. Past history teaches that, through the action of an overruling Providence, the ultimately winning Cause in the world is the Cause of Christ, and the inevitably losing Cause, that of all who fight against Him.

II.— Unbelieving Judaism diabolically opposed Christianity in its Personal Manifestation.

The age when Christianity first made its appearance in the world was one of grand and powerful Personalities. John the Baptist, who pointed to 'the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,' had none greater than himself among all them that were born of women before him (Matt. xi. II). St. Paul's master-mind directly reached and profoundly stirred the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin worlds. Each one of the twelve Apostles was a strongly marked representative character, whose type will still be seen impressed upon the Church in her future state of perfection and glory (Rev. xxi. 14). The great central figure of that age and, in fact, of all ages, at once the archetype of humanity and the historical realisation of the perfect man, Immanuel, the God-man —, stands out so boldly in unique excellence, that the very best of mankind can but distantly approach, never surpass or equal Him. In this wonderful Person, primarily, and in the strong Personalities attracted and ennobled by Him, secondarily, Christianity first took human form and earthly subsistence. The Kingdom of God had at last 'come nigh,' inviting men to enlist under its banner, and to acquire citizenship in it. The long-expected Saviour of man had become an historical reality, and discerning eyes could behold 'the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil' (I John iii. 8). Jesus testified to the Jews, 'If I, by the finger of God, cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you' (Luke xi. 20).

But the Kingdom of God is spiritual in its nature; and therefore spiritual faculties are required for its perception and apprehension. As the acutest intellect can, of itself, only imagine but not see a colour; and in order actually to see it, has needs to employ the physical organs of sight, so also the sharpest material eye cannot pierce through to the sphere of mind or see the Kingdom of God. To perceive and find it, kindred organs, appropriate spiritual faculties, are needed. The unenlightened Jewish spectators had no such faculties. For them the Kingdom of God had no visibility. The great Architect of God's Temple, who was actually standing be-