when they were the only leaders that could have led to victory. Some have split on the fatal rock—love of gain; others are insnared by the deceitful, nattering word, "respectability." This above all others seems to be the hobby; nor is it confined to the Established Church: they as a body are so well paid and honored, that they have less need to keep up a struggle respecting the name, as most of them (the curates excepted) can and do hang out the indisputable sign—a carriage, and its accompaniments; and if the character of such an one be inquired after, however he may live, and how far removed from the vital principles of the gospel he may be, if not among the vilest, "Oh! he is very respectable; if you should see his gardens, and grounds, and carriage, and then his glebe-house, and his wife and daughters—they're the ladies." The dissenting classes, who profess by their very dissenting, that they believe more fully that the regenerating spirit of the gospel calls for newness of life, and nonconformity to the world; yet to induce the world to follow them, to become members of their body, they must throw out the bait of "respectability," to keep up an influence which conformity to the world alone can do; that part of the legacy which Christ left, they acknowledge is a good one when applied to real martyrdom. When the disciples were told that if they hated me, they will hate you also, and that they must "rejoice and be exceeding glad," when all manner of evil should be said of them, for his sake; but for disciples in the nineteenth century the constitution of things is changed,
