be displayed all the
outward changes of nations, the spread of discovery, the vicissitudes of
conquest; and yet more, the inward changes of men's minds, the various
schools of philosophy, the successive forms of public opinion, the
influences of various races, all the manifold elements by which the
moral character of the Christian world has been affected. We might
observe how the Church had escaped all these things, or to what degree
it had received from any of them good or evil. And then, stopping at
the point at which it has actually arrived, we might consider how far it
deserves the character of that Church, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing," which should be presented before the Son of Man at his
coming again.

This would be a great subject; and one, if worthily executed, full of
the deepest instruction to us all. But our Lord's words may also be made
the text for a history or inquiry of another sort, far less
comprehensive in time and space, far less grand, far less interesting to
the understanding; yet, on the other hand, capable of being wrought out
far more completely, and far more interesting to the spiritual and
eternal welfare of each of us. They may be made the text for an inquiry
into the course hitherto held, not by the Church as a body, but by each
of us individual members of it; an inquiry how far we, each of us, have
watched and prayed always, that we might be accounted worthy to escape
all the things which should come to pass, and to stand before the Son of
Man. And, in this view of the words, the expression "all these things
which shall come to pass" has reference no longer to great political
revolutions, nor to schools of philosophy, nor to prominent points of
national character; but to those humbler events, to those lesser
changes, outward and inward, through which we each, pass between our
cradle and our grave. How have we escaped these, or turned them to good
account? Have earthly things so ministered to our eternal welfare, that
if we were each one of us, by a stroke from heaven, cut off at that very
point in our course to which we have severally attained this day, we
should be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of Man?

Here is, indeed, a very humble history for us each to study; yet what
other history can concern us so nearly? And as, in the history of the
world, experience in part supplies the place of prophecy, and the fate
of one nation is in a manner a mirror to another,