one of the evidences of the favor of God. The Catholics
accuse the Protestants, of not only giving birth to rationalism, in
their desire to extend liberality of mind, but of fostering a material
life in their ambition to be outwardly prosperous. I make no comment on
this fact; I only state it, for everybody knows the accusation to be
true, and most people rejoice in it. One of the chief arguments I used
to hear for the observance of public worship was, that it would raise
the value of property and improve the temporal condition of the
worshippers,--so that temporal thrift was made to be indissolubly
connected with public worship. "Go to church, and you will thrive in
business. Become a Sabbath-school teacher, and you will gain social
position." Such arguments logically grow out from linking the kingdom of
heaven with success in life, and worldly prosperity with the outward
performance of religious duties,--all of which may be true, and
certainly marks Protestantism, but is somewhat different from the ideas
of the Church eighteen hundred years ago. But those were unenlightened
times, when men said, "How hardly shall they who have riches enter into
the kingdom of God."

I pass now to consider the services which Ambrose rendered to the
Church, and which have given him a name in history.

One of these was the zealous conservation of the truths he received on
authority. To guard the purity of the faith was one of the most
important functions of a primitive bishop. The last thing the Church
would tolerate in one of her overseers was a Gallio in religion. She
scorned those philosophical dignitaries who would sit in the seats of
Moses and Paul, and use the speculations of the Greeks to build up the
orthodox faith. The last thing which a primitive bishop thought of was
to advance against Goliath, not with the sling of David, but with the
weapons of Pagan Grecian schools. It was incumbent on the watchman who
stood on the walls of Zion, to see that no suspicious enemy entered her
hallowed gates. The Church gave to him that trust, and reposed in his
fidelity. Now Ambrose was not a great scholar, nor a subtle theologian.
Nor was he dexterous in the use of dialectical weapons, like Athanasius,
Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas. But he was sufficiently intelligent to
know what the authorities declared to be orthodox. He knew that the
fashionable speculations about the Trinity were not the doctrines of
Paul. He knew that self-expiation was