That which we are to overcome in the world is its evil-evil recommended by the example and authority of the great bulk of mankind. The world is often described as evil. The apostle Paul calls it "this present evil world;" it was our Lord's description of His followers, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world ;" and His prayer for them was, "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." The apostle James, too, in strong, stern language, says, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the

enemy of God.”

It may be freely admitted that the world with which we have to do is not so bad a world as that with which the early Christians had to contend. There was not a single institution, either civil or religious, at all in sympathy with the truth. "The whole world lay in the wicked one." Almost everywhere, abominable idolatries held their despotic sway over men's consciences and hearts; and where they did not, formalism and unbelief were largely predominant. Still, though not so bad a world as that, the world with which our contest lies is an evil world. There is evil in its pleasures; evil in many of the methods in which its business is done; and evil in its practical forgetfulness of God. There is temptation everywhere, and temptation for every variety of disposition, and for every stage of life. For one, there is sensuality; for another, covetousness; and for another, ambition; and there seldom fails to encounter a man the very evils which are most likely to effect a lodgment in his soul-just as those seeds which are borne about by the atmosphere find, somewhere or other, a congenial soil in which they may take root and grow. We must lay it down as a settled principle, that the world is an enemy whom we must overcome, or perish.

The only power by which we can expect to overcome is the power of faith. But it must be clearly understood, that it is not any kind of faith which can do this-not faith in ourselves-not even faith in God, as He is known apart from the gospel; but faith in God through Christ, or, which amounts to the same thing, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" Let us see, then, how this faith enables the Christian to prevail.

Faith in Christ reveals to us the true nature of the evil which exists in the world. It is only as the soul is enlightened by Christ, that it thoroughly realizes the fact that what is in the world is evil. Many things which Christ calls evil the world calls good; and we are only too ready to believe the world. But when a man comes with all his heart to Christ, it is as though the spell of the world's enchantments were broken, for its evil stands revealed in its true character. Sin is then

seen "to be exceeding sinful," and not only so, but to be fraught with the most awful peril. All this is seen to be illustrated in God's judgments-in the fall which desolated the primal Eden; in that deluge which destroyed the world of the ungodly; in that fiery tempest which was rained down from heaven on the cities of the plain; and, in short, in every recorded instance of the Divine displeasure against sin. Yet there is something unspeakably more impressive in the cross. was the Son of God who there suffered and died, and it was sin which rendered it necessary that He should undergo that deep humiliation; sin which wrung from Him His bloody sweat; sin which nailed Him to the cross; and sin which consigned Him to the regions of the dead. And what arguments can be more natural and conclusive, from the endurance of such sufferings by a Being at once so great and so sinless, than these-that sin is an indescribably awful thing, and that it is beyond measure desirable that it should be forsaken for ever?

Then, too, faith effects a complete revolution in the moral position and state of the soul. The sinner believes in Christ. Just look at the change which results from that one act. It is a complete revolution. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." All the sins he ever committed are forgiven. The God who was his enemy is now his reconciled Father, and the power which was arrayed against him is now pledged to secure his everlasting salvation. Instead of the black cloud which brooded over him, charged with the lightnings of Infinite wrath, he basks in the sunlight of God's gracious smile. All this, he feels, involves a claim on his gratitude-gratitude to the God who has pardoned him, and gratitude to that Saviour through whose sacrifice he is forgiven. As the heart glows with its newly-awakened thankfulness, the inquiry naturally arises, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me ?" That inquiry need not be long pursued, for it is felt that the best proof of gratitude is to do God's will; and nothing is more manifest than this, that it is His will that we depart from all iniquity, since "Christ gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world." But besides, there is a change in the soul itself-in all its purposes and affections. That which is dead floats down the stream; it is only that which lives that struggles with it. Now, faith in Christ gives life; and that life is, by its very nature, averse to sin. The stronger the faith, the more vigorous the life. The sympathy which once existed with evil is exchanged for a sympathy with that which is good; and that very sympathy with the good is itself a power of resistance against the evil. There is, on this account alone, just as much difference between the man as he now is and the man as he was before, as there is between the man who, with enfeebled health and exhausted energies, and with the seeds of some

prevalent epidemic sown in his frame, breathes a pestilential atmosphere, and another who walks amidst infection with firm and vigorous health. The pestilence may possibly seize on the healthy one, and cast him down to the earth; but the other has scarcely a chance of escape. The world may, in like manner, overcome the Christian, though that can be only through the decline of his faith; but how is it possible that he who has no faith should withstand its power?

Again, faith holds up to us the example and secures the grace of One who has overcome the world. The last words of that memorable discourse which our Lord addressed to His disciples before His death were these: "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." At the very outset of His ministry, he encountered the world and overcame it; for "Satan took Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and said unto Him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." But, undazzled by the prospect, and not deceived by the glozing lie, he replied, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." And His whole life was one continued conflict with the world. Temptations such as are common to every one of us assailed Him-temptations urged with all the craft of Satan himself; but He resisted all. He encountered the world's scorn, and braved it; the world's opposition, and He never suffered it to turn Him a single step from the path of onward duty; the world's persecution, and He endured it in the spirit of a true and faithful martyr. Looking back on all His conflict with the world, He could say, "I have been ever victorious. It has put forth its utmost might, and failed. Again and again has the prince of this world come, and found nothing in me." Now all that was intended as an example to us. We see in Christ how we are to contend with the world, and how like Him we may prevail. But whilst He thus overcame the world as our example, He overcame it for us in another and even a higher sense. His conflict with the world, consummated as it was by His death, gave Him the right to succour us; and, yet further, it gave Him that practical acquaintance with human sorrow and temptation, the benefit of which we experience in His perfect sympathy, and in the grace which He ever extends to those who are battling with the world. From the height of His throne He looks down upon us with an eye of tender compassion, and speaks such promises as these: "My grace is sufficient for thee;" "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation;""He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able:" and we can ever go to His footstool, even when most tried and wearied with the conflict, assured that we shall "obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." He overcame the world, that from the resources of Omnipotence itself He might give to us a strength by

which "the feeble can become like David, and David like an angel of the Lord."

Besides all this, faith unfolds to the soul the brightest visions of immortality. It sees Christ, enthroned on the great tribunal of the universe, dispensing crowns of everlasting life; it hears the plaudit which He is to pronounce in the presence of assembled worlds, "Well done, good and faithful servant;" it looks beyond, and there expands before its view a heaven so glorious that it is dazzled by its grandeur, but respecting which, it knows that there will fill the souls of all who reach it a blessedness alike unutterable and everlasting. The soul is thus nerved with the resolve to be and do whatever may issue in such a consummation, and secure its final entrance into the everlasting kingdom of its Lord; and it thus overcomes the world.

It is a noble catalogue of the achievements of faith which is recorded in the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is the inscription, written by the finger of inspiration itself, on a tablet of imperishable memorial, of the names of God's true heroes. It tells us how their faith nerved those old patriarchs to do their work, and endure their toils, and enter into their rest. Nothing can be more eloquent or spirit-stirring than the close of the chapter. It sounds through one's soul like a trumpet-blast of victory. And if, as it has been suggested by a thoughtful writer, the Holy Spirit were to continue the record, what names and deeds might be appended to the list! It was by faith that the apostle to the Gentiles separated himself from the associations of his youth and his bright prospects of earthly honour, and counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ; it was by faith that the early Christians took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and fought with wild beasts in the arena, and sought at once a shelter and a place where they might worship God in the catacombs beneath imperial Rome; and it was by faith that John Wycliffe, "the morning star of the English Reformation," maintained in the halls of Oxford and in his rectory at Lutterworth, his noble testimony to the truth. What but faith could have enabled Martin Luther to deal those blows at the Papal throne which shook it to its very foundations, and despoiled it of the fairest portions of its empire? The martyrs who shed their blood in Smithfield were men of faith; and our Puritan ancestors would never have won the victories they did, unless they had been mighty in faith. They toiled and suffered in faith; and they are now rejoicing in the consummation of their faith in heaven. When Nelson hoisted his memorable signal, "England expects every man to do his duty," it was as though he placed his gallant fleet beneath the eyes of all England; and we know well the deeds of heroism which that thought inspired. In like manner the apostle Paul seems to surround us with all God's worthies of the past, and to make them spectators of our conflict: "Seeing

therefore we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race which is set before us." God grant that we may be not unworthy followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises!

Clear away

Let our prayer then be, "Lord, increase our faith. every film from our eyes, that we may see the world as it is-its delusiveness, its vanity, its evil; and give us to see the unseen to be so real, that in comparison with it all that is seen shall appear but as unsubstantial shadows. So increase and strengthen our faith that we shall be enabled to take hold of Christ's strength, and plead His promises, and at last to say, 'We are more than conquerors through Him that has loved us."" The prayer of faith will bring down in still larger measure the spirit of faith, and our faith so strengthened will overcome the world!

Memoir of Rev. James Bennett, D.D.

THE Rev. James Bennett, D.D., was born in the east of London, May 22, 1774. His birthplace was pulled down many years ago, to make room for certain improvements then going on. His parents were decidedly pious, and their influence on the mind of their son James was most salutary as long as it lasted; but it was the unhappy lot of James Bennett, at a very early age, to lose by death one of the best of mothers. His father, however, by his conscientious and consistent deportment, almost imperceptibly restrained the mind of his son, and kept him from the damaging results of influences to which he was exposed. The best schoolmaster in the neighbourhood was selected for his teacher, though Dr. Bennett looked upon his attendance at the school of Mr. Plough, as a comparatively profitless expenditure of time and strength. This teacher professed to instruct his pupils in the rudiments of Latin and French, in addition to all the branches of a sound English education. After spending a few years under the tuition of a man whose acquisitions as a scholar, and whose ability as a teacher, failed to awaken any large amount of respect in the mind of his pupil, James Bennett was put under the care of a tradesman to learn his business. The harsh and overbearing conduct of his master induced Mr. Bennett, his father, to take proper measures to terminate the engagement, and set his son at liberty. James Bennett soon after left London and went to Bath, and there sought employment. While in this city in the west, he lodged in a house where he was frequently brought into immediate intercourse with some good people belonging to the Moravian Brethren, and others belonging to the Wesleyans. It was in the com