Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel; now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And Saul smote the Amalekites, and he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword, but Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and of the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said unto him, blessed be thou of the Lord; I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, what meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which 1 hear? And Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. And Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrificë, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath rejected thee from being king."* Since Christianity has been the established religion of Europe, its rich and powerful professors, have been too much influenced by the same spirit which Saul displayed in this act of disobedience. We find, by referring to the Acts of the Apostles, that Stephen warned his hearers

* 1 Samuel, xv. 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23.

against worshipping God by erecting splendid buildings, in imitation of the temple of Solomon. "But Solomon built him an house. Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool; what house will ye build me? saith the Lord; or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?" Had this admonition of the first Christian martyr been attended to by those who styled themselves successors to the Apostles, would they have first erected splendid buildings to enable them to introduce pomp and vanity into the worship of God; and then built prisons for the punishment of those who preferred worshipping Him, as their divine master commanded them, in spirit and in truth."† Had the command love one another been obeyed, would the castle of Chillon ever have been erected and Bonivard imprisoned in it? What a misapplication of industry to erect such a building at all! Lord Byron thus describes it:

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls;

A thousand feet in depth below,
Its massy waters meet and flow;

Thus much the fathom line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,
Which round about the wave enthralls;
A double dungeon, wall and wave
Have made, and, like a living grave
Below the surface of the lake,
The dark vault lies wherein we lay.
We heard it ripple night and day;
Sounding o'er our heads it knocked;
And I have felt the winter's spray

Wash through the bars when winds were high,
And wanton in the happy sky;

*Acts vii. 47, 48, 49, 50.

+ John, iv. 24.

And then the very rock hath rocked,
And I have felt it shake unshocked;
Because I could have smiled to see,

The death that would have set me free.

Christianity was first firmly established in that part of the world designated by Daniel as "the toes of the image," of which Nebuchadnezzar was the head; and through a series of conquests, in which the conquerors imperceptibly imbibed the manners and customs of the nations they conquered, it became tinctured with that proud and tyrannical spirit, which animated the head of gold. In tracing the history of the last 1850 years, we have a right to look for that mixture of "tares and wheat," which the Saviour of mankind told his disciples would exist in that great Babylon, until the end of the world; we must therefore accompany the study of modern history with a careful perusal of the word of God, to enable us to judge which of the professing Christians are tares, and which are wheat; which of the remarkable individuals, the biography of whom we read, have imbibed the Babylonish spirit, and which of them have been gifted with that spirit which was to produce "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." *

Had Leo the Tenth studied the writings of St. Peter before he began to build a splendid church, which he named after him, would he have wasted the industry of his subjects, in building it in a place which the Apostle told him was to be “burned up?"† and when he found he had not money enough to complete the building, in the same splendid style in which it was begun, must he not have been animated by the Babylonish spirit when

Galatians, v. 22, 23. † 2 Peter, iv. 10.

he published the sale of indulgences?

Had he studied the first Epistle general of St. Peter, he would have found cheap religion explained in such simple terms, that he never would have called on his subjects to purchase the new kind of merchandise which he was offering for sale. One of St. Peter's keys thus opens the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers : "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away but the word of the Lord endureth for ever; and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.'

Had the successors of St. Peter, who laid the foundation stone of the first inquisition, studied the same epistle, could they have expected a blessing to attend, acting in such direct opposition to his precepts and example? The following is the advice he gives to the heads of the Church: "The elders which are among you

I exhort, who also am an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away."

In perusing the pages of the historians of modern times, it is interesting to observe how the Kingdom of God has been advanced or retarded in its progress by the professors of Christianity indulging in the different kinds of love of power, thus described by an American author." First, there is inward power, the most precious of all possessions, power over ourselves, power to withstand trial, to bear sufferings, to front danger, power over pleasure and pain, power to follow our convictions, however resisted by menace or scorn; the power of calm reliance in seasons of darkness and storms. Again there is a power over outward things, the power by which the mind triumphs over matter, presses into its service the subtilest and strongest elements, makes the wind, fire, and steam its ministers; rears the city, opens a path through the ocean and makes the wilderness blossom as the rose. These forms of power, especially the first, are glorious distinctions of our race, nor can we prize them too highly.

"There is another power, which is our principal concern in the present discussion. We mean power over our fellow creatures. It is this which ambition chiefly covets, and which has instigated to more crime, and spread more misery than any other cause. We are not however to condemn even this universally. There is a truly noble sway of man over man; one which it is our