SERMON I.

EARLY DISSENT.

ACTS VII. 26.

Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?

VERY touching are these words of Moses.

They speak the pleading of rejected kind

ness, the earnestness of a zeal which found itself misunderstood by those for whom it was exerted. The devoted servant of God felt the heavy task which had been laid upon him. He was to lead his countrymen forth from the land of their enemies, and he came unto them with the hope that they would appreciate his mission. He naturally trusted that the hardships they were suffering from others would bind them in close unity one with

B

another. But alas for his expectation! They quarrelled and fought with the Egyptians, but they quarrelled and fought equally with one another, and seemed to have no recognition of the fact of their brotherhood, nor any understanding of, or esteem for the arguments of their intended deliverer. We may imagine therefore that it was with a feeling of despondency almost amounting to despair that the meek messenger of Jehovah cried out in bitterness, "Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?”

No doubt such is nearly always the lot of those who aspire to be leaders among men. They find how impossible of attainment concord is, and that only minds endowed above the rest have been able to control the discordant elements of human thought and will, and make each do its part in the furtherance of some great end. The sense of this has, both in ancient and modern times, deterred from action men eminently fitted to discharge high duties, and has led them to prefer the comfort of peace in retirement, to a more prominent career passed amid the struggles of conflicting parties. Kings have sought by abdication a peace which they found not on the throne,