Rarely, fever, has Union Church presenta brighter or more attractive appearance than it did on Sunday morning. The walls were hung with red, white, and blue drapery, and immediately behind the pulpit was the national flag. The Communion table was adorned with choice flowers, and suitable inscriptions in gold letters on a white ground were displayed in different parts of the building. There was a very large Congregation at the morning service, which was conducted by the Rev. G. H. Bondfield, the sermon being preached by Dr. John Stevens.
he singing was thoroughly congregational, and the hymn "God save the people" was larly effective. The sermon, of which give a fall report, was listened to with great interest; and many of the hearers spoke of it with warm appreciation at the, close of the service. The preacher took for a text the well known words in the First Epistle of Peter, "Honour all men. Love the brotherhood.' Fear God. Honour the king." He said: "It is with no ordinary sense of gratitude and of gladness that we celebrate to-day the event which the world has consented to call the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The occasion would be fogest reign in British history; for even in were it only that it signalises the the changed conditions of modern times, when, with us at least, the Throne is the symbol rather than the actual seaton power, it et as a dignity, a splendour, and influence, which belong to it alone. But our hearts swell with praise and joy to-day because the longest reign in our history is also, and beyond doubt, the noblest, and because her whom we delight to honour as sovereign we also revere and love as woman. Throughout the sixty long years during which her hand has held the sceptre, and in the full blaze of that "fierce light which beats upon a throne," she has behaved amidst all the changeful and often painful circumstances of her personal and her public life, as to win, ever more and more, the confidence, the loyalty, and the affection of her own subjects, and the respect and admiration of the world. Her high qualities of heart and mind, her faithful discharge of the sacred duties of wife, mother, and friend, the womanly grace of her bear ing towards the people, her honourable fulfiiment of the responsibilities of her exalted station, have all helped to firmly establish Broadbased upon the people's will Like "The imperial sage, purest of mea, Broad-based upon the people's will."
Marcus Aurelius," she has nobly proved that "even in a palace may life be led well." And, therefore, on this sixtieth anniversary other accession, the praises aid prayers which are everywhere offered to God in her behalf "go not forth out of feigned get thers ate other reasons why this day glow with a glad tuskfulues. The sixty inds us with feelings greatly moved, and a-
of quite unprecedented progress. Laws goas ofthe Qeen's rela have been years which disgraced the Statute book and hindered advance have been swept away; arils and disorders which aff poli long withheld, have been conceded; edu tion has been improved and brought within the reach of every child of British domicile; science has wonderfully enlarged the bounds of knowledge, and put new and marvellous powers into human hands; both art and science have been largely popularized degraded and degrading habits of social life, which were formerly excused and sometimes even applauded, have come to be branded and treated as crime; and there has been an unparalleled growth of philanthropie and missionary activity. Of these years it may without hesitation be said, that they have been "years of the right hand of the Most High," and there is abundant ground for the belief that they only mark "the fair. beginning of a time." To many of our Anglo: Saxon race, not alone in the mother-country but in every place whither they have come, it is evident that God is give assurance, by what He has already "Tone, that we shall see yet greater thin, And, with the spirit of expectation, there is a growing conviction in the souls of multitudes of the noblest of the sons and daughters of our land, that God has appointed us a great mission in the world, that He has blessed us that we may bea blessing; and that it needs but this: that we sincerely set ourselves to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God, in order that the glory of Britain may be still more Gut to the Inst moment of recorded time, loriens, and abide, not for a season only,
will be my endeavour in what Ishall further say this morning, to lay this close to our consciences and make it live in our thoughts.
It is of Christian Patriotism that I have patriotism as a duty, for no people are more speak. There is no need for me to preach
ardently patriotic than the British; and of all the British, in none does patriotism burn with intenser flame than in those who are for awhile "exiles from home."
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." There is not one among us to-day who is not far removed from that deadness of soul which never thrills with the thought of "My own, my native land!"
We know what patriotism is, for we have felt its fires kindling within our own breasts. But what is meant by Christian Patriotism? Let me explain in few words the sense in which I here employ the term. We know from the New Testament, and also from the history'of Christianity in'subsequent- times, and not of corrupt ecclesiasticisms which! in so far as it is the history of Christianity, while bearing the name of Christ, have grievously misrepresented Him, that, when men truly know Christ and have fellowship with him, a transforming and ennobling change takes place within them. Their thoughts, feelings, and affections are purim fied and raised to a higher level. As the one declares, they are newly-created in Christ Jesus. This being so, the patriotism of a Christian man renders him sensitive to the evils which may afflict the country of his love, brings him into a relation of true and quick sympathy towards the ignorant, the suffering, the fallen, and the outcast, and causes him to yeara, to pray, and to labour for the country's good, his country's glory. Christian patriotism is thus not a tantiment only but a service, it is action as well as feeling. The spirit of patriotism into which the disciple of Christ enters, may be understood from our Lord's tearful lament over the city that rejected Him: "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would Ihave gathered thy children together a8 a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate!" and from the impassioned words of the greatest of the apostles:
have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart; for I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren, my kinsman according to the flesh." Or we may understand it, if we will, from the life of one, who in the seventeenth century, dared all and gave up all, afterwards winning all—for his country's good; and of whom Carlyle has said, that he was the largest soul in England, looking at this God's world with a prophet's earnestness through God's word.
There are three directions, about which I wish to say something, in which patriotism, and therefore Christian patriotism especi laily, discovers itself and finds a field for its
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.