They could not swear allegiance to Zion's King, when they saw neither his royal pavilion, nor marshalled troops. They could not bow before one born in a stable, though Angels had descended to proclaim his glorious advent. What wonder, if the eye by gazing so long and frequently on the dazzling splendour they were wont to attach to the Messiah's reign, could not perceive the fainter rays of glory that glimmered around the retired path of the Man of Nazareth; they were offended at the absence of all temporal splendour in his person; the Cross of Christ proved a stumbling block and rock of offence. The Jews rejected, as unfit for their-building, "the precious corner stone, which the Lord God had lain in Zion, as a sure foundation." They could not admit the Carpenter's Son to be the head of God's Church, nor acknowledge the Man, untaught in the schools of worldly science, to be the prophet of God's people. Neither "has the offence of the cross yet ceased;" multitudes still despise and reject the Christ of God; they are ashamed to own allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth; they blush to acknowledge, as their Lord and Master, him who died upon the accursed tree; they dislike to be thought one of his real followers, and hate the humiliating and self-denying commands he enjoins on his disciples. They prefer building their hopes for eternity on the sandy foundation of human merit, rather than on the blood and righteousness of Jesus. But if we refuse to rest on Christ, that "sure foundation God has laid in Zion," all other grounds of hope will prove a treacherous rest, from which the floods of divine justice will sweep us to the dark abyss of wo. God has declared that "other foundation can no man lay, than is laid, which is Christ Jesus." Yet how little anxiety is evinced on a subject of such immense importance! How few are concerned to build their hopes for eternity, on Christ, the Rock of Ages, that precious corner stone; that tried stone; tried by countless myriads of happy saints, now in glory, who found him faithful to save from the overwhelming surge. Must not he, who paid the full price of a soul, know its worth? and has he not declared, that it will profit us little "to gain the whole world and lose our own soul?" One soul is of more real value than this world, with all its boasted riches and glories. The day is coming when "the heavens shall depart as a scroll, the elements melt with fervent heat," and this world, so loved and caressed by its votaries will be utterly consumed by the fire of divine vengeance. But the soul of every individual must exist for ever, either in eternal happiness or misery. Yet how is the method of man's reconciliation with God slighted? How is that glorious scheme of redemption, by the death of Christ, despised by the great majority of those to whom it is published. Do angels turn from the lofty pursuits and glories of the heavenly world, to pry into the mysteries of the cross; and shall man, for whose benefit