of many of God’s most approved servants; and lighting up the darkness of this world by the rays which precede that which is to come, the earnest of a brighter dawn.” May those who have been so far misled as to become either hostile or indifferent to their Church now do tardy justice to her, which, through good report and evil report, is still true to her righteous and holy cause, and dispenses through the land the light and blessing of the Gospel of peace: may those who love, cherish, and venerate the religion of their fathers—the Church of their God—approve themselves zealous and faithful sons; our Zion requires active, stanch, vigilant, and experienced defenders: her enemies are numerous, persevering, powerful, malignant, implacable; their attacks are sometimes open, sometimes insidious, but always skilfully planned, and ably conducted; still, whilst the Church continues true to God and His Christ, she has nothing to fear, for “greater is He who is for her than he who is against her.” “The Lord is her shield and buckler,” and Christ has promised to be always, even unto the end of the world, with his Church, which is founded on the rock of faith, and against which “the gates of hell shall not prevail:” in humble, but firm reliance, therefore, upon Him, of whose mystical body she forms a portion, the Church of England, amid the strifes of political changes, amid the distractions of civil contentions, amid the storms of popular clamour and fury, remains stedfast through faith, and joyful through hope: “As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Tho’ round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”