The gospel seed which the apostle sowed in those rich, luxurious, clever, learned, Romans, was like the seed which fell on thorny ground; and the cares and pleasures of this life, and the deceitfulness or riches, sprang up, and choked the word, and it remained unfruitful.  But the gospel seed which was sown among our poor, wild, simple, ignorant forefathers, was the seed which fell on an honest and good heart, and took root, and brought forth fruit, some thirty, some fifty, and some one hundred fold.  Epiphany came late to us—­not for three hundred years after our Lord’s birth:  but, when it came, the light which it brought remained with us, and lights us even now from our cradle to our grave:  and so again was fulfilled the Scripture, which says, that God chooses the weak things of this world to confound the strong; the foolish to confound the wise; yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought the things which are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

That no flesh should glory in his presence.  For mind, my friends, our business is not to be high-minded but to fear.  And we English are too apt to be high-minded now.  We pride ourselves on our English character, English cleverness, English courage, English wealth.  My friends, be not high-minded but fear.  We have no right to pride ourselves on being Englishmen, if we do the very things which our forefathers were ashamed to do even when they were heathens.  They honoured their fathers and mothers.  Do we?  They were loyal and obedient to law.  Are we?  They were chaste and clean livers:  adultery was seldom heard of among them; and, when it was, they punished it in the most fearful way:  while what astonished that old Roman gentleman, of whom I spoke, most of all, was the pure and respectable lives of the young men and women.  Is it so now-a-days among us, my friends?  They were honest, too, and just in all their dealings.  Are we?  They were true to their word; no men on earth more true.  Are we?  They hated covetousness and overreaching.  Do we?  They were generous, open-handed, hospitable.  Are we?  My friends, this was the old English spirit, which God accepted in our forefathers.  Is it in us now?  We must not pride ourselves on it, unless we have it.  Nay, more, what is it but a shame to us, if, while our forefathers were good heathens, we are bad Christians?  They had but a small spark, a dim ray, as it were, of the light which lighteth every man who comes into the world:  but they were more faithful to that little than many are now, who live in the full sunshine of God’s gospel, in the free dispensation of God’s spirit, with Christ’s sacraments, Christ’s Churches, means of grace and hopes of glory, of which they never dreamed.  May they not rise up against some of us in the day of judgment, and condemn us, and say,—­ ’Are you our children?  Do you boast of knowing God better than we did, while you did things which we dared not do?  We knew that God hated such sins, and therefore we kept from them.  You should know that better than we; for you had seen God’s horror of sin in the death of his own Son Jesus Christ; and yet you went on committing the very sins which crucified the Lord of Glory.’