combats being fought again and again, in which the best soldiers and noblest subjects of the Great King have “had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments.”  “We will not have the Lord to reign over us!” has been everywhere the awful battle-cry; and the conflict rages now as fiercely as it did in any age of the world!  Nor, moreover, has this opposition been given by uncivilised savages; but men of knowledge and of genius have dedicated all the powers of their mind to the dread task of ridding the world of the Redeemer’s sceptre.  What they have thought, they have spoken; what they have spoken, they have written and recorded in books, that their influence might extend beyond their own immediate circle and their own time, and that other nations and other generations might know what they thought of the Saviour,—­how sincerely they themselves despised and rejected Him, and desired all others to do the same.  What is every infidel publication but an accusation against Jesus Christ, a protest against His government, and an attempt to rouse the world to join in the rebellion?  “They take counsel together against the Lord and his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us!”

And this hatred to Christ will continue till the end of the world:  for we read, that “in the last days will come scoffers.”  Nay, it is quite possible that accusations against Him are, and shall be, maintained by the wicked up till the very hour of judgment.  For, even as the criminal before his trial will feed his pride, and soothe his conscience, by denying every charge alleged against him, or by blaming every one but himself; so it may be that the wicked, after death, will continue to cast the blame upon the Saviour, for all they are and have been, even when they can no longer doubt the reality of His existence or government.

And will Jesus ever answer those accusations?  Why should He? you perhaps exclaim.  His character, you say, cannot be affected in the estimation of the good by anything which the enemies of all righteousness can urge against it.  His throne can no more be shaken by the puny attacks of men or devils than the everlasting mountains can be disturbed by the storm-blasts which howl around them.  What more, then, is needed, than to shut up the wicked in a prison-house, through whose adamantine walls the accusing cry can never pierce, and whose doors are for ever barred by the holy decree of the Almighty?  Ah! were it so, even this thought might possibly gratify pride and enmity, could a condemned, though not judged spirit for ever carry with it a conviction of having waged a war in which power alone had conquered weakness, and might trampled upon right; and that all its charges remained unanswered and unanswerable!  But let no one presume upon this.  It is true that Jesus Christ now, as when on earth He stood before His enemies, “answers