represented, of which Jerusalem on its rock was but to him a symbol. And
thus for us the lesson is that, apart altogether from the existing and
visible order of things in which we dwell, there is a polity to which we
may belong, for 'ye are come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living
God,' and that that order is indestructible. Convulsions come, every
Babylon falls, all human institutions change and pass. 'The kingdoms
old' are 'cast into another mould.' But persistent through them all, and
at the last, high above them all, will stand the stable polity of
Heaven, '_the_ city which hath _the_ foundations.'

_There_ is a lesson for us, brethren, in times of fluctuation, of change
of opinion, of shaking of institutions, and of new social, economical,
and political questions, threatening day by day to reorganise society.
'We have a strong city'; and whatever may come--and much destructive
will come, and much that is venerable and antique, rooted in men's
prejudices, and having survived through and oppressed the centuries,
will have to go; but God's polity, His form of human society of which
the perfect ideal and antitype, so to speak, lies concealed in the
heavens, is everlasting. Therefore, whatsoever changes, whatsoever
ancient and venerable things come to be regarded as of no account,
howsoever the nations, like clay in the hands of the potter, may have to
assume new forms, as certainly they will, yet the foundation of God
standeth sure. And for Christian men in revolutionary epochs, whether
these revolutions affect the forms in which truth is grasped, or whether
they affect the moulds into which society is run, the only worthy temper
is the calm, triumphant expectation that through all the dust,
contradiction, and distraction, the fair city of God will be brought
nearer and made more manifest to man. Isaiah, or whoever was the writer
of these great words of my text, stayed his own and his people's hearts
in a time of confusion and distress, by the thought that it was only