whose movements he was the mainspring. Here, columns were pressing forward in a rapid charge; there, a brigade of cavalry dashed again and again upon the gleaming bayonets of sturdy battalions, and again and again galloped back without breaking through them; there, he beheld his right wing giving way, the troops recoiling now, now wavering, now broken, now retreating in a scattered confusion; a moment more his left wing is outflanked; it is surrounded by the enemy; it stands staunch, but cannot stand long. His brow darkens; he sees his centre far advanced, and unsupported; his brow grows darker yet; messenger after messenger, mounted on the fleetest steeds, is sent hurriedly in every direction; fresh troops move up, fresh efforts are made; but numbers are against him. The generals whisper anxiously to one another; he, alone, stands immovable, unmoved, with steady eye fixed upon the fight. The great game grows more and more hazardous; message after message arrives from the generals in action, anxiety on every face. Vain is each fresh attempt; more troops are sent up, but they, too, fail; the Guard is advanced, but the Guard itself is broken. It is then that the officers of the staff crowd hurriedly around him, and he hears them exclaim, 'The day is lost.' 'Not so,' is his answer, 'I have yet my INVINCIBLES.'

Picked from the regiments that had seen service, selected for their acts of bravery, these men, forming one grand powerful corps, were kept in reserve during the heat of the fight. If the battle could be won without them, they remained aloof, as a kind of citadel for those that fought, and were not allowed

to engage lest their numbers should be diminished. Each man in this corps was in himself a hero; each one could be relied on; no obstacle daunted him; and he came to the fight, when all others had given way, over the bodies of dead and dying thousands, to face the victorious foe in the very moment of their victory. Then it was that the issue of the day was changed; then it was that the army, knowing the strength of those never-yielding troops, rallied around them with fresh hope; then, when defeat seemed inevitable, did the Invincibles sweep before them the lines of the advancing foe in all their pride, and turn disgrace to glory. Invincible indeed they were; and it was reserved for Wellington and the British at Waterloo to conquer those troops which had hitherto been unsubdued.

Well, Napoleon is gone; and if he has a name in history, it is that of a great rather than a good man. The battles gained by the Invincibles have left little to France; and the conquests of years were lost in the one great conflict of Waterloo.

Not so with the invincibles of common life, though they have fought single-handed. What a glorious troop might be formed of those men, who have won their laurels in the campaign of life; fighting, not against sword and bayonet, musket and cannon, lance and sabre, but against hardship and circumstances, natural defects, and the ridicule or opposition of their fellow-men! There has been, and still is, we trust, many a man, who-seeing before him a great and noble end to be gained; God's glory to be advanced; man's happiness and well-being to be extended; the Gospel to be preached; the truths of science to be

ascertained; the ignorant to be enlightened; the depraved to be raised, or good of any kind to be done has manfully determined to do it, and has not failed. How far greater the honour, how much more worthy the victories of such men, than those of mere soldiers! And their deeds have not perished with them; their useful works remain as monuments to their glory. Possessing noble enterprising spirits; a courage nothing can daunt; an endurance superior to all rebuffs, and all hardships; a perseverance which rises again in spite of failures: these invincibles have conquered, where all other men have been beaten back by the opposing obstacles, nay, where others have not even dared to make the attempt. Nor has the fight been against a visible or tangible foe alone: these men have had themselves to conquer ; their ignorance or indolence; their natural leaning to evil; the bad habits of early days; or even their poverty and the lowness of their social station. But we shall best show what they were, by a few instances.

Such a one, to begin with, was William Carey, the founder of Protestant Missions. Ay, we young ones may think a missionary life is a very dull one, because we know nothing about it; and, in the present day, the path is smoothed in most parts of the world; but, in truth, it is the very life which demands the most moral courage; the most steady perseverance, and the truest zeal of any. And, then, look what an end it has in view! Is it not glorious, my boys, to be an apostle of the Gospel of Peace, to carry light, truth, and everlasting life, to the ignorant, the superstitious, the evil; to take to a distant

race all the blessings we enjoy? Is it not the highest honour we can imagine upon earth, to walk in the footsteps of such a man as the Apostle Paul; and not in his only, but even in those of our Lord Himself? And this Carey did-not by merely resolving to do so, collecting an outfit, taking his passage, and sauntering up into the country to preach here and there, wherever he could get a congregation--not a bit of it; but by battling against every kind of obstacle, that can stand in the way of a determined man-poverty, ignorance, prejudice, direct opposition from the very men who ought to have aided him; a tiresome wife, and the positive hostility of Government. You will scarcely believe that there were once people in this Christian country-and that not a century ago-who thought it wrong to preach the Gospel to the heathen; and others, so mercenary, that they even attempted to put down missions by law. Yet, so it was in England, towards the end of the eighteenth century; and so it was in India, till a very few years ago; and Carey had to struggle, not only with the natives he went to teach, but also with his own countrymen, those of his own creed who professed to believe in the Gospel he preached.

It is a long story, that of this man's battle with obstacles, so I shall give only the main points of it.

Young Carey set out in life with no more capital than a good heart, and a humble, yet resolute spirit. Now, that, I can tell you, is as good a capital as a man could have; and with that he can laugh at poverty. He was a shoemaker, the son of a parish clerk-and be it noted, by the way, that there is something in that trade, of which Crispin is the