It is sixty-three years since he was ordained to the ministry, but throughout the whole of that long period he was never known to waver. And how full of disturbing causes has that whole period been! The minds of men have been unsettled, and there has been a general shaking of thought. The stagnation which prevailed when he commenced his ministry has given place to a general fermentation, and during those sixty-three years we have had wave after wave passing over the Church. In his early days there was great excitement about the gift of tongues and prophecy under the leadership of that wonderful christian orator EDWARD IRVING. Then followed what we used to call “tractarianism,” taught by that master mind NEWMAN, and since developed in the open Romanism of the Ritualist. Then arose those who call themselves “The Brethren,” as if they alone were children in the Lord’s family, and who have done so much to disturb and unsettle those who have been walking most conscientiously with God. And lastly, there was wafted from America what many welcome as a new rule for holiness. In addition to all which there have been from without the steady efforts of Popery to pervert the purity, and of Infidelity to sap the foundations of the faith. So wave has followed wave, but in the midst of it all our venerable friend was kept firm as a rock with his principles unchanged, and his faith unshaken. As a consistent and honest Churchman he rejoiced in the thirty-nine Articles, and never for one moment wavered in his fidelity to their clear testimony to the truth of God. And as a student of sacred Scripture, he clung to the great, grand distinctive truths of the Gospel, such as atonement through the substitution of the Lord Jesus, justification by faith, new birth by the Holy Ghost, sanctification by the Spirit, preservation through God’s unchanging faithfulness, and a full salvation in all its parts through the free grace that is in Christ Jesus. These were the great principles of his faith and ministry all through his life, and through God’s mercy nothing shook him. You may compare the old man of eighty-six with the boy of sixteen, and you will find no change in principle. You may compare the last Sermon preached last year with the first Sermon which was preached in his father’s pulpit in the year 1815, and you will find the great message substantially the same. As he himself said, the last time he occupied this pulpit, “In the Church where I was baptized, in the village in which I was born, I began my ministry on December 24th, 1815. I remember the text was “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” 1 Timothy i. 15. There I began, there I continued, there I am still, and there, God helping me, I hope to end glorying in the Gospel which I know to be the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”