"The true Church of Christ is curiously like a well-appointed army.

The soldiers of an army all owe allegiance to one common sovereign, and are engaged in one common cause. They are commanded by one general, and fight against one common foe. And yet there are marked varieties and diversities among them. Cavalry, infantry, and artillery have each their own peculiar mode of fighting. Each arm in its own way is useful It is the well-balanced combination of all three which gives to the whole army efficiency and power.

It is just the same with the true Church of Christ. Its members all love the same Saviour, and are led by the same Spirit; all wage the same warfare against sin and the devil, and all believe the same gospel. But the work of one soldier of Christ is not the work of another. Each is appointed by the Great Captain to fill his own peculiar position, and each is specially useful in his own department.

Thoughts such as these come across my mind, when I turn from Whitefield, Wesley, and Grimshaw, to the fourth spiritual hero of the last century—William Romaine. In doctrine and practical piety, the four good men were, in the main, of one mind. In their mode of working, they were curiously unlike one another. Whitefield and Wesley were spiritual cavalry, who scoured the country, and were found everywhere. Grimshaw was an infantry soldier, who had his head-quarters at Haworth, and never went far from home. Romaine, in the meantime, was a commander of heavy artillery, who held a citadel in the heart of a metropolis, and seldom stirred beyond his walls. Yet all these four men were mighty instruments in God’s hand for good; and not one of them could have been spared. Each did good service in his own line; and not the least useful, I hope to show, was the Rector of Blackfriars, William Romaine. In what are called popular gifts, no doubt, he was not equal to his three great contemporaries. But none of the three, probably, was so well fitted as he was to fill the position which he occupied in London."