310 THE IVY. 



own dear brethren, llie Churcli of Ireland militant 

 here below ! 



]\Illilant is the distinguishing epithet of Christ's 

 churcl), and of each individual belonging unto it, 

 until the warfare being accomplished, the good 

 fight fought, and faith .kept unto death, the crown 

 of righteousness is awarded, and the happy spirit 

 becomes incorporated with the church triumphant 

 in heaven. The little babe, whose short breathings 

 are oppressed, and its liny frame faintly struggling 

 through the few days of its sojourn on earth, is 

 militant here below. The strong youth, robust in 

 health, whose eye sparkles in promise of long and 

 active existence, while his heart, renewed by the 

 secret influences of divine grace, witnesses a con- 

 flict hidden from mortal eye, between the law of 

 life written therein, and the law of sin warring in 

 his members, is militant here below. The man 

 of full and sobered age, who has numbered, per- 

 haps, more than half the longest probable duration 

 of human life, who looks round, it may be, on a 

 blooming family of loving and dutiful children, 

 while his soul, bound down by those delicious ties, 

 cleaves to the dust, when he would have it mount 

 upward to the throne of God — liowsoever smooth 

 and blissful his lot may seem, is militant here be- 

 low. The aged servant of Christ, who has borne 

 in the vineyard the heat and burden of the day — ■ 

 the faithful veteran, who, in many a contest with 



