Excerpt from The Centre of Unity: A Sermon Preached at the Consecration of St. Paul's Church Llanelly on Friday, December 13, 1850

T may seem at first sight, my brethren, as if these words had but little to do with the joyful occasion which has brought us together here this morning. But I am afraid that there is a very close connexion between the two sub jects; so that it would hardly be possible to meditate much upon the one without having our thoughts turned toward the other. I say, I am afraid; for the subject referred to in the text is one which we should wish to banish from our minds, if by doing so we could make the thing itself cease to have a place among the realities of our being, and especially if we could shut it out of the Church of God. No doubt it was with great reluctance, with deep sorrow, that the Apostle addressed the Corinthians on this subject; though but for this, we should, atthis day, have wanted all the instruction con tained in this most precious epistle. It was not a subject which he chose, but one which was forced upon him by the exigencies of the time. And perhaps it might have been reasonable to hope that what he was thus compelled to write might have saved the necessity of ever returning to the subject again; if we did not know that the evil, which he strove to repress and extir pate, is so deeply rooted in the nature of man, and springs up and spreads so fast, that it cannot be expected to disappear altogether, until He who sits upon the throne shall say, Behold, I make all things new. And so we are not permitted to rejoice even in this glad solemnity, without being reminded of that which saddened the Apostle's heart; without remem bering that the plague which he tried to stay is still raging around us, yea amongst us; without observing that the words which it drew from him eighteen centuries ago are still applicable for our admonition.

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