on their tomb-stone, that they had visited a million of couches of disease, and carried balm and soothing to them, that would be a glorious record; and so it would be. But let me tell you, that the million occasions will come, ay, and in the ordinary paths of life, in your homes and by your fire-sides-wherein you may act as nobly, as if all your life long, you visited beds of sickness and pain. Yes, I say, the million occasions will come, varying every hour, in which you may restrain your passions, subdue your hearts to gentleness and patience, resign your own interest for another's advantage, speak words of kindness and wisdom, raise the fallen and cheer the fainting and sick in spirit, and soften and assuage the weariness and bitterness of the mortal lot. These cannot indeed be written on your tombs, for they are not one series of specific actions, like those of what is technically denominated philanthropy. But in them, I say, you may discharge offices, not less gracious to others, nor less glorious for yourselves than the self-denials of the far-famed sisters of charity, than the labours of Howard or Oberlin, or than the sufferings of the martyred host of God's elect. They shall not be written on your tombs; but they are written deep in the hearts of men—of friends, of children, of kindred all around you: they are written in the book of the great account!

How divine a life would this be! For want of this spiritual insight, the earth is desolate, and the heavens are but a sparkling vault or celestial mechanism. Nothing but this spirit of God in us, can 66 create that new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.' "For want of this, life is to many, dull and barren, or trifling, uninteresting, unsatisfactory-without sentiment, without poetry and philosophy alike, without interpretation or meaning or lofty motive.

Whirled about by incessant change, making an oracle of circumstance and an end of vanity, such persons know not why they live. For want of this spiritual insight, man degrades himself to the worship of condition, and loses the sense of what he is. He passes by a grand house, or a blazoned equipage, and bows his whole lofty being before them-forgetting that he himself is greater than a house, greater than an equipage, greater than the world. Oh! to think, that this walking majesty of earth should so forget itself; that this spiritual power in man should be frittered away, and dissipated upon trifles and vanities; how lamentable is it! There is no Gospel for such a being; for the Gospel lays its foundations in the spiritual nature. There is nothing for man, but what lies in his spirit, in spiritual insight, in spiritual interpretation. Without this, not only is heaven nothing, but the world is nothing. The great Apostle has resolved it all in few words: "There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit; but to all others there is condemnation,— sorrow, pain, vanity, death. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

X.

LIFE CONSIDERED AS AN ARGUMENT FOR FAITH

AND VIRTUE.

BUT HE ANSWERED AND SAID, IT IS WRITTEN THAT MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDETH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.-Matthew iv. 4.

THE necessity to man of something above all the resources of physical life, is the subject to which, in this discourse, I shall invite your attention.

In two previous discourses on human life which I have addressed to you, I have endeavoured to show, in the first place and in general, that this life possesses a deep moral significance, notwithstanding all that is said of it, as a series of toils, trifles and vanities; and in the next place, and in pursuance of the same thought, that every thing in life is positively moral; not merely that it is morally significant, but that it has a positive moral efficiency for good or for evil. And now I say in the third place, that the argument for the moral purpose is clenched by the necessity of that purpose, to the well being of life itself. Man," says our Saviour, with solemn authority, "shall not live by bread alone, but "--by what? how few seem to believe in it!" by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

How few seem to believe in it; how few do believe this, in the highest sense; and yet how true is it! Into how large a part even of the most ordinary life,

enters a certain kind and degree of spirituality! You cannot do business, without some faith in man; that is, in the spiritual part of man. You cannot dig in the earth, without a reliance on the unseen result. You cannot step or think or reason, without confiding in the inward, the spiritual principles of your nature. All the affections and bonds, and hopes and interests of life, centre in the spiritual. Break that central bond, and you know that the world would rush to chaos.

But something higher than this indirect recognition is demanded in our argument. Let us proceed to take it up in form.

There are two principles then, involved in the moral aim and embracing its whole scope, whose necessity I propose now to consider. They are faith and virtue; the convictions, that is to say, on which virtue reposes, and the virtue itself. Something above a man's physical life must there be to help it—something above it in its faith-something beyond it, in its attainment.

In speaking of faith as necessary to human life, I need not here undertake to define its nature! This will sufficiently appear as we proceed. What I wish to speak of, is, in general, a faith in religion; in God, in spiritual truth and hopes. What I maintain in general, is the indispensableness to human life, of this religious faith. My present purpose is, to offer some distinct and independent considerations in support of this faith; and these considerations I find based, imbedded, deep-founded in human life. To illustrate the general character of the view which I wish to present, let us make a comparison. Let it be admitted then, and believed, on the one hand, that there is a God; let the teachings of Jesus, also, be received; that this God is our father; that he has a paternal interest in

our welfare and improvement; that he has provided the way and the means of our salvation from sin and ruin; that he hears our prayers and will help our endeavours; that he has destined us, if faithful, to a future and blessed and endless life; and then, how evident is it that upon this system of faith, we can live calmly, endure patiently, labour resolutely, deny ourselves cheerfully, hope steadfastly, and "be conquerors," in the great struggle of life, "yea, and more than conquerors, through Christ who has loved us!" But take away any one of these principles; and where are we? Say that there is no God, or that there is no way opened for hope and prayer, and pardon and triumph, or that there is no heaven to come, no rest for the weary, no blessed land for the sojourner and the pilgrim; and where are we? And what are we? What are we, indeed, but the sport of chance, and the victims of despair? What are we, but hapless wanderers upon the face of the desolate and forsaken earth; surrounded by darkness, struggling with obstacles, distracted with doubts, misled by false lights; not merely wanderers who have lost their way, but wanderers, alas! who have no way, no prospect, no home? What are we but doomed, deserted voyagers upon the dark and stormy sea, thrown amidst the baffling waves without a compass, without a course, with no blessed haven in the distance to invite us to its welcome rest?

What now is the conclusion from this comparison? It is, that religious faith is indispensable to the attainment of the great ends of life. But that which is necessary to life, must have been designed to be a part of it. When you study the structure of an animal, when you examine its parts, you say, "This was designed for food; there must be food for this being, somewhere; neither growth nor life is possible without