NOTICES.

The Work of the Christian Church, parts 1 and 2,* is a monthly publication, commenced with March last, containing a large quantity of matter, at a remarkably low price, and all connected with evangelising and missionary operations. The work takes the nature chiefly of a narrative of proceedings, similar to the plan of the News of the Churches, in being Evangelical and Non-Sectarian. A publication with this object supplies a want, and if carefully conducted, cannot fail to have many readers. The first number (for March,) contains a map of the world, with the religious character of different countries denoted by colours. In this shading rather too much space is given to Heathenism. Australia, with the exception of small portions of coast line, is marked Heathen. Australia, in the interior, is uninhabited, and the few native tribes which exist form a very small per centage of the population. Australia might, therefore, be marked nominally Christian; and the remark is true of Central South America which is nominally Roman Catholic, and again, the regions north of Canada, while bulking largely as Heathen, contain very few inhabitants; and the Mahommedanism of India, although followed by a fourth part of the natives, is not marked. The mapping of religious creeds is not possible. The two numbers contain many interesting papers; but the third sentence of the work, in which it is said that Thomas Scott, "to avoid idleness, began his well-known Commentary," is a mistake. Although that even would be a good inducement, yet the Commentator had other and superior

reasons.

The visit of a German Missionary to the Neilgherries or Blue Mountains of India has supplied material for probably the most interesting paper in the second number; and we may observe that a judicious selection of the correspondence of missionaries, in addition to its religious importance, will contain many facts connected with commercial, political, and scientific objects that would well repay all the expenditure and labour incurred by Christian Missions. This "Work of the Christian Church," carried out on its apparent plan, will form interesting volumes, not only for its great and primary design, but also in secondary and subordinate matters.

David Deniston's School Days.+-Morals and even religion are deluged with illustrative stories, some of them, in periodicals of a high class, pernicious, because they are sensational and unnatural, and would be less mischievous if they were tedious and vapid. As this class of literature appears to be in favour, if we may judge from the supply, this little volume, having some good engravings, being well printed, and containing an interesting history of school days and events supposed to have occurred in them, not out of the range of probability, and conveying moral and religious teaching of a healthful tone, forms an unexceptionable gift to the young.

*Alexander Strahan and Co.

+ Dean and Son.

The Practical Character of the

Christian Life.

A SERMON

BY THE

REV. J. T. DAVIDSON,

MINISTER OF RIVER TERRACE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ISLINGTON.

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, andpatience of hope.-1 Thess. i 3.

I am surprised not to find notice, in the various commentaries I have examined, of the peculiar force and beauty of these words. They seem to me to form one of those pithy and weighty expressions of which Paul's writings, when looked into, are so full. And, as they are suggestive of much important truth, and convey lessons which many of us, doubtless, peculiarly need, I propose to ask your attention to them now.

Understand then, at the outset, that the Church at Thessalonica was, almost from the commencement of its existence, a source of much comfort and encouragement to the great Apostle. At first, indeed, he had great anxiety and concern about it, because it was so much troubled with Judaizing teachers and zealots for idolatry; but afterwards he had from Timothy the most satisfactory account of its constancy and progress, so that he was filled with joy and gratitude.

It is evident that he considered the Thessalonian Christians at least equal in faith and holiness to those of any other Church; his SERMON XXVI.

epistles to them abound in terms commendatory of their activity and zeal; and perhaps the most emphatic expression of this kind is that which we are now to consider.

Paul was not the man to shrink from administering rebuke when it was needed; boldly and fearlessly he reproved the Churches when occasion called for it; but he was not less prompt to speak a word of encouragement and praise when those to whom he wrote were found faithful in the Lord. You find a happy instance of this (I mean his readiness to praise or condemn according as occasion called for) in his first epistle to the Corinthians; for in the 11th chapter, at the second verse, you find him saying "Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things and keep the ordinances, &c. ;” words of commendation; but, at the 17th verse of the same chapter, "Now in this that I (am about to) declare unto you I praise you not," and so on, alluding, as he goes on to do, to their divisions and improper approach to the Lord's table, &c.

Whenever you find this Apostle using terms of commendation or praise, then, you may be sure they were honestly deserved; no oily flatterer was he; and it was only because these Christians at Thessalonica fully merited it, that he handed down their names to latest posterity with that record of their high Christian character and diligence which is expressed in the emphatic language of our text: "Your work of faith and labour of love, and patience of hope."

Faith, love, and hope are the three central Christian graces; and each of them, when fairly developed in a healthy Christianity, is found to be eminently practical.

You are aware that the various colours of the rainbow or solar spectrum may be reduced to three-yellow, red, and blue, of which all other colours and tints that can be seen or conceived of are but combinations: In like manner the three graces referred to are the foundation of all other graces and virtues; and there is not a moral attribute which can be conceived of in a Christian character, but may be reduced, by a kind of ethical analysis, to two or more of these three, combined after different methods or proportions.

Moreover, as science teaches that the three colours I have named are representatives of the three distinct forces or influences in the beams of the sun, the first representing the light, the second the heat, and the third, the bleaching or purifying influence of that orb of day; so, without any extravagant fancifulness of analogy, we may say that faith is that grace which enlightens the heart, love is the grace which warms it, and hope is the grace which, according to the very language of Scripture, purifies it.

I do not think it would require any very subtle metaphysics to shew how the subordinate graces of humility, perseverance, joy, &c., may be reduced to those primary three; but I mention this, not to awaken a speculative curiosity, but simply to bring out into bolder prominence and relief the royal graces denoted in our text.

Now, though it was to the praise of these Thessalonions, that faith, love, and hope shone so prominently in them, yet it is not so much to this fact that I now ask your attention, nor to the nature of

OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

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these primary Christian graces, on which so much has been said and written, as rather to the peculiar phase in which they were here developed, according as that is brought out in these words-" Your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope." There is a meaning and emphasis in these words, in the original, which is not so fully manifest in our English version.

Indeed there is a climax -an ascending scale of intensity in them, which deserves our notice. The general idea under which all the three terms are included is the thoroughly practical form in which in the case of these believers, the primary graces of the Christian, life developed themselves. And yet the Apostle does not say, "Your work of faith, and work of love, and work of hope;" but uses, in connection with each of the graces, a word of increasing force and power- "Your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope." In the Greek, as I have said, the relative value of these words is more apparent. The first of these words contains the simple idea of activity, employment; your "work" of faith; activity is the direct opposite of idleness; and the Apostle would intimate that the faith they possessed animated them to action, and gave evidence of its existence in works of Christian usefulness. But, a man may be active, constantly on the move, and yet the work which employs him may be of the easiest and lightest description; faith may incite us to diligence, and yet we take the Christian life smoothly, and seldom do anything for Christ that lays a heavy tax upon our energy; but, let love come in, let that divine and heavenly affection be spread abroad upon our hearts; and "work" deepens into "labour," action strengthens into toil. As work is the opposite of idleness, so labour is the opposite of ease; and the word here employed is emphatic; it is expressive of convulsive exertion and fatigue, and brings before us the picture of one whose every muscle is strained and from whose brow the sweat is dropping.

Once more (for there is yet another idea needed to render the expression complete), a man may be active, he may also be laborious, and yet his activity soon decline, and his energy be all spent; it may be a violent effort which quickly exhausts him; he may be willing to submit to a momentary toil, but quickly weary in his welldoing; but now let hope come in, let that strong and heavenly principle animate his breast; and toil ripens into endurance, labour into patient plodding, persevering energy.

This is fully expressed in the original, for the word here. rendered the patience" of hope may more literally be rendered the "endurance" of hope, conveying the idea of steady and suffering

continuance in toil.

Thus the language of the text seems to indicate that faith prompts to activity, love intensifies that activity into strenuous labour, and hope deepens that labour into persistent endurance. So that each grace, as it is developed in the soul, fits it the more thoroughly for what is really the grand purpose of life-acting, labouring, suffering for Christ. Ah, brethren, we are prone to forget that this world is, and was designed to be, a world of activity, toil, and suffering, a place

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THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER

of discipline, and not a place of rest. The rest is yet to come. "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." We are prone to look for, prone to take (if it were possible) that rest here which the world was never designed to afford, and which it cannot yield. What is the daily life of most of us, but a constant endeavour to render ourselves more at ease, to make the world more of a home to us, to make it, in short, a rest? But, as the effort is a mistaken one, so is it perfectly futile.

Every such attempt is vain. We have elements to contend with (ay, even the most favoured of earth's sons have)—elements alike of a physical and moral kind, sufficient to remind us, at every step, that our lifetime here is no holiday, but a term of schooling, and discipline, and toil. Paul's language is striking when he says, Let us labour to enter into that rest." Let us labour here to enter that rest yonder; let us toil while we are on earth, that we may rest when we are in heaven.

As much as to say that, if it be not with us labour here, it shall not be rest above. Heaven brings rest only to those who on earth had toil.

They who are at ease in time, shall have "imprisonment with hard labour" in eternity!

O that solemn antithesis!" Son, thou in thy lifetime hadst thy good things; and likewise Lazarus evil things; and now he is comforted and thou art tormented."

"The sleep of the labouring man," says Solomon, "is sweet." Such is true, in a sense, of the sleep of death. They can lie down with comfort, who have spent their life in toil for Christ.

They who have spent their days in idleness find it hard to die; their death-pillow has no sweetness for them; they cease from their rest, and their labour begins. But "blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, that they (in the very act of dying) may rest from their labours." The labour ends and the rest begins.

Now it was greatly to the credit of these Thessalonian believers that they were so active, so laborious, so persevering, in the service of Christ; the Apostle remembered it without ceasing; it was never out of his mind; and most fervently did he thank God for it, especially as he viewed the source from which it all sprung; ascribing, as he did, their activity to their faith; their labours to their love; and their endurance to their hope in Christ.

Having thus brought out the meaning of the text, I shall sum up, by enforcing the three lessons it teaches-viz.,

1. That faith stimulates to activity.

2. Love stimulates to labour.

3. Hope stimulates to endurance in God's service.

1. Faith stimulates to activity.

The only unfailing recipe for chronic languor and ennui is a firm faith in God.

Nothing like this

for bracing the mental system and stirring up Nothing like this for removing that morbid and inactive tone of mind which broods over life's shadows rather than

the soul to energy.