Godhead of Christ, that we point to the beautiful, touching and inspiring proofs of his perfect humanity, perfect in every sense, recorded by his biographers; but that we may lead man, as a brother, to trust, love and follow him, coming unto him with meek and lowly hearts, and when weary and heavy-laden, taking his yoke which is easy, and his burden which is light, and finding rest for their souls. It is not merely to explode so monstrous a legal fiction of barbarian justice as the theory of substitution and satisfaction, that we affirm God's unpurchased and abounding mercy to the penitent, and preach holiness as the condition and commencement of salvation; but that we may lead men from resting in faith or forms to renewal in the moral image of God, the cultivation of all Christian graces, and the formation of a character so pure, exalted and beneficent, that it seems to bear Heaven's seal, and be itself the pledge of immortality and happiness. It is not to confute such dogmas as those of election and reprobation that we declare the great scriptural social doctrine of the universal brotherhood of mankind; but to establish the true morality, public and private, in head, heart and life; to make charity, justice and philanthropy, a natural affection; and level the barriers which have isolated hearts, and over-shadowed intellects; and in elevating, unite and blend the whole race into one family. Nor is it merely as a protest against the

wild and fearful denunciation of eternal torments, that we assert the corrective nature of divine punishment, and the final universal restoration; but that our souls may enter into this grand conception of the divine plan, that with the exile of Patmos, we may have a glimpse of this glorious and gladdening vision, may feel the sublimity of the love which it implies in God, and inspires in us, and walk as children of the light, which though it shine from afar, yet lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and rejoice therein with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

It is in furtherance of such purposes, that by the zeal, liberality and perseverance of this congregation, this chapel has been founded and supported, and is now again opened for worship and instruction. We believe that in this, we are aiming at no sectarian object, are cherishing no sectarian feelings, are consulting no sectarian interests. It is a religious and social mission which devolves upon us, as disciples of Christ, and is included within the comprehensive scope and characterized by the benignant spirit of the description of his own mission in the text. And how divine a mission that was in its nature, as well as in its origin! How broad and grand and beautiful! His words are as the breathings of a spirit of love, brooding over the chaos of human ignorance, bondage and wretchedness. He seems to survey the world with

a sympathy that feels a pang for every pang, and with that yet keener anguish which weeps for the degradation of those who are sunk so low as not to feel that they are degraded. He turns not away from the agonizing scene; he neither stifles his emotions, nor hardens his heart; but the power of agony becomes the impulse of beneficence; his sense of it is a vocation to be a deliverer and a saviour; and in the strength of it he devotes himself a sacrifice for the world. Signs from without confirm the sign within; the thunder of heaven responds to the deep voice in his own bosom; and thus God sent his Son, that the world might pass from darkness unto light, and from moral death to life everlasting.

And not only are we called to a public, social, and Christian work, in the assertion of those great moral principles which constitute the worth and glory of our religion, in the application of them to the present condition of mankind, and to existing opinions, manners and institutions; not only are we called to sustain them by the spirit of our devotional practices, and by the tendency of the instructions which are delivered, and the observances which are performed within these walls from time to time; but there is also on each individual, the most obscure and most dependent, an obligation and a mission; a work which God hath given him to do, towards the just conception and the efficient discharge of which, these services should tend to

furnish a guidance. For every one does some peculiarity of constitution, training, circumstance, ability, and opportunity, indicate an individual sphere of action and a personal mission of beneficence.

Infinitely varied are they, for so are we. There are those on whom it is imperative that they should be much in struggle, and in conflict, the restrainers of bad men, and the exposers of bad principles, doomed, or rather consecrated, to a state of antagonism, their vocation for the promotion of good being best discharged by the acute detection of the fraud, and unflinching hostility to the force, which induce general suffering for a supposed particular advantage. There are others whose mission, tending to the same point, is pursued by an opposite path, whose condition is not one of antagonism, but of sympathy, who are with the poor to gladden them, with the broken-hearted to heal them, with the captives to liberate them, on the same principle as the others have to confront the oppression that impoverishes, chains and crushes. And if even amongst the fiends of hell (as the poet painted hell) there were those, who apart sat on a hill retired, and reasoned high of Providence,' much more may there be good men, who through the loop-holes of retreat peep at the busy world,' and watch more truly than the actors, the progress of the scene, and perceive the elements of harmony even in the season of confusion, and behold a God making all

6

6

things work together for good, and from the purity and elevation of their own mental atmosphere, send forth into the troubled world, like the dove from the ark of the patriarch, messengers of serenity and hope and promise. And there are those who have a gentler and more bounded ministry, seemingly more limited at least, though in reality with an expansiveness which may bear it beyond many that are deemed the most extensive, and that are the most conspicuous. She who carefully and tenderly constructed the little boat of bulrushes in which the infant Moses floated safely on the Nile, unknowingly but holily contributed her portion towards the splendid triumph of Israel's emancipation from Egyptian bondage. Nor less holy would have been her task, nor less divine her mission, had the child's destiny been only to feed the flocks of Jethro upon the pastures of Midian. From those to whom the physical safety of the infant human being in its fragility, or the soothing of age in its infirmity, is a care, to those who fill man's little separate world, with order, harmony, and gladness; to those who are as the fire from heaven that was said, in times of old, to descend and consume the sacrifice on the altar, and who kindle and inspire all that is high and holy in human intellect or energy; through all these, woman has her mission too, equal with, though varied from that of man, and often full alike of peril and of glory;