sion, and inspire the feeling of grief and degradation by which it should be accompanied. The famous exclamation, I have lost a day!' was a melancholy testimony how many days are lost by millions, without emotion. It was the revealer, and soon to be the possessor of immortality, who said, 'I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work.' And in the gathering, of which we spake, of the relics of past men and times, whatever antiquarian affectation there may have been, the most diligent accumulators have also been men who from such materials could rectify the falsehoods of longreceived history, place before us the men and manners of other generations as no professed historians had done, or throw a flood of light on the principles and progress of human nature. Imbued with the noblest principles of science, a few fragments have enabled them to reconstruct the temples of antiquity in all their pomp, and realize to our conceptions the by-gone world. The minor virtues, the frequently occurring enjoyments, the minutiae of morals and happiness, so far from incongruity, have a close affinity with the broadest principles of truth, and the most majestic qualities of character. I have little faith in the very good people of every-day life, who are confessedly, and almost boastfully, unequal to the great sacrifices and exertions which are sometimes bounden duties. The great principles and virtues are the trunk of which the others are the foliage, which we are not accustomed to see flourish independently. An enlightened and comprehensive notion of an omnipresent and beneficent Providence is the likeliest preparation for finding Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, An enlarged perception of the divine plan of instruction disposes us to elicit lessons of wisdom from a thousand sources, while ignorant superstition is waiting for the oracle. That everything is from God and for good to all, makes good felt where else its existence would not have been suspected. The fragments of enjoyment are best gathered up by those whose imaginations have expanded to the hope of an universe of felicity. All incidental helps to the formation of character tell most on those with whom the training of themselves to excellence is a deliberate purpose and a determined pursuit. It is here as in physics; the minutest atoms are attracted, by a force proportioned to its mass, towards the mountain or the globe. Let us learn, then, never, in affecting the great, to despise the minute; nor to think of enlarging the whole while neglecting the parts; nor of doing much in years while insensible of the waste of hours; nor of having the happiness of any portion of time while we aim not at that of eternity. Sound philosophy is the combination of accumulation and accuracy in particulars, with comprehensive generalization. Moral excellence is analogous and so is the spirit of religion. Christianity has its prayer for the child, and redemption for the world; and the prayer would not be so good were not the redemption so stupendous. That not a single sensation of pleasure, nor the most trifling impulse of benevolence, should be despised or crushed, is the lesson which commends itself most to him who most enters into the plan of infinite wisdom and the prospect of universal happiness. The Omnipotence of the universal Creator ordains that of the merest fragments of his works nothing should be lost. And nothing shall. The withered hope, the broken spirit, the imperfect character, the moral fragments of the present state, shall be gathered up for nobler forms and combinations, as out of dissolving elements shall arise the new heavens and earth wherein righteous'ness and blessedness will ever dwell. 167 SERMON X. THE SOCIAL EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. LUKE Vii. 34. "The Son of Man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." A CALUMNIOUS accusation is seldom an unmixed falsehood, even when directed against the purest character. Though it be not truth, it yet will often serve as a finger-post to point the path in which we may journey towards the truth. Scandalous as was the description of Christ, which he himself quoted from his enemies, in the text, it yet was a description which malice itself never would or could. have given of John the Baptist. What they said of him was, that he was a demoniac. The fact was, that the one was a stern and solitary man, and the other bland and social; and the fact was used to float the falsehood into the public mind, and give it currency. Malignity is generally shrewd enough |