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indebted, then, to this disturbing agency for nearly all the useful metals, coal, rock salt, marble, gypsum, and other useful minerals; and when we consider how necessary these substances are to civilized society, who will doubt that it was a striking act of benevolence which thus introduced disturbance, dislocation, and apparent ruin into the earth's crust?

ORVILLE DEWEY. 1794-. (Manual, pp. 480, 503.)

From the "Discourses."

32. RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE.

AND yet, brethren, I have seen a man who could be serious in gathering up this perishing dust—yes, I have seen him serious and anxious with the fear of losses; but he thought it too much to be serious in religion, too much to be anxious for his immortal being! Yes, I have seen him meditate, I have seen him tremble, I have seen him laboring, laboring on, through life, with many and wearisome cares; but he cannot meditate, he cannot tremble, he cannot labor for his soul! His indifference to what is spiritual and immortal can be equalled — I was about to say by nothing; and yet there is one thing to equal it, and that is, his eagerness for every passing phantom of this perishing world. His indifference, and all his indifference, centres in the only point where his essential interest lies, where his essential being is treasured up—in his soul; and he never saw the day—it is no fiction, it is reality, that I utter — he never saw the day when he could think so much of his soul, when he could labor so much for it, as he can for the most trifling addition to his worldly gains.

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GEORGE BUSH. 1796-1859. (Manual, p. 480.)

From "The Resurrection of the Body."

33. COMFORT OF A FAITH IN IMMORTALITY.

We have the assurance of entering at death upon an eternal state of retribution, according to the moral character formed in the present life; but no answer is returned to the solemn questionings which would fain elicit the realities of that trans-sepulchral world. The great truths concerning that world have, from age to age, been received by faith. By faith have multitudes in all generations entered upon it. In thousands and millions of instances has the believing soul entered the dark domains of the grave, buoyed up by the sustaining assurances of the gospel, that, whether in life or in death, it shall "go well with the righteous." We cannot question, for a mo

ment, that this is practically an amply sufficing support, and that we have ground for everlasting gratitude on this score, even if we should never know, with any more certainty than we now do, the secrets of that unexplored region, till we each enter it for ourselves. Still we cannot but tremulously inquire. It is impossible but that the restless reason of man should urge its researches in this direction. It cannot abide contented while no answer is returned to the queries which are prompted by the laws and impulses of its own nature.

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FOR two hours we ascended this wild, narrow pass, enclosed netween stupendous granite cliffs, whose debris encumbered the defile, often rendering the passage difficult and dangerous. Escaping from the pass, we crossed the head of a basin-like plain, which declined to the south-west, and ascending gradually, gloomy, precipitous, mountain masses rose to view on either hand, with detached snow-beds lying in their clefts. The caravan moved slowly, and apparently with a more solemn, measured tread. The Bedouins became serious and silent, and looked steadily before them, as if to catch the first glimpse of some revered object. The space before us gradually expanded, when suddenly Tualeb, pointing to a black, perpendicular cliff, whose two riven and rugged summits rose some twelve or fifteen hundred feet directly in front of us, exclaimed, “Gebel Mousa!" How shall

I describe the effect of that announcement? Not a word was spoken by Moslem or Christian, but slowly and silently we advanced into the still expanding plain, our eyes immovably fixed on the frowning precipices of the stern and desolate mountain. We were doubtless on the plain where Israel encamped at the giving of the law, and that grand and gloomy height before us was Sinai, on which God descended in fire, and the whole mountain was enveloped in smoke, and shook under the tread of the Almighty, while his presence was proclaimed by the long, loud peals of repeated thunder, above which the blast of the trumpet was heard waxing louder and louder, and reverberating amid the stern and gloomy mountain heights around; and then God spoke with Moses.

1 A native of Kentucky; is deemed one of the most eloquent divines in the Methodist church.

LEONARD BACON. 1802-. (Manual, p. 480.)

From "A Missionary Sermon."

35. THE DAY APPROACHING.

THE time is to come when the world will be filled with the knowledge, the fear, and the praise of God. Not always will war deluge the earth with fire and blood. Not always will idolatry offend the heavens with its abominations. Not always will despotism, political and spiritual, national and domestic, degrade and corrupt the masses of mankind. Not always will superstition, on the one hand, and infidelity, on the other, reject and despise the blessed revelation of forgiveness for sinners through Jesus, the Lamb of God. Not always will cold philosophy, and erratic enthusiasm, and fanaticism fierce and malignant, conspire to corrupt and pervert the gospel itself, turning even the streams from the fountain of life into waters of bitterness and poison. No, no; the time will come when the sun, in his daily journey round the renovated world, shall waken with his morning beam in every human dwelling the voice of joyful, thankful, spiritual worship. Then shall the boundless soul of Immanuel, who once travailed in the agony of the world's redemption, "be satisfied" with his victories over death and sin. The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and with garlands of everlasting joy; and from the earth, no longer accursed for the sake of man, sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS. IS04-. (Manual, p. 480.)

36.

From "The Lectures on the Lord's Prayer."

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.

WITH an evil nature, and a mortal body, and a brittle and brief tenure of earth, you are traversing perilous paths. Had you God for your friend, your case would be far other than it is. Peril and snare might still beset you ; but you would confront and traverse them, as the Hebrews of old did the weedy bed of the Red Sea, its watery walls guarding their dread way, the pillar of light the vanguard, and the pillar of cloud the rearguard of their mysterious progress, the ark and the God of the ark piloting and defending them. You are like a presumptuous and unskilful traveller, passing under the arch of the waters of Niagara. The falling cataract thundering

1 A Baptist divine, born in New York city, where he has long been settled over a church; eminent for general scholarship and literary ability.

1804-1859.

ALEXANDER.—BUSHNELL.

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above you; a slippery, slimy rock beneath your gliding feet; the smoking, roaring abyss yawning beside you; the imprisoned winds beating back your breath; the struggling daylight coming but mistily to the bewildered eyes, - what is the terror of your condition if your guide, in whose grasp your fingers tremble, be malignant, and treacherous, and suicidal, determined on destroying your life at the sacrifice of his own? He assures you that he will bring you safely through upon the other side of the fall. And SUCH IS SATAN. Lost himself, and desperate, he is set on swelling the number of his compeers in shame, and woe, and ruin.

JAMES W. ALEXANDER. 1804-1859. (Manual, p. 480.)

From his "Discourses on Christian Faith and Practice."

37. THE CHURCH A TEMPLE.

IN surveying the past, we observe a beautiful fitness and an enchanting variety in the materials which have been already built into that part of the edifice which has thus far been reared. . But time would fail me should I try to illustrate by particular instances the truth that in God's building every variety of temper, genius, and talent finds its place, and that heavenly wisdom will never suffer any want of material for the sacred walls. Let it be for the encouragement of such among us as are conscious of no high powers, and who sometimes wonder for what service in Christ's church we are fit, that in a great structure all the component portions are not equally great. There are not only the solid and the costly, the rock and timber; not only the precious and ornamental, the gold and silver, but likewise the humble and subsidiary, yea, even the otherwise valueless and the minute; for not even mortar and earth can be spared from the construction. The Great Builder has some lowly crevice in his house, which the meanest and feeblest of us may occupy. We may not be called to bear up buttresses, or to crown turrets, or to adorn the carved work of the sanctuary; but it should satisfy us if, in some remote recess and unknown shade, we fulfil the office which the Master has laid upon us.

HORACE BUSHNELL. 1804-. (Manual, p. 480.)

From the "Sermons for the New Life."

38. UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE.

AND yet there are many who will be ready to think that light is a very tame and feeble instrument, because it is noiseless. An earthquake, for example, is to them a much more vigorous and effective

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agency. Hear how it comes thundering through the solid foundations of nature. It rocks a whole continent. The noblest works of man cities, monuments, and temples are in a moment levelled to the ground or swallowed down the opening gulfs of fire. . . . But let the light of the morning cease, and return no more; let the hour of morning come, and bring with it no dawn; the outcries of a horrorstricken world fill the air, and make, as it were, the darkness audible. The beasts go wild and frantic at the loss of the sun. The vegetable growths turn pale and die. A chill creeps on, and frosty winds begin to howl across the freezing earth. Colder and yet colder is the night. The vital blood, at length, of all creatures stops, congealed. Down goes the frost towards the earth's centre. The heart of the sea is frozen; nay, the earthquakes are themselves frozen in, under their fiery caverns. The very globe itself, too, and all the fellow-planets that have lost their sun, are become mere balls of ice, swinging silent in the darkness. Such is the light which revisits us in the silence of the morning.. It makes no shock or scar. It would not wake an infant in his cradle. And yet it perpetually new creates the world, rescuing it each morning as a prey from night and chaos. So the Christian is a light, even "the light of the world; " and we must not think that, because he shines insensibly or silently, as a mere luminous object, he is therefore powerless.

GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 1805-1862. (Manual, p. 487.)

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From a Lecture, Athenæum Institute, 1839.

39. THE AGE OF PERICLES.

YET there is a light now falling softly and sweetly upon prostrate Athens - -not the dying ray of mortal genius, but the breaking light of Heaven-sent hope. There is a lamp burning within that mournful sepulchre, the word of life and immortality, held forth by the hand of American piety, and fed by the zeal of American Christians. Under the shadow of the Acropolis, humble missionaries of the cross, from this western land, tell the children of those who wandered through the groves of the Academy, or lingered around the teacher of the Porch, that the Just Man of Plato hath come; that Divine Virtue, in all the sympathies of human trial and duty, has passed triumphantly the ordeal he proposed of contempt and slander, the scourge and the cross; that the Master whom Socrates promised to the young Alcibiades, as the guide in the path of prayer that leads to heaven, is now the Intercessor and Advocate of all earth's supplicants, and that the "Unknown God," whom their fathers "ignorantly worshipped," is now made manifest by the faith of Jesus.

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