walked with God for a very long series of years in the broad daylight of the most unpretending, the most lowly, and the most amiable piety, we have certain ground for concluding, that they

sleep in Jesus," and shall at last "rise with him" in glory. Go to your homes and contemplate these bright ornaments of the great human family, imitate their virtues, great and exalted as they uniformly, and in almost all points were, but imitate them in nothing more closely or ardently, than in that which in life was the fountain from whence flowed all their varied excellencies, and the memory of which, in death, forms the finest vein in the marble of their monuments, the rooted, lively, glowing faith of their souls in Christ Jesus, as their Saviour and sleepless intercessor at the right hand of God.

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SERMON XXV.

THE LOVE OF DISCIPLES TO EACH OTHER.

ST. JOHN xiii. 35.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Ar the first flush, it might be imagined that the religion of the Bible would certainly appear in all who name the name of Christ, portrayed in the amiable characters which none could possibly doubt to be peculiarly its own. It might be supposed that a faith so exalting and so purifying would be necessarily evidenced in its professors by all the practical details of a useful, pious, and benevolent life. It might be conceived as a thing of course, that their walk and conversation would be characterised by a striking pre-eminence in all that is lovely, excellent, and of good report, over those who love not the gospel. It might, in a word, be deemed nearly

superfluous to aver, that not merely in all the courtesies of life, but in all the unction of holiness, in the active exercise of whatever a charitable spirit can plan or effect for the moral and spiritual good of his fellow-man, the Christian would be found conspicuous; and that the lamp of the Christian's virtue would be always seen burning with a constant, bright and cheering light. But whatever may be expected, this is not the fact; whatever may be desired, this is not the consummation. Too true it is, that with very many, that light is an uncertain one at bestoften indistinct and feeble, and sometimes not at all visible. Where shall we seek for a solution of this apparent mystery? where shall we find the seat of disease, for something morbid there must be, however promising or imposing the exterior. We shall find it, I conceive, in this general condition, the faith in the Saviour is yet but weak, and therefore the mind is not spiritual, and the heart is defective in vitally religious principle. A certain kind of concern, indeed, in scriptural truth is not uncommon. The ear is familiarized to the sound of the gospel solemnities, -the judgment is convinced of the oneness (so to say) of the gospel plan of salvation,—the mind even craves for the food it finds (from habit) in the preaching of the gospel; nay, further, there may be an impatience at listening to any unfaithful statement of the doctrines of the cross; there may

even be some sympathy felt with the earnestness with which the minister points to the atoning power of the blood of Christ; there may be a thrilling interest in the soul when for the moment it is enlivened by the recollection of the love of the Redeemer; tears may be shed while, for the instant, the mind droops over the memory of the Redeemer's pangs; the bosom may for a while heave in sincere and eager response to energetic appeals to the sinner's conscience; all the symbols of a sincere, nay, impassioned adoption of the Saviour's cause, may speak from the eye or the lip; the whole frame may be instinct with the characters of an ardent discipleship, and yet, all the time, the heart itself may be, as to any lasting influence, nearly or virtually untouched. There is no solid religious principle in it. And so, as to common, every-day life,-one man may feel uneasy in going to his pillow at night, without previous prayer; he may think with pain on having begun or closed the day without calling his family with him round the domestic altar; he may look back on the past sabbath with regret at his own coldness, or wandering of mind during the public services; he may be shocked at the libertine's jest, or the blasphemer's oath; he may see with scorn the frauds and chicanery of the world, and the gross neglect of relative duties; he may recede with aversion from even the slightest acquaintance with the dishonest and the unprin

cipled; he may do all this, and yet be under the sway of no true religious principle. Another man may be most exact in the routine of what is ordinarily understood by a moral life; he may be a strict and punctual paymaster of his debts; he may be abundant and frequent in alms to the poor; his name may be found foremost among the supporters of the county's and the city's benevolent institutions; he may be admired for his decorum and regularity of life; his deportment may be remarkable for urbanity to all; revenge, envy, dissimulation, and all the darker passions may be strangers to his bosom; in short, he may entirely come up to the standard of what the world around him calls eminent virtue, and applauds as eminent merit, and yet among the excellencies of his character, genuine religious principle may have no place whatever. And all this may take place in the instances named, without any defect being even dreamt of, or any disguise assumed without any suppression of what is, or any counterfeit of what is not, present in the elements of their different intellectual and moral characters. While each thinks he sees, he has the eye of his soul shut; while each thinks he feels, he has the nerve of his soul paralyzed: a vision, indeed, he has, on which some objects are reflected greater, and others less than they actually are; a feeling too he has, but it is that which furnishes no test of the actual weight, density, or