reality a Being of a higher order, and the partaker of a more exalted nature. And in following out this reasoning, we soon arrive at the conclusion, that he is the Messiah that was so long before promised to come,-that He is that "beloved Son" whom we are recommended to hear and to obey.

There is a second propriety in such meditations upon the character of our Lord at this time, as they are of all others the best fitted to prepare the young of our people to meet his coming with the feelings that ought ever to be appropriate to this season. In their usual systems of instruction, or of study, they hear of their Lord only by the "hearing of the ear," by the doctrines which men have received from his words, or the reflections which they have derived from his actions. In opening the Gospels for themselves, on the other hand,-in following his footsteps through the narratives of his disciples,-the young, on the other hand, also "see him with their eyes." He again, as it were, descends from Heaven before them,he repeats to them his lessons, he reperforms his miracles, he again is bound upon the cross, -and again he ascends to the Father. What study is there which can so well prepare them

as this to meet their Lord with solemn joy?. to see his character in all its varied lights of mercy and of love ?-to feel with the good old Simeon in the Gospel, that they "have seen his salvation,"and to say with the deep conviction of the centurion, "Truly this man was the Son of God ?"

But, above all, in what other study, in what other discipline, can they so well hope to acquire or to partake of the mind which was in Christ Jesus? It is ever the property of love to make us, even unconsciously, the imitators of those whom we admire,—and it is, in consequence, most chiefly in the hours when our hearts are melted with the study of our Saviour's mind, that they are most capable of receiving the stamp and seal of regeneration.

Let these then, my brethren, be the studies and meditations both of our hearts and of our households in this appointed season of preparation.

While the Saviour of the world is again preparing "to visit us in great humility," let us be found, like the shepherds of Bethlehem, at a distance from the noise and distractions of the world, with hearts glowing with new remembrances of what he hath suffered and gained for the children of

men, with eyes uplifted in deeper adoration to the throne of mercy, from which he comes; and while the hymn of angels, that announced his arrival, is now preparing to be joined by the voices of millions of the faithful of "every nation, and kindred, and tongue" upon earth, let our hearts awaken to the melody of Heaven, and our tongues unite in saying, "Glory be to God in the highest !" "Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord!"

DISCOURSE V.

ON THE CHARACTER OF OUR SAVIOUR, AS AN ARGUMENT OF THE TRUTH OF HIS RELIGION.*

MATT. xxi. 9.-Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

THE life of our Saviour is so familiar to us from our earliest infancy,-the scenes in which it was past are so humble,-and the narrative of the evangelists is so simple and unpretending, that we are apt to consider it in no higher light than that of common biography, and to lose sight of all that is peculiar and unprecedented in his character. His history, like his mind, has descended to us veiled in humility, and it is not every eye therefore that hath strength or steadiness enough to penetrate through

* Preached before Christmas.

the medium in which it is enshrined, and to see, in the young and humble inhabitant of Nazareth, the distinctive features of "the Son of the living God.”

It was on this account that I attempted, upon a late occasion, to draw your minds to this interesting subject, and to point out some of those views of our Saviour's character which raise him obviously above the level of human nature, and at this auspicious season, when all things in heaven and earth are preparing to hail the anniversary of his birth, to draw aside for a little the veil which conceals from us that " glory which He had with the Father before the beginning of the world.”

Upon that occasion I considered his character only in its private and individual aspect, as comparable with that of other men, both in its intellectual and its moral qualities; and in both of these I attempted to point out the original and essential superiority which it possesses above all that ever appeared under the form of man ;-in the first case, in the nature of his wisdom, which was innate and underived from any school or instruction of men ; and, in the second place, from the nature of his goodness, which in Him, and Him alone, was perfect and incapable of sin.