mises, whose are the fathers, and of whom according to the flesh Christ came."

These were great titles to honour and respect, and it is not to be wondered that St. Paul's love of his own race should have grown so vivid, when his thoughts recurred to them. True it is that these great and signal marks of God's favour, eventually proved a snare and stumbling block to the Israelites, both nationally and individually. The peculiar dispensation under which they lived for so long a period, gave rise to prejudices, which are still rank and flourishing in the inmost core of their hearts. A long indulgence in too exclusive a spirit of nationality has isolated them among nations, so that they have practically forgot that "God has made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." They recognise with pride the wisdom of God in setting their race apart as a "chosen people," destined to cherish the great truths of religion among idolatrous and apostate nations, and to be His witnesses, and the preservers of His oracles, for so long a lapse of ages. But they refuse to acknowledge the same wisdom which made their separation a means and not an end, the portico of a glorious edifice, within which all exclusion was to cease, the walls of separation to be thrown down, and where all the redeemed children of Adam were to be gathered as the sheep of one fold, under the spiritual influence of their one Lord and Saviour.

But the abuse of a beneficial principle is no valid argument against its uses and advantages; the good deducible from its natural influence should be carefully fostered, and all the evils arising from excess be as carefully rejected. The Christian religion with all its catholic maxims, with all its extensive sympathies, does not release the true believer from the full performance of his relative duties to the members of that circle in which he moves, irrespective of any

other motive than a sense of duty. "It is the brother whom he hath seen, that the Christian is to love, that brother with whom he mingles in the common charities of life, otherwise he cannot love that God whom he hath not seen." He is to visit the fatherless children and widows, within his own reach, and thus to prove that his religion is "pure and undefiled." And should a man professing himself a Christian neglect, in the universality of his benevolence, to provide for his own immediate family, we are expressly told by the Apostle "That such a man is worse than an Infidel." The man with whom he comes in immediate contact is especially his neighbour, whether he be a Lazarus at his gate, or a wounded traveller by the road side; undoubtedly as his means improve, and his circle of action is enlarged, so also ought his Christian spirit of beneficence to expand and make itself be graciously felt, as far as its influence can safely be extended; our Saviour has left us an awful warning, That sea and land may be encompassed by a zeal not to be wearied, and yet terminate not in the glory of God, but in the destruction of souls. The time-honoured maxim that "True charity should begin at home," although sadly misinterpreted, is nevertheless full of truth and beauty.

But in extending the God-like virtue of charity, there is some danger that we may confine ourselves to a more narrow circle of action, than is prescribed to us by our Christian duty. We are taught by the code of Christian morals to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to pour oil into the wounds of those labouring under any physical misfortune, and by so acting to imitate our Saviour in some part of his beneficent career. But were we to study the whole character of his actions while on earth, we shall find no instance in which he miraculously interfered for the purpose of clothing the naked, and only two instances recorded where the hungry were by him miraculously fed, and that many of his beneficent acts of mercy, even when directed to the supernatural healing of bodily infirmities, were rather calculated to restore to the helpless object the power of providing for his

personal wants, by his own personal labours, than to enable him to live in careless idleness of this nature were those miracles, by which strength was restored to the withered arm, their natural powers to the paralyzed limbs, and which enabled the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk.

His mission to this world was of a higher character than to heal the casual infirmities of the body. He was to minister that Bread which perisheth not, to open that fountain of living waters, from which whosoever drinks shall not thirst again, to communicate to mankind that sacred knowledge which was "to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel." To reveal those truths to babes which had been concealed from the wise, and which when received with grace and thanksgiving were certain to make their recipients wise unto salvation. Above all, as the first step in the great work of regenerating a fallen world, He was to purify the hearts, and open the understanding of His Apostles and immediate ministers, and to enable them to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and to comprehend in all its glory and wisdom, that great scheme of salvation, which was the final result of His voluntary humiliation and sufferings.

And here I must enlarge upon one topic, which requires our especial attention, as it refers to a truth which some of our countrymen, especially in the last generation, seem to have either neglected or forgotten; but which you will permit me to impress upon your minds with sincerity and boldness; we have heard with a spirit of reiteration which has wearied the patience of well informed Christians, that the Apostles and disciples chosen and sent forth by our Saviour were ignorant and illiterate men, that they were deficient in all those qualifications by which men of learning are usually characterized, and that consequently their successors in the ministry need not be more learned than the Apostles themselves were; but a great fallacy is concealed under this form of reasoning.

It is true that at the time when our Saviour first called

them, they answered faithfully to the description above given. It is also true that they continued in the same state, during the whole period of our Saviour's ministry upon earth, when they were distinguished by great want of spiritual feeling, and by an extraordinary ignorance of the real character and true mission of their Lord and Saviour. It is also as true that had they continued in that state, they would, should God have not changed the whole nature of his communion with mankind, have proved utterly unfit for the great work of evangelizing the nations. But our Lord provided against this their original unfitness. He on the feast of Pentecost, forty days after His own Ascension, communicated to them. the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, by the reception of which they instantaneously were made fit instruments for successfully carrying on the great work, entrusted to them by their departed Master. They at once, by an act of the divine will, became masters of those languages, which we of modern times can only partially acquire after great labour and sacrifice of time. They at once became cognizant of the true meaning, and the spiritual import of those precious communications, which in their previous state had been either totally misunderstood or dimly comprehended. They became suddenly acquainted with the secret springs, within the human breast, which when once touched, cause the whole soul to vibrate, and harmoniously to respond to the persuasive appeal. Thus qualified and armed with that fearless Spirit, which after the day of Pentecost they invariably displayed, they went forth to their work, fully prepared to meet and battle among their own countrymen the traditional errors of the Pharisee, and the unspiritual creed of the Sadducee, and in the wider field of the heathen world, to encounter the specious fallacies of the Stoic, and the godless theories of the Epicureans. It would be easy to enlarge upon this head, but let it suffice simply to state, that the Apostles, when sent forth on their ultimate mission, were far more learned, more eloquent, more persuasive than any ministers of Christ in our age can hope to become. All this was ac

complished by an immediate act of his divine power, and the Apostles were sent forth perfect models and specimens of what his leading ministers ought to be in all ages. But still they were only instruments in the hands of that Master who had called and sent them forth; channels of his revelation undoubtedly, but perishable channels, as far as their connexion with this world was concerned. Hence it became necessary that this revelation of the Christian scheme of salvation should be embodied in an imperishable form, to be handed down faithfully to all succeeding generations of Christians. This great object was secured by the publication of that written record, that pure and undefiled source of all spiritual knowledge, as revealed by Christ on earth, which we now denominate the New Testament, and which may well be called the ever present representation of the real "Word that was made flesh," and which like its great source is full of "Grace and Truth."

And here again I take the liberty of calling your particular attention to the following fact, which is not I believe so familiar to your minds as it ought to be, and which nevertheless embraces a truth of the greatest importance to every Christian, who wishes to become thoroughly conversant with the real meaning of the "Living oracles" of God's word. The fact to which I allude is this. Although the Hebrew language was the sacred deposit of the older revelation; although in its words alone God's will to man had been communicated through the great legislator of Israel, and the goodly company of the prophets; although in our Saviour's day the Latin language was the authorized tongue of the Roman Empire, the favoured idiom of the masters of the world, yet that revelation which was to make God's will patent to all nations, which was to be commensurate with the moral, intellectual, and spiritual wants, and even aspirations of the mind of man in its most vigorous and regenerated state, was not embodied in the sacro-sanct language of the Hebrews, nor in the state language of imperial Rome. That peculiar distinction was conferred upon the Greek language alone; and for this strik