placency in reviewing a portion of our life: it may have been characterized by ardent Christian efforts, and holy aspirations after God; yet such are the moral obliquities which deface another portion, that we turn away with disgust from our inconsistencies. A knowledge of the power of interest, of sense, and of passion, diminishes the joy arising from actions well performed; for, amid the rejoicings of conscious integrity, we have a foreboding of future relapse. Many, indeed, seem to depend upon one portion of life to give character and value to the whole; as though the virtues of one period would cancel the vices of another. How different with the good and faithful servant!

"Behold him! in the evening tide of life,
A life well spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green,
By unperceived degrees he wears away,

Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting."

Every act of life will be reviewed, every influence, direct and remote, will be considered. Sin will appear no less hateful because it was committed by one consecrated to a better work; nor will its results be less disastrous.

The Lord, in pronouncing the joyous plaudit, reminds the servant of the vast disparity between the work and the reward: "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things." The trust committed to God's servant, however responsible, relates only to a few things; the sufferings to which it exposes him are few, but the enjoyments to be received are many. Every spiritual sense, every act of the divine administration in the kingdoms of nature, providence, and grace, will be a source of joy. The height of the enjoyment is denoted by the greatest contrast in earthly condition-the servant becomes a ruler. The apostle presents the same view: "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Mark the strength of the antithesis. On the one hand, affliction, on the other, glory-light affliction, a weight of glory-light affliction for a moment, an eternal weight of glory.

The final felicity of the good man is represented by his entering into "the joy of his Lord." Heaven is here represented under the figure of a banquet. Pignorius in

forms us that the word joy was inscribed on the eastern banqueting rooms. How indescribably glorious is the future state of the good man! The day of painful labor is closed; the tumults of passion are hushed; the highest wish of the devout heart is crowned-the good man has entered into the joy of his Lord. There is nothing in the nature of Christian effort revolting to sanctified affection, so that the highest degree of Christian virtue would be unwilling to be employed in it, even for ever, if such were the will of God; but as labor is required merely as a means of attaining future good, the consecrated man rejoices that he has accomplished the design of his being, and secured the highest pleasure of his heavenly Father. He rejoices in heaven, not as pure selfishness rejoices in the accomplishment of its ends, but in a state where he may exhibit more perfectly the moral image of his Redeemer, and can serve, with a strength and ardor before unknown, the Ruler of the universe.

To impress the more vividly the glories of heaven upon Christians, the most cherished objects were employed. Were the temple and its service to some associated with everything sacred and delightful-to such it was said, "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out." Had any been sub-ject to severe affliction, constant alarms, and heart-rending partings-to them the type of supreme felicity was a state in which "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." Did any associate the ornaments of wealth with perfect delight-the abode of the righteous was a city whose walls were jasper, whose foundations were "garnished with all manner of precious stones," whose gates were "pearls," whose streets were pure gold," and whose light was "the glory of God and the Lamb." Had rural scenery peculiar charms for any— to them heaven was a garden of delights, where flowed "a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal." On the banks of the river grew "the tree of life," whose diversified fruit would gratify every taste, "which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." The instructed mind will see in all these descriptions, that

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the future state of the good man is designed to be repre sented as superlatively glorious.

Such are the inducements to become good and faithful servants. As infinitely glorious and desirable as everlasting life is, it can be secured only by moral purity and unceasing efforts. The least defect in the radical principles of the heart will vitiate any title we may have claimed to the heavenly inheritance.

"O that each from his Lord may receive the glad word,
Well and faithfully done!

Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne."

SERMON XV.

The Divinity of Christianity demonstrated in the Conversion of St. Paul.

BY REV. JOHN H. POWER, D. D.,

OF THE NORTH OHIO CONFERENCE.

"And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do."—Acts ix, 6.

THE history of this subject presents us with a humiliating picture of the depravity and wickedness of man; and also an exalted view of the wisdom, goodness, and saving power of God. When the prophecies of the Old Testament had been fulfilled in the glorious person, holy teaching, and sublime works, of Jesus Christ-the promise of God realized in the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and thousands were converted and went forth in their redeemed and renewed character, breathing the spirit of "peace on earth, and good-will to men "—it might have been expected that they would have been received by society with acclamations of joy, and honored as the best portion of our race. Such, however, was not the fact; but, on the contrary, the wicked multitude appear to have sought their extermination from the earth. The first one of the disciples of Christ who fell a victim to this outbreaking of the

depravity and wickedness of man was the inoffensive and pious Stephen; and among his murderers we find the person whose character is brought to view in the subject before us. But while we mourn over the folly and cruelty of man, in his opposition to God and his own best interests, in this and the future world, we can with gratitude admire the wisdom and goodness of God, in confounding the wisest counsels, defeating the most malevolent designs of man, and not unfrequently rescuing, from the wreck of his most cherished earthly hopes, his immortal spirit by the power of divine grace. A striking example of this we have in the case of Saul of Tarsus, as presented in the text. To render this subject of as great practical use as possible, your attention will be directed to the following particulars : I. THE FACT THAT SAUL WAS THE SUBJECT OF AN ENTIRE CHANGE IN FAITH AND PRACTICE ON THE SUBJECT OF MORALS AND RELIGION. And,

II. THAT THIS CHANGE DEMONSTRATES THE DIVINITY OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST, OR GOD'S METHOD

OF REFORMING AND SAVING SINNERS.

III. THE CONDUCT OF SAUL, UNDER THE DIVINE ADMINISTRATION, STRIKINGLY EXEMPLIFIES THAT OBEDIENCE WHICH EVERY MAN OWES TO THE BLESSED SAVIOUR.

It will not be necessary to spend much time on the first member of this subject, with regard to the great change wrought on Saul. This will be made sufficiently clear by collecting a few facts from the Scriptures bearing on his case, before and after the moral position in which we find him presented in the text now under consideration.

And first, some facts before his visit to Damascus. In regard to his faith, he was a rigid Pharisee; and, as such, confined salvation to the Jews alone, and such as were proselyted to their faith. He believed in the merit of works; that salvation was secured, meritoriously, by the observance of Jewish rites, traditions, and ceremonies. He utterly rejected Jesus Christ, as an impostor; maintaining that his violent death was but a righteous retribution for his blasphemy; and that his followers deserved a similar fate for the same cause. With regard to practice, he was equally removed from the religion of the God of love; being, according to his own showing,

"in ignorance and unbelief, a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious." "And beyond measure persecuted the church of God, and wasted it." "And being exceeding mad against Christians, he persecuted them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and persecuted them even unto strange cities, and when they were put to death he gave his voice against them." By these deeds of daring cruelty to the unoffending and unprotected disciples of the blessed Saviour, Saul "made havoc of the infant church, entering into every house of the disciples, and, haling men and women, committed them to prison." How deep must be the corruption of his heart, and how dark his understanding, who can suppose that the Being, whose nature is love, and whose tender mercies are over all his works, can be delighted with such service as Saul attempted to render! that he requires his servants to hate their fellow-men, and compel them to blaspheme! that he requires them to persecute and murder those who cannot, or will not, conform to their dictations in matters of religion! But such were the views, and such the religion, of Saul. In the blindness of his zeal, in the boldness of his bigotry, he stopped not to consider the injury done to civil society by the death of its best citizens. He paused not to reflect on the sacred rights of conscience. The horrors of prisons, filled, without distinction of circumstance or sex, with the suffering saints of God, reached not his sympathies. He was unmoved by a mother's tears, or a child's tenderness. He cared not for the sighs and sorrows of parents, made childless by the martyrdom of their offspring; nor the anguish of children, made orphans by the murder of their parents; but rushed on, in his hostility to Christ and his followers, with a recklessness which seemed to glory only in the anguish and ruin of others. And let it be remembered, friends, that this is not a peculiarly aggravated case of human depravity, but only a fair specimen of the corruption of our race; which, under similar circumstances, would be equally cruel. And the very fact that all these enormities were practiced under the impulses of a blind and bigoted religion, and that the author of them, though possessed of great power of intellect and unbending regard for integrity, was so infatuated and led away with his blind zeal that his conscience was