cases the wonder and the strangeness would be, if there were no expressions of feeling. It would be they who felt not, and not they who felt, that deserved to be branded as irrational and unmanly.

V. There are numerous indications in the declarations of the scriptures, that the intense concern of the church for the souls of men will be introductory and instrumental to the conversion of the world.

A long train of facts in the history of the church proves that always "when Zion travailed she brought forth." In this state of feeling, there is a glowing sympathy between the church and the noble designs of God. In this frame the church can be greatly and largely blessed with prosperity without being injured by it. It is an inactive church, like an inactive army, that is injured by its own triumphs and accessions. That for which we have wrestled in agonizing prayer, we are ready to prize: and it is always dear to us. Young converts are always dear to a praying and laborious church: to a lukewarm church, they are goads and thorns and unwelcome spurs. Where is the church that now throbs in every member to produce numerous converts to the faith of Christ? that is panting with prayers and longings until delivered of the product of her ordinances and institutions? "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow," and so has a church that is concerned for sinners, and that pangs for their redemption. But in what church shall we find "sorrow," that so many under her ministrations live and die "hearers only;" and that the majority of her Sunday-school children are unconverted? The children, indeed, come to the birth, but there is not strength to bring forth all her institutions "travail with a glorious day of grace;" but there is not sufficient energy of piety in her lessons and examples - not sufficient agony of prayer and earnest expectation, to produce believing converts. A day of glory is to dawn upon the church, and when the womb of that morning shall produce converts, numerous and brilliant as the dew, she will be strong, in the day of God's power, to become the joyful mother of children. The church, in the Apocalypse, ere she enjoyed this season, 66 cried, and was travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." The universe sympathizes with a church in anguish ; and for the birth-day of the children of God, the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together—all in effort, all in throes, for the production of a new-born world.

In the scriptures, the Holy Spirit everywhere shows that fervency is the state, in which the emotions of the church ought to be, and that the church is guilty and blamable when its feelings are not in that state. Consequently Christians have wished to feel, and tried to feel, but cannot feel; and they lament and grieve that it is so, and then regard their state as rather calamitous than criminal. All such attempts to feel are made in utter ignorance of the laws of the feelings and affections. The mind produces thought, and thought produces emotion, according to fixed laws and determined arrangements. We cannot say, "Let there be thought," and thought will be; or, "let there be joy or sorrow," and joy or sorrow shall immediately appear. To attempt to feel, or to try by a direct mental effort to feel, is a folly as complete as to say "I will now hear," when there is nothing around us audible. It is indeed possible to conjure up to the imagination the notes of the nightingale, and the roar of the cataract, but this would not be hearing. An immediate and direct effort for thought or emotion will always fail. In the most orderly and energetic application of the mind, we cannot say to one thought" come," and it cometh; nor can we guess what will be the thought that will present itself. Such also is the character of our emotions. We cannot say to our souls "fear," or "rejoice," and expect them, by mere volition or direct effort, to feel these emotions. It is evident, however, that they are in some measure under our control, and at our command, or else we should not be accountable for them. God has established a series of suitable means, and has taught us how to use them, that, by using them, we might be able to order and govern our emotions. King Saul could not by a fiat command agreeable emotions in his mind, nor could David produce them by earnest wishes, but he could use means to command and regulate them all by the dulcet sounds of his harp.

Let any man call up before his mind the figure and the character of his rival or foe, and let his mind dwell on the subject, and will he not in a moment begin to feel? Or let him conjure up the form of a mother, or, like Cowper, gaze on her portrait, and he will feel all the kindlings of filial affections. Any emotion can be produced by us, by detaining the mind on the subject fitted to excite it. Suppose there be any emotions which all your friends say you ought to feel, and which they lament you do not feel. If you sincerely

wished to gratify them, you have means within your reach to produce all the emotions disired. Your friends would not wish what was impracticable to you: they know, and you know, that were you to apply your mind to consider certain topics, the feelings would be produced; they would emerge and appear by the very constitution of your mind and by the laws of your feeling.

Suppose God were to reveal that there are certain emotions which it is your duty to feel. This would imply that religious emotions are as much under your control as any other class of feelings, for you have means calculated to excite them. You do not comprehend or understand the laws of thought and emotion, so well as you do the use of the senses or the movements of the limbs, because you are not trained to observe them. This is neglected in elementary education. Amid the varied institutions of the country, there is no school for the gymnastics of the passions. In pulpit ministrations, there generally appears something very much like a fear of making people feel. Intellectual preaching, cool ratiocination, close argument, and florid declamation, are the demand and the admiration of the day. These measures overlook the elements of our constitution. Every human being likes to feel; whether he read a book, or hear a discourse, he wishes to feel. He can feel only by his mind reflecting on facts: to make him feel, therefore, facts must be supplied and presented in a manner calculated to produce emotion. Mark the aspect of a whole large congregation when the minister begins to relate a fact or an anecdote: there is not a wandering eye, or a listless face, in the whole multitude. How is this? Their minds like to feel, and, in the narrative, they calculate on facts fitted to make them feel. When the emotions are excited and dilated, there is no necessity that they should be empty and hollow and light; for while they are in this state, then is the time for the minister to fill them with solid doctrine, weighty precept, or enlarged sentiment, as he thinks the case requires.

In the retirement of the closet you wish to feel for the heathen abroad, or for the baptized heathen at home; "but," you say, "I cannot feel as I would wish." How is it possible that you should feel? Suppose that you know little or nothing of their case: you never read the accounts sent from abroad by our missionaries: you neglect missionary prayermeetings where you might hear of them: you never look

around you in your own neighborhood: you know nothing of the religious state and feelings of the family next door to you. Is it a wonder that you do not feel? You are in a void; and might as well expect to feel compassion, as feel warm where all heat is excluded. Or, you are probably well acquainted with all the facts of the case, but you never allow your mind to dwell on the case, to reflect, and to realize all its guilt and misery: you do not try to rivet your mind on your own share and responsibility in all this guilt and misery: you find that the subject itself is unwelcome. What you have thought already has made you uneasy, perhaps so uneasy as to induce you to subscribe a mite or two; but not so uneasy as to make you travail in birth for the heathen, until Christ be formed in them. Think more of them, and you will feel more for them. When God would have Ezekiel feel for the distressed state of the Jewish church, he led him to the valley of dry bones to see it. It was when Paul saw the city wholly given to idolatry, that his mind was stirred within him; and it was when Jesus Christ beheld the miseries of Jerusalem that he wept over its sinful inhabitants. The Christian who increases his knowledge of the world, will increase his sorrow for its wretchedness, and his longings for its redemption.

The Spirit of Grace.

SECTION IV.

· Christians the Stewards of Grace for the World.

One of the sweetest titles given to the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of Grace." He assumes and wears this name, on account of his benevolent disposition and beneficient agency. He is personally disposed to show kindness to our sinful world, and he is officially designated to convey the good favor of God to mankind. "The Spirit of Grace" is only a Hebrew form of expression for a "Gracious Spirit." This character becomes the Holy Spirit, as He is the kind, the gentle, the affectionate, and the beneficient author of all the spiritual and heavenly favors exhibited to the world. It is in reference to this aspect of his office, that our Lord remarks, concerning the Holy Spirit, "He shall take of mine, and show it unto you." This observation teaches us, that "the unsearchable riches" of grace and favor, treasured in the atonement of Christ, were intended for the world; and that the exhibition, conveyance, and impartation of them to the

world, were entrusted to the agency and the administration of the Holy Spirit. If Christians are filled with the influences of the Holy Spirit, or if they have received the full impression of the seal of his character, they will be like him in disposition and activity for doing good: they will be beneficent as well as benevolent. The Holy Spirit conveys and commits the manifold grace of God to Christians, as unto "stewards," that they might communicate and distribute it to the entire household of man in well-doing; or that "they might minister grace to the hearers" by their religious conversation.

I. - ·Doing good to others the Test of Gracious Character.

In religious parlance we have often heard the following remark: "Such a person is a good man, but he is not a useful man." It would prove a painful and a difficult task to show, how a man that is of no use can be really good; for, if he be of no use, good for what is he? and if he be not good for some use, in what sense can he be called good? Thousands have rested in the religious notion of being good, without going on to the perfection of doing good; and a capacity for goodness has been mistaken and substituted for goodness itself. In our Saviour's estimation, the good tree is, not the tree that is capable of bearing good fruit, but the tree that bears it; and the more fruit it bears, the more it is under obligations to bear, and the more it is expected to bear; for "every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit." Usefulness, even so small as a grain of mustard-seed, is a reason and motive for increasing and multiplied usefulness. He that begins to do good must never expect, and never wish, to stop, or to cease from well-doing, but rather rejoice in the additional opportunities, and accumulated obligations, of "abounding in the work of the Lord." Christians are intended to be the benefactors of the world, by rendering the world better than they found it. Though usefulness to others does not constitute piety, it is the surest test, and the brightest evidence, of piety where it is. Every Christian is to be the comforter of the world the representative of the Holy Spirit in the world: he is to feel and move and act in the world as if the Holy Spirit were the soul of his bodily frame. In the case of such an in-dwelling, it would be delightful to think what use this Holy Agent would make of an intellect and a heart like ours - of eyes and lips