mained no grander and more exalted arena yet to be opened for the exercise of the faculties of an immortal soul. While a similar conclusion must result from a view of the constitution of man as forming a connecting link between two widely different orders of being. With the things of the material world we are indeed bound up for a time, but we are yet of a higher character than they. Man is composed of an undying spirit linked to a perishable body. Bowed to the earth with the infirmities of his mortal frame, as well as with the sinfulness that has enthralled the soul, yet, in his immortality, at least, he is akin to those eternal spirits who minister perpetually to the will of Jehovah; and who, as we are told, in subordination to the supreme intelligence, watch over the destinies of man, and participate in the joy of Heaven over the return of a repentant sinner. And thus, from the very composition and structure of our nature, we may learn, though alas! we too seldom apply the truth, that our interest in this world is but of a transitory kind, and that we are indeed as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

But in how far more deeply interesting and efficacious a light is this great principle represented to us in the Gospel scheme! It is a principle which is interwoven throughout with

the whole texture of revealed religion from the beginning of time. And it is one which stands forth in peculiar and most striking prominence in the preaching and all the doctrines of Christ. It was the spirit of this world which he came expressly to encounter,-the spirit which makes men love that world as their real and permanent home, and fix their attachment on the objects of sense, as if they were to abide for ever. His "kingdom" was literally "not of this world.” It was to break the chains that bound us here, that he came from heaven. His office, as a Redeemer, was to ransom us from our subjection to that evil spirit who was emphatically called, "the Prince of this world," and to open to us an "access to a better kingdom, that is, an heavenly. And the Holy Ghost, while it sanctified the heart of man, was to do so, not only by instilling holiness and goodness from on high into that corrupted soil, but by banishing those degraded affections which riveted and bound it too much to the earth, the "lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which are not of the Father, but the world."*

So that it is not too much to assert, that a great and essential principle, pervading the whole tenor of the Christian scheme, is one which requires its professors to feel and live as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

1 John ii. 17.

And need I add how beautifully the example of its author carried out and illustrated the precept he taught? Christ was himself indeed a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth. He passed not along with cold and sullen indifference on the rugged pathway of his laborious pilgrimage. His was not the frigid and stern asceticism which could lead him uninterested and unmoved through the mighty conflict of human passions, in the midst of which his earthly lot was cast. The fountains of an infinite and inexhaustible benevolence flowed freely forth in his every word and his every action. The world which he came to save had his warmest sympathies, his unceasing labours, his persevering prayers, his very life itself. But still he asked not from the world any of its gifts or treasures in return. The tempter could not bribe him by the dazzling display of all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, to a moment's forgetfulness of God. Nor had the humbler offering of a Jewish crown any attractions for him who knew the emptiness of all human honours. He wandered about without a home, or a place where to lay his head. The very standard of his preference and his praise was on a principle directly in opposition to that which was adopted amongst mankind. He had no fellowship with the pride of greatness, but his

t

chosen companions were the poor in spirit, the humble and meek of heart, who were attached to this life by the fewest and feeblest ties. His disciples too, like their master, were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Rejected by their fellow men, and persecuted by authorities and powers, the course they chose was one which could win them no fellow-feeling from the world at large. They who pointed out to others, and walked themselves, by the narrow and difficult and deserted path, could not expect the honor and companionship of those who chose the broad and flowery way that leadeth to destruction. "If ye were of the world," said our Saviour to them, "the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.' # Nor could they who had imbibed a purer spirit from on high, find any congeniality with their own in the perverse tastes and habits that prevailed around them; or at least a community of feeling which could win from them any more permanent attachment to this world, than as a place of temporary and painful sojourning.

But besides these particular considerations, derived from the precepts of the Gospel and the examples of its professors, which remind us of

*John xv. 19.

the feebleness of the tie that binds us to this world, it is not sufficiently borne in mind, that the sentiment in the text is one, which, at the same time, invests with some very peculiar features the nature and value of that which is to come. Heaven is too often regarded, not as the sole and separate object of human pursuit, but as a kind of adventitious benefit in reversion, an appendix, as it were, to the common enjoyments of life, which awaits us,-the gift of a profuse, and somewhat undistinguishing benevolence,--when the cup of earthly pleasure shall have been drained to the very dregs, and there shall have remained no longer the sense of joy in the palled and sated appetites. The attainment of it,' therefore, is not as it should be, by the bulk of mankind at least, held up as the great end of a distinct and independent enterprise, too mightily absorbing all the energies of the soul to admit of any rival avocation. And, as a further consequence of the same false position, it is forgotten that the candidate for eternal rewards has not only with all diligence externally, that is, by the visible tenor of his out ward conduct,-to seek an interest in heaven, but internally to mould his heart according to the spirit which prevails there not only to pursue its promised enjoyments, but to awaken that moral taste within, without which those enjoy