-he could still forget his sufferings and his despair to rescue a perishing soul from perdition, and to perform the last office of his afflicted humanity by committing his mortal mother to the care of the disciple whom he loved.*

To this doctrine, however, of the efficacy of religion in rendering more intense as well as pure the right affections of the heart, it might possibly be objected, that there have been cases (that of Abraham, for instance,) in which the entire sacrifice of those affections has been required as an offering well-pleasing to God. And that there are precepts of scripture which apparently require us to overlook, and even to act in opposition to, many of the common claims of family and of kindred. But, in reply to such objections, we may safely maintain that all examples and injunctions of this kind are only meant to enforce on us the all-absorbing character of that devotion with which we ought to resign ourselves to the will of God; compared with which, indeed, all the ties of this lower world must be held as of feeble obligation, and in their capacity of ministering subordinately to which their whole intrinsic value consists. And, on the same principle, it may also be with good reason denied, that the firmness of a real religious character under trials *John xix. 26, 27.

and misfortunes of any kind, was designed to proceed from any mere indifference or apathy of mind. It is true that such a character is free from that unhealthy and morbid sentiment which, in an age of excessive refinement, is frequently mistaken for a right moral feeling, and which— ever vacillating and capricious-appears one while to shrink, with a false sensibility, from the force of those impressions which would too rudely shock the heart; and, at another, obtrudes itself on our notice under the semblance of a benevolent and universal, but really sickly and selfish sympathy. But then, on the contrary, the religious man is equally free from that affectation of reckless indifference with which the followers of this world are so fond of fencing the outer surface of licentiousness and pride. It is not, therefore, from a want of sensitiveness that his heart is so firmly steeled against seductions, or against immoderate sorrow, and fixed in its own stedfast and righteous purposes; it is from the very strength and fervor of the counteracting influences, that he gathers power to conquer himself. Abraham loved his child-how well, let his history declare: but the mighty current even of a father's love was lost in that broader and deeper channel in which the full tide of his devotion to his maker flowed on. And it was the same St. Paul who, under

the force of the enkindling and tried affections of his nature, could so feelingly exclaim, as he parted from his sorrowing friends, "what mean ye to weep, and to break mine heart?"-who, in the next moment, at the thought of his greater obligations to heaven, could cry out in triumph, “I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."*

Nor let it be said that, in times of affliction of any kind, while the gospel ministers a comfort and peace such as the world cannot give, it does so by crushing or impairing the tender affections of the heart. There is a grief which religion does not condemn, and a purified nature will never disown, on the recurrence of the ordinary misfortunes of life, and, more than all, at the bursting asunder of those dearest ties which have bound together friends and relatives upon earth. But still from the very acuteness of those feelings which it has awakened and refined, religion can extort a more than proportionate consolation. We are told, indeed, to "sorrow not;"† but then the ground of this injunction is-not that, as the followers of Christ, we are considered to have forgotten the dictates of humanity, but that we are not in the situation of" those who have no hope;" that we have another principle derived from our Christian † 1 Thess. iv. 13.

*Acts xxi. 13.

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faith, which has an intense and counteracting power that can transcend and conquer sorrow. The true Christian, bereaved and afflicted as he may be, has a strength of confidence in God that enables him, though great be the struggle, to overpower and master the dominion of inordinate grief. In his soul there is a deep well of comfort and consolation which the worldly mind knows not of. He believes God; he loves God; he trusts in God; he hopes in God; and therefore—from the very strength of all those principles-he is content. He can bear to look on his sufferings or his loss without repining, not as the punishment of an arbitrary master, but as the kind chastening of a father to correct the son whom he loveth. And, though he might have prayed his God, in the agony of grief, to put away from him the bitter and untasted cup, yet will he catch somewhat of the spirit of his Saviour, and learn from Him, in Christian resignation, to say, "Nevertheless, not my will, O Lord, but thine be done."

In conclusion then, my brethren, we may learn from this account of the character of sin, and of the operation of the scheme of Providence which was designed for its remedy, how many inducements there are, and of a kind, perhaps, some of them, which we had hardly dreamed of, to a pious and godly life. God asks not of us,

when he addresses himself to a sinful world, a sacrifice unusual or abhorrent to our nature. He appeals to us on the same grounds that we are called on to love a father, or to respect a benefactor. He shews us that our duty to him is indeed our "reasonable" and natural "service." He shews us that this duty is the lawful exercise of our affections; that this is what the best feelings of our hearts would dictate; that this, and this alone, is our temporal and eternal happiness. We learn that the heart of man, cold and desolate as it seems, under the gross and perverted character with which by human passion and human pride it has been invested, yet retains in itself some latent capacities, which, by divine assistance, may be carried out and trained up to better and nobler things. Like the pool of Bethesda, which, though of itself insipid and powerless as the rest of the dead and tasteless waters of this world,though it could be made efficacious by none of those agitations of earthly and subordinate elements which might occasionally ruffle its bosom, yet when roused from its deep stagnation by the influence of a spiritual messenger from on high, could be made to send forth new and yet undiscovered virtues, and communicate health, vitality, and joy to all around.

While, then, we learn that such is the cha