A poor man,-even in the lowest rank of life,-by discharging faithfully the trust committed to him, often produces an amount of good which extends itself to generations that come after him,-while another with better means, by neglecting his trust, leaves only memorials of ruin,—and extends the ill effects of his mismanagement over a wide extent of the rational family of God.

And when the "lowly righteous" are consigned to the dust, how often do we follow them with great thoughts of the course which they have run,—of the difficulties they have surmounted,—and of the good they have accomplished!

Their fidelity, indeed, seems only in such moments to have been enhanced by the very humility of the circumstances amidst which it was displayed; --and when we follow their spirits into the invisible world, all the ordinary distinctions of time seem reduced to nothing in our anticipation of the splendour of the reward on which, as the consequence of their fidelity, they have at last entered.

In truth, the trust committed even to the greatest upon earth, is, in one view, but of small amount; -and the common sentence to all who shall be found to have well fulfilled their trust shall at last

be,-" Well done, good and faithful servants, ye have been faithful over a few things, I will make you rulers over many things: enter ye into the joy your Lord."

of

IV.

ASPECTS PECULIAR TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.

PSALM CXV. 16. The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth he hath given to the children of men.

LAM. iii. 38. Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good?

THAT THAT PORTION OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM

WHICH IS DISPLAYED ON EARTH MAY BE PRESUMED TO EXHIBIT PECULIAR OR CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES.

FROM what has been already stated, it is plain, that "the kingdom of God," when the idea is taken in its most general form, is to be viewed as extending not merely over the entire face of our world, but over the arrangements of those innumerable worlds

with which the boundless expanse of space is filled. Our earth is but a point in the immensity of the universe, and the progress of science has tended immeasurably to amplify our views of the probable range of the dominions of God, and to afford us intimations of the connexion which our present place in existence holds with all the higher and nobler specimens of the Divine workmanship. We thus behold around us distinct indications of those " many mansions" which Divine wisdom and goodness have fitted up as abodes of those countless orders of beings with whom we have reason to believe that the universe is peopled;-and the more perfect our instruments of discovery have become, and the wider our view consequently of the actual relations of things terrestrial and things heavenly, the more gratifying has become our perception that our most extended views are capable of giving us but a feeble conception of the immeasurable fields over which the interminable empire of God is extended, -and of the exhaustless splendours of that everbrightening dominion, of which the most magnificent arrangements of this earth are but a limited and subordinate specimen.

Even this mode of considering the vast limits of

the kingdom of God is not sufficient to give us a correct idea of its actual relations;-for not only does it extend throughout all space, and embrace the arrangements of all worlds,-but space and duration are united within its limits; and it must therefore be still farther regarded as extending to all those interminable ages,-whether as time or as eternity, which are yet to be evolved. It thus comprehends not only things visible and invisible, the arrangements of this earth, and the more magnificent manifestations of the Divine perfections over all the worlds by which infinity is beautified;-but all times and all eternities,-the past, the present, and the future, as far as human imagination is capable of being stretched, are included within its vast combinations;-and- the whole arrangements of existence,-all that God is now displaying, or is yet throughout the boundless ages of eternity to display of his "eternal Power and Godhead," make up one grand and united whole, only varied in its manifestations according to the varied powers of the beings to whom, in different portions of his dominions, or at separate portions of duration, the display is made ;—and all advancing, under the

VOL. I.

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