stand nothing of these things! They cannot comprehend them. The carnal mind is enmity against God; it does not know these things-it cannot know them; they are to be spiritually discerned. go and pray God to make us ten thousand times more in earnest. In earnest! Are not angels in earnest? In earnest! Are not the very devils in earnest ? And what I pray you is their object? To ruin, to destroy the souls of men-to lay their baits and their plots, and their schemes, and their stratagems, and their temptations to allure you-to catch you, to destroy you, to damn you. In earnest ? Is not Christ in earnest? What did he do ? He left the throne of his Father earth-he tabernacled among menhe wept-he talked-he bled-he suffered-and he died. Was he not then in earnest? Ah, my brethren, and would you have us not be in earnest ? Then we have no business here-we have no business to mount the Christian pulpit, if we are not in earnest. We mean what we say, when we talk of that horrible, that dreadful word, damnation. We do not do it lightly— we do not do it because we think that word means nothing-we do not do it to frighten you-we do not bring it forth as a bugbear to alarm; we bring it forth as the truth of God, and we know that God meant something when he used it, and we know you will find in the fearful reality of agonizing experience, if you die in your sins, that it does comprehend something infinitely more tremendous than the emptiness of a name. "Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." You often wonder why we press these things so much. Now then I will give you our apology why we press them so much, while I turn in the third place, To THE ARDOUR, OR TO THE EARNESTNESS OF THIS LABOURER IN HIS WORK. "Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his work--he came down to sojourn upon ing, which worketh in me mightily." The apostle did not stand up to preach a sermon as one who did not care a straw what effect it would produce; he did not stand up to preach a sermon that persons might go away and admire his learning and his talents and his power; but he preached many a sermon which God Almighty made "a word in season," by which the careless sinner was affected, the mourner comforted, the believer edified, and the people of the Lord strengthened and sanctified. No wonder he was in earnest he had learned something of the value of the soul, for he had felt the value of his own. No man is fit to preach to others, till he knows the value of his own soul. And woe be to that man who undertakes to do it; it had been better for him that he had never been born. Our church requires that a man should be moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon him the office of minister; and if he dares to tell an egregious lie, and say he is moved when he knows he has not experienced that influence, it shall cause the sin to cry out, and the curse of damnation shall be on his own head. Oh, my brethren, do not be offended with us; if we had more of the apostolic spirit, we should have more of the apostolic fire. Look at St. Paul labouring as in agony, with all his heart, with all his soul, as a wrestler in the Grecian games-as one who was putting forth all the energies of body and soul, and all he had, and that for one grand object. For what? To save souls-to bring sinners to God -to edify the church-to build up a people prepared for the Lord. Now some of you are offended with us; you know you are; and that because we are in earnest. Instead of this, This leads me to the fourth and last point. We see the labourer the blessed Apostle St. Paul-once a bigoted Jew, a bloody and bitter persecutor, and who thought he ought to oppose the Gospel, and did oppose it with all his soul-converted, however, by the powers of the Holy Ghost, he becomes an Apostle-a martyr, suffering for his blessed Redeemer, and not only counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, but sealing his testimony with his blood. We have seen the object the Apostle had in view: it was not to render himself great, nor to secure the honours and pleasures of the world-he turned all these behind him, and kept his eye stedfastly fixed on the conversion of sinners, and the edification, and sanctification, and sal vation of the Church of God. We have further seen how earnest he was in all this, "Whereunto I also laboured:" not bringing these thingsas so many cold, dead things to the people, but as words of fire, and words of power, which, while they certainly influenced his own heart, caused him to go and preach with all his apostolic earnestness to others. Now, what is OF ALL THIS? THE SECRET CAUSE The text tells you. According to his working, which worketh in me mightily." The Lord Jesus by the power of his Spirit wrought mightily in the heart of the Apostle, and made him in earnest for others. Now, my brethren, as our time hastens, take these three ideas by way of conclusion. FIRST of all, learn the supreme magnitude and importance of the work of the ministry. We do not wish to magnif yourselves-not at all; but we do wish to magnify our office. My brethren, we are but sinful dust and ashes, like yourselves; poor sinful men. Know it; we wish you to know it; we wish never to appear before you in stealth. We wish you to know that we are men of like passions with yourselves-men encompassed with infirmities-men who need your prayers. But you cannot think too highly of our office. God only knows what that office can do for you. It can, if God pleases, save you to a man-it can make all to leap for joy that ever you heard the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Though it be true that we are earthen vessels, and you cannot think too lowly of the earthen vessel; yet God knows it is no earthen treasure. No, no, it is no earthen treasure; and if through his grace you embrace the truth as it is in Jesus, you may have to bless God, and shall have to bless God eternally, that ever you heard the message of a Christian Minister. Learn a SECOND idea, and it is this: See what sort of men the clergy ought to be. I began by telling you that I do not profess to be what the Apostle here describes; but I do declare before LASTLY, If your ministers are to be so earnest about the salvation of your souls, it becomes you to be in earnest for them. If we are thus to labour to strive as in agony, and to persevere as if we had all at stake, are we only to be in earnest? Are we to preach as with eternity before us-as if we saw the Judge on his awful throne, and the great books of judgment unfolded; and the dead, small and great, standing before God-and are we only to be in earnest? There are some of you that never have been at all in earnest about religion. Why do you come to church? Why come you hither time after time ? I reproach you not—I thank God when I see you. It would not be proper to come to names-were it proper 1 could come to names, and I could say, There is one for whom I have often prayed-there is another over whom I have sometimes wept-there are many of whom I stand in doubt-there are all whom I long to bless and bring to God. Go then, and if we are to be in earnest, go and pray that you may be in earnest too. With this I conclude: your ministers will only be in good earnest as the Lord Jesus Christ is pleased to carry on his work in their own hearts, and, therefore, how much do we need your prayers: how much do we need that we may be able to feed the flock of God with knowledge and discretion. Go then and pray for us; go and pray for yourselves: and may that God who heareth prayer answer the prayers both for the one and the other. A Sermon DELIVERED BY THE REV. BAPTISTE NOEL, Luke, xvi. 8, 9.-" And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” THESE words form the conclusion of | one of our Saviour's parables, together with the special lesson which he meant to derive from it. In opening this parable, as well as others, it is of consequence to us to notice, that there are some especial truths which our Saviour generally by this parable means to inculcate; and it will lead us into mistake and exaggeration to endeavour to strain the parallel which is drawn in this parable between different persons, beyond those special points of application which our Lord intended. We shall have occasion to use this remark in applying the parable before us. : The policy of this steward's conduct just previous to the loss of his situation is obvious by his making the various debtors send in a bill greatly inferior to that which they ought to have sent in, by which he made them his debtors instead of being the debtors of the lord, he lessened the obligation to the lord, trusting the deceit would not be discovered; and they, thereby being obliged to pay much less than was due, would owe to him an obligation which they would afterwards have to repay. His policy consisted in securing to himself, just as he was about to lose the more important favour of his master, the favour of those unworthy persons, who by his means, were willing to defraud their creditor of one portion of that which was his due. The wisdom of this conduct is evident, because being an unworthy man without virtue, and therefore without the esteem of others, he would have secured no friendship and no favour for himself, except by thus laying others under obligation. Let us consider, FIRST, those points, wherein the condition of all men re semble that of the steward in the parable; and, then, SECONDLY, wherein men, the children of light, are to imitate the steward's conduct. There are three points in which THE CONDITION OF ALL MEN RESEMBLES THAT OF THE STEWARD IN THE TEXT. And First, that all men are stewards to the Almighty. Secondly, that their stewardship is of short duration. Thirdly, when their stewardship is closed, they must give an account of it. As this man was put in trust of his master's property, so all men, whatever be their various conditions, are stewards to God. They are his stewards, because by creating them he acquired a right to all they have. They were his sole gift; and inasmuch as he preserves those he has created, each moment renewing, as it were, the gift of creation, men are bound to consecrate to him all that they possess. Those who live under the sound of the Gospel are his stewards by a further claim, because he has sent his Son to redeem them; and therefore, by the obligation of redeeming love itself they are bound to render to God what they possess. Nay, as the Apostle teaches. us, not only what they have, but what they are, is God's-"Ye are not your own, but ye are bought with the price." If men are themselves God's property, surely they are bound to render to God all that he has bestowed. All, therefore, men possess is to be used according to the ends for which he gave it, and in the manner which he has intended; the chief of those ends being, the glory of the Giver. When the King of Babylon was about to be destroyed for his iniquity, the charge which the prophet brought against him was mainly this;-" God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not | glorified." And when the Apostle in the Romans would bring in the whole world guilty before God, and close their mouths so that they might have nothing to say in justification, he declares," All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" this being the principal end for which he has put men in stewardship, and allowed them to possess any of the gifts of nature or Providence. The second point in which the condition of all men resembles that of the Steward is, that it is of short duration. The parable commences with the period of the stewardship when the man was about to be dismissed. In this we all resemble him, that whatever period may be allotted to our natural life, that period is of short duration. If you will ask an aged man what he thinks of the years of human life, he will tell you they seem but a day. If you ask a young man, he will tell you they seem almost interminable. But which of these is imaginative, and which is right? The aged man sees life as it is the young man sees life as he fancies it. All aged men have discovered how short the longest period of human life is; therefore their estimate, and not that of youth, is to be taken. We are in fact stewards, and in a very short period our stewardship must close. Death to the eye of reflection seems at the very door. Ten years or twenty years may still remain, or perhaps a far less period, and that will be again short; and we perhaps who are now busied in ten thousand trifles will find they are all vain; and nothing is of importance, then, but the manner in which we discharge our stewardship. This brings us to the third point of resemblance, which is, the account which at that period is to be given. This account is to be given of all the trusts. The language applied in the parable to the steward is applicable to us all-" Give an account of thy stewardship." It is not any part, it is not the last month of thy stewardship, or the last year. "Give an account of thy stewardship"-give an account of all that property which since our first acquaintance has been trusted to thy care. The account of the stewardship which each of us has to render, extends over the whole period of time during which we have had possession of active reason. We have heard persons, in other respects eminently and deservedly esteemed for their intellectual powers, who though they profess an acquaintance with the Bible, were not ashamed to ridicule the idea, in no measured terms, that God would regard trifles. But trifles in our thoughts and words God perhaps esteems otherwise. He has told us, and we will take his word beyond all other speculation, that not a cup of cold water (there could not be a less gift than that), which shall be given to a disciple of Jesus in the name of a disciple, shall lose its reward; all registered in that grateful memory which shall never suffer any thing to be obliterated from it that his people have done to serve him. But if our services to God, which have in them no intrinsic merit, shall fail, how shall we conclude that our least transgressions, which have in them vast demerit, shall be overlooked in judgment? It cannot be. Our Lord himself determined in the twelfth chapter of Matthew, that for every idle word that men speak, that is, for every word that has in it the least degree of moral evil, men shall account at the day of judgment. "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Where, then, have they learnt their divinity, their ideas of religious truth, who can say that God is too great to regard the trifles of man's conduct? Besides, my brethren, let us remember, that that which is brought into judgment at the last day is the character of men. Small acts, though they may not have in them the same malignity as larger ones, may sometimes serve to show as plainly the characters of men; they come from the very self same fountain of evil as the most plain and atrocious acts of rebellion against God. Our Saviour has led us to infer this, from the verse which immediately follows our text: "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." And it is very plain that the servant who can regard his Master's property, and will regard it, on small occasions, being fearful to defraud him of the least which is his due, will much more guard all the greater occasions when his honesty is called for; and will be afraid to defraud of a larger sum when even a smaller is regarded. He that can be faithful to his Master's interest on smaller occasions, will not surely be unfaithful to them on greater: and the converse is exactly true-he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. Men, I was going to say almost universally, men certainly in numbers, overlook this: they think that if unjust only in those things which are not commonly observed and animadverted on in the world, they may not fail in character, and are not essentially unjust. But it is very plain, that the servant who can disregard his master's interest in little things, if he regard his master's interest in things that are great, does it from some other consideration, it may be from some sort of fear but he certainly is not just, he is not strictly just; for if he has violated the principles of justice in one instance-he would if he darehe would if considerations did not prevent, violate it also in greater. will, were it not for other considerations, carry him to universal disobedience. It follows, then, that disobedience in little matters may show a corrupt and depraved character, as truly as the most glaring offences. These are the proper materials for judgment at the last. Our whole stewardship will be called into account; every gift of nature and Providence, every opportunity of doing good, every means that men have received from God, whereby they might acquire virtue or exercise it, all will be enumerated at the last day it will then be brought out how men acted on all these various occasions. Through the whole period of time during which they were accountable creatures, men's stewardship will be called in question. Give an account of thy stewardship"-a very solemn consideration, since it is true of all men, that if thou shouldst be strict, O Lord, to mark inquity, we could not answer thee one charge in a thousand." In these three points, men in general as the creatures of God, and men in particular as under the dispensation of the Gospel, are likened to this unjust steward. 66 " In the second place, let us consider WHEREIN MEN IN GENERAL, AND ESPECIALLY THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT, ΤΟ WHOM OUR TEXT REFERS, ARE CALLED ON TO IMITATE THIS STEW ARD'S CONDUCT. To observe this more clearly let us notice the three principal These truths are equally plain when they are applied to religion. He who regards the authority of God in little things, will regard it also in great; for the same reason much more powerfully will compel him. It is true, also, that he who can be unjust in the stewardship of God entrusted to him in little things, violates God's autho-points in his conduct. First, his inrity, prefers his own interest and his justice. Secondly, the design by which own will, to the honour and will of he meant to avert its consequences. God d; and did no other considera- Thirdly, the wisdom he showed in protions divert him from the same viola-secuting that design. tion in greater matters, he would be unjust throughout. For it is obvious if he can violate the obligation in one instance, he would violate it in all, if the only thing that kept him from violation was regard to God's authority. It is true that many other secondary considerations may lead men to the profession of religion; but he that has not at heart a conscientious integrity in following the will of God in little things, does in truth not follow it at all. So St. James declares "He that keeps the whole law, and yet offends in one point, he is guilty of all:"-he has within him, if he can deliberately do it, a principle which We have first to notice his injustice. He had all through his stewardship, or at least as soon as the temptation occurred, wasted his Lord's goods; and when the natural consequences of this waste were discovered, he resolved on a bolder transgression of his duty, a bolder fraud on his master's property: and by one grand act of dishonesty he hoped to secure himself against the consequences of his past misconduct. In consequence of this dishonesty he lost his situation. Dishonesty, though for a while it may secure lesser advantages, generally, even in this world, is followed by greater disadvantages: and had this |