How is this? Their minds like to feel, and in the narrative they calculate on facts 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. 66 : 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 nothing of their case: you never read the accounts sent from abroad by our missionaries you neglect missionary prayer-meetings where you might hear of them: you never look around you in your own neighbourhood: 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, and you will feel more. 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. He that increaseth his knowledge of the world, will increase his sorrow for its wretchedness, and his longings for its redemption. SECTION IV. The Spirit of Grace.-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 beneficent agency. He is personally disposed to show kindness to our sinful world, and he is officially designated to convey the good favour 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 beneficent author of all the spiritual and heavenly favours exhibited to the world. It is in reference to this aspect of his office, that our Lord remarks, con cerning the Holy Spirit, "He shall take of mine, and show it unto you." This observation teaches us, that "the unsearchable riches" of grace and favour, 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 indwelling, 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 and feet and senses like ours-of means and times and seasons like ours. Whatever HE would do with them, that is precisely the use to which we should put them. In using them thus, we would "walk after the Spirit." What a model! and what a life!-to think and feel, to see and speak in the world, as the Holy Spirit would: this would be the "life of God”— this would be minding the things of the Spirit—this would be practically "convincing the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." Surely, neither body nor mind would be degraded or injured by such a use; but rather, far rather, improved, purified, and ennobled. Doing good means to produce good, or to increase the amount of good; and Christian usefulness is, to act kindly towards the world, to confer favours upon the world, and to labour for its best welfare. This was the destined course of the firstformed man, and this is the business and life of redeemed and renewed man: this is pure and undefiled religion, which benefits others as well as ourselves. 1. The whole creation is an apparatus of means for doing good. God made everything for use; and upon a survey of his works he saw "all things very good" for the use to which he intended them. It is on the hypothesis that they were all intended for use, that we perceive in them evidences of wisdom, skill, and contrivance. In the midst of this apparatus of good, man was placed to be the minister of the world. All things were put under him, and he had do |