men speak in the last place of our chief object, bound by every profession of Christianity of anxiety this day, to whom such fre--by every declaration of love to Christ, quent allusion has been already made— to aid this cause—to become a husband we speak of childhood, interesting from to the widow, and a father to the fatherthe dawn of existence, till (grown and less; we can do this speedily and wisely taught) the adult is enabled to assume -we can become so, enjoying the place among the men of the nation; the luxury of benevolence at an outlay, helplessness of infancy has ever its claim which can meet the finances of all :-and -the tenderness of the Saviour towards mark the prospect before us! the tear of such, is an endearing precedent for his sorrow quenched in peace, the lambs followers; but in no case is the infant so folded, and their adversary repulsed; weak so helpless-so unprotected-so Christian education super-induced-bepitiable, as when the father is taken nevolence stimulated generous away: at any time, infancy would encouraged in their presidency and perish if unsustained and unprotected, guardianship-the love of Christ difbut rapidly and fearfully, when the fused-the church of Christ extendedparent's hand is withdrawn. The mother, the glory of Jesus exalted! giving birth to the babe, needs cherishing, and her babe requires for months, the continued care of a protector; alas! often the mother dies, as Rachel and the wife of Phineas, and who protects the babe then? If the mother survives and the father be removed, how many sorrows surround the little one; he grows in years and intellect he sees other young people happy in a father's protection, and when he turns to his melancholy home, he finds one sitting in sorrow and seeking to hide her bitter tears from the son or daughter of her bosom happy still is the orphan's lot, if the Christian widow be the orphan's mother-happy, if the streaming eye looks upward and speaks to him of his father and her father, his God and her God; happy, if she can tell him, that his departed father loved God, and can appeal to him, to seek to be what his dear departed parent would have wished him to be. We are We picture to our hearts the growth of those dear children to manhood and womanhood; we bethink us of times to come, when they too shall be the happy parents of happy children, and bearing grateful record of what was done for their helpless years, and of the benefactors whom God raised up for them; they will speak of these things to their children, and children's children, as reasons for gratitude to God and man; charity will thus extend and refresh our Zion as a river; man will be led to magnify God's goodness, and we, if spared to see the blessed results of combined and well-ordered benevolence, shall "rejoice in the work of our hands," and glorify God who made us, (albeit unworthy) the honoured instruments of good-the protectors of his forlorn ones the cherishers of his lambs-the love of Christ constraining. May this be our portion, and this our joy. Amen. GOOD FRIDAY. I. When Jesus bow'd his dying head, II. Earth trembl'd at th' unwonted gloom, Which shrouded o'er the skies; While rifted rock, and yawning tomb, Proclaim her Master dies. III. The temple mourns her suffering Lord, And desecrated fame; As by that last resistless word, Her vail is rent in twain. IV. The buried saint springs up to-day, In that mysterious hour; When vanquish'd death resigns his prey Before redeeming power. V. All nature owns a present God, And vindicates his fame; Trembles beneath his chast'ning rod, And bows to Jesus' name. VI. And can it be that man alone, Rejects, despises, thee; Who left for him th' eternal throne, Of thine own majesty? VII. Does he for whom thy matchless love, VIII. The purple robe, the thorny crown, IX. Oh! not in vain that conflict dire, X. Not vain, the sorrows of the soul In dark Gethsemane ; Not vain, Thy Father's awful scowl Endured upon the tree. XI. For me, my soul, that sacred brow For me, that blood was seen to flow, XII. Tell all, for me, that death-like woe, Looked on and saw thee die XIII. The guilt, the sin, the shame were mine, While vengeance claimed her due, Be thine the glory too. B. DUBLIN: Published by the Proprietors, T. R. and R. DUNCALEY, at the NEW IRISH PULPIT OFFICE, 1, ST. ANDREW-ST.; JOHN ROBERTSON, W. CURRY, JUN. and Co.; R. M. TIMS, W. CARSON, D. R. BLEAKLEY. London, SIMPKIN and MARSHALL; Edinburgh, WHITE and Co.; Cork Tract Repository; Derry, CAMPBELL; and all Booksellers. THE NEW IRISH PULPIT, No. CVIII. OR GOSPEL PREACHER. "We preach Christ crucified "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."-1 COR. 1.23. 24. SATURDAY, 2nd MAY, 1840. A SERMON, PREACHED ON BEHALF OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, IN THE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL, UPPER BAGGOT-STREET, PRICE 4D. DUBLIN. ON SUNDAY MORNING, 12TH APRIL, 1840, BY THE REV. THOMAS VORES, A.M. SONG OF SOLOMON, iv. 16. "Awake O north wind, and come thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruit.” OUR gracious Lord hath been pleased to describe his church by many beautiful comparisons: but among them all, there is none more beautiful-none more instructive, than that in which the church is compared to a lovely oriental garden. Every object in this comparison, while it is replete with beauty, is also pregnant with instruction.-The limpid streams with which it is watered, remind us of the waters of life-the bright eastern sun which shines upon it, tells us of that Sun of Righteousness which arises to them that fear the name of God, with healing in his wings. The lovely flowers that adorn that garden teach us of those beauties of grace which deck the believer's soul. The rich and sunny fruits which hang from every bough, remind us of those substantial proofs of the reality of God's work VOL. V. within our own hearts which we should be continually presenting to our Redeemer's praise.-O how wonderful is the thought, that I am now looking down on a part of the Lord's garden-that there are here, doubtless, many trees of righteousness trees of the Lord's planting; and that, even through such a feeble instrument as I am, if God withhold not his grace, the spices thereof may this day flow out. O dear friends, unite with me in a heartfelt prayer to that God who never rejects the humble aspirations of a believer's soul, that his Holy Spirit may indeed be made to operate this day on our hearts-that the Saviour may come into this his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. Now, in endeavouring to derive some instruction from the text, my first busi H ness must necessarily be, to ascertain, as far as may be possible, its precise meaning. The Song of Solomon,, then, as you know, is composed after the pattern of a pastoral poem. There are two principal speakers in this poem, a bridegroom and a bride. The scene of their dialogue is chiefly laid in a beauteous garden. The concurrent opinions of all commentators agree in considering, that the bridegroom represents the Lord, the bride his church in its collective and instructive capacity. The garden, on the other hand, with its trees and plants, represents the objects of the church's care, the individual believers who have been grafted into the Lord.But further, since the poem is constructed in the form of a dialogue, it is absolutely essential to ascertain which of the two parties utters the words of our text. Now the general opinion of commentators is, that the whole verse is to be put into the mouth of the bride, but I desire to bring two short reasons before you, for considering that the former part of the text is spoken by the bridegroom, and only the latter by the bride. First of all, the whole structure of the chapter, uninterrupted, as it is, down to the 16th verse, leads us to suppose that the same person continues to speak. The chapter begins by an address of the bridegroom to the bride; “behold thou art fair my love"-the same person continues to speak throughout. In the 8th verse he says, "6 come with me from Lebanon my spouse;" in the 9th verse he addresses her in the words "my sister, my spouse;" in the 10th verse, "how fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse;" the same person is still speaking in the 11th verse, nor is there any break in the sense of the passage which would lead us to suppose that a different person takes up the dialogue when we come to the words of the text. My second reason for entertaining this opinion is this: when I examine the words themselves, I find them to be more appropriate, if considered as issuing from the mouth of the bridegroom, than if spoken by the bride. The address to the winds, "awake O north wind, and come thou south," is immediately followed by the words, "blow upon мy garden." Now though it is very true, that with regard to the Church and its great Head it might be truly said, "all mine are thine, and all thine are mine," yet, at the same time, when a distinction is observed, we plainly perceive that the Saviour with more propriety would call that church his garden which he had purchased with His blood, than would even the bride herself; and accordingly, in the concluding words of the text, which are certainly spoken by the bride, the garden is not called hers, but she says to her Redeemer, "Let my beloved come into HIS garden and eat his pleasant fruits." On these grounds, therefore, I venture to take it, as, at least, highly probable that the former part of the text should be ascribed to the bridegroom, and only the latter portion to the bride. Assuming, then, that it is the Redeemer who speaks in the former portion, our next business is to ascertain the meaning of the beautiful figurative expressions themselves. They constitute an address to the winds, and you, doubtless, beloved friends, are well aware that in more than one portion of holy writ this beautiful and most apt image is used to represent the Holy Spirit himself.In that remarkable passage where Ezekiel is led into the valley of dry bones, he is commanded by God to prophecy to the wind-and here it is recognized on all hands that the wind means the Holy Spirit. Our Lord, in his conversation with Nicodemus on the subject of regeneration, uses the same metaphor.—He tells him that as men hear the sound of the wind, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so also is every one that is born of the Spirit.Hence, we conclude, that the metaphorical address, here made use of, is an address to the Holy Spirit of God. But at first sight it might seem as though the address to two different, and two wholly opposite winds would be hostile to this interpretation; for that the north and south are intended in this passage to represent winds which are opposite, not only as to the quarters from which they blow, but also in their effects, is evident from other portions of the word of God.· For instance, we learn from Job xxxvii. that the north wind in the land of Palestine produces the same effects which it is known to produce in our own land, since in the 9th verse we read "that cold cometh out of the north"-while another verse shows, that the south wind is warm and genial there as it is with us, for Elihu asks the question whether Job |