the religious zeal or the enlightened benevolence of individuals or voluntary associations.

The populace had their priests indeed, and sacrifices, and hymns, and symbols. But the priests were sacrificers, not preachers; their business was but to scatter incense on the flames, to bind the sacred garland round the victim's horns, to lead him to the block and to slaughter him in the method prescribed by their ancestors. The sacrifices, by themselves, could afford as little of instruction as of real expiation; the hymns were often studiously muttered in an under tone, and reverentially couched under obscure and obsolete expressions; while the symbols had need to be themselves explained, and were professedly thus explained in mysteries, from which the slaves and the populace were excluded. To these last no source of knowledge remained but a few ancient poems, a few unauthorized and discordant traditions; legends of which the wealthier and more educated classes hardly affected to conceal their scorn, any more than they did of that vulgar, whose appellation was synonymous with profane, and whom they excluded, under that name, from all participation in the most sacred ceremonies of their common religion.

Accordingly, it was not for the poor that the tree of knowledge grew. The rulers and lawgivers of the world had fenced around its stem with far other guard than the sword of the ancient cherubim, and repelled, with more than

neglect their subjects and their brethren from all familiarity with the topics, in which all mankind are the most deeply interested. Enough, it was apprehended, for the cause of truth, enough for the welfare of mankind, and that obedience in which their welfare consisted, that the wealthy and the learned should understand the nature and the will of the Deity; that they alone should take their seats behind the scenes of the political engine, and, by the great pageant which they guided of religious mummery, of incense and idols, should keep in awe those multitudes, whom they cared not to improve, and whom they secretly dreaded to enlighten.

With the Jews, indeed, the case was somewhat different. Concealment and mystery were altogether abhorrent from the genius of their law, and from the circumstances under which that Divine law was originally given to their nation. Those statutes which had reference to the conduct of every Israelite, and which every Israelite, as he valued his life, was bound to keep inviolate, every individual of whatever rank, (in truth the distinction of ranks in the ancient Israelitish republic was so slight as scarcely to influence any circumstance of their customs or manners,) every individual of whatever rank was alike enjoined to study; while the few and simple principles of theology on which those laws depended, were proclaimed in thunder to the assembled multitude, and no subject, therefore, of concealment or erudition. And,

in the law of Moses itself, and still more in many passages of the Psalms and the prophecies, there is abundant reason to believe, that those public readings and public expositions of the law (which Ezra revived and adapted to the circumstances of his people after their captivity) were coeval, or nearly so, with the law itself, and the sources of light and knowledge to the many thousands of Jehovah's people.

Yet, even here, at the time of our Saviour's advent, had the pernicious ingenuity of man been busily and successfully occupied in obscuring and perverting that light, which they could not wholly intercept from their humbler brethren, in creating difficulties in that which was really plain, and in establishing a monopoly of interpretation for these difficulties thus fantastically brought forward. By their vain and unauthorized glosses, by their doctrine of a double and secret sense in the most simple expressions of Scripture, and by their pretences to the possession of a yet more holy traditionary code, the knowledge of which was confined to the scribes and the rabbins alone, these last had deluded their countrymen into a mysterious reverence for those arcana, into which they were not allowed to enter, and which in their secret schools, and to their select disciples only, the successors of Moses were accustomed, as they said, to communicate. And, while a wild and preposterous value was attached to such researches; while opprobrious names were lavished on "the men of the

earth," the " vulgar," the " unlearned," and the

people that have not the law," these same doctors were so far from any readiness in imparting their hidden treasures, that they absolutely discouraged all study of the law itself in the majority of their countrymen, by declaring that a "female pharisee was enough to destroy the world," and that, (I am almost ashamed to repeat a sentiment so ridiculous, and so utterly detestable,) "the Spirit of the Lord was never known to rest on a poor man."

Far different, however, from this exclusive and monopolizing reserve, is the spirit of the Christian Religion. As Christ came not into the world for the political interest of the wealthy, or the vain curiosity of the wise; as the object of His birth, His life, His death, and resurrection was the salvavation of those many millions of rich and poor, who all equally required His teaching, His help, and His mercy; His coming, as the day-star, shone alike on all. To the hope which He brought the universal world was heir; and while His revelation may afford a never-ceasing subject of wonder and enquiry for the best and most cultivated understanding; while angels have desired to look into the mysteries of our faith, its plain and peaceful doctrines speak the genuine language of nature, who, as the common parent of all, is understood by the meanest of her offspring.

Accordingly, in no single circumstance of conduct did our Lord more completely differ from the philosophers and moralists of the heathen world, or from those Jewish doctors who, in His day, and since

His return to His Father, have occupied the chair of Moses, than in the general publicity of His doctrine, (for "in secret He taught nothing;" and those things, which His disciples privately enquired from Him, were not doctrinal but prophetic,) and in the especial application of His words of comfort and instruction to the necessities of the ignorant and the poor. It was to them He chiefly preached; it was among them that His life was chiefly spent; His constant attendants and familiar friends were, with few exceptions, chosen from among their number; and He thanks His Father, in words most solemn and remarkable, that not so much the wise and learned as the babes, the ignorant of the earth, had received and appreciated His miracles.

His person,

The diffusion, accordingly, of religious knowledge among the poor, as it was one main distinction of the mission and doctrine of our Lord, so it has continued, from the continued necessity of the case, in every age of the Church, the duty of every Christian community, and one of the most convincing proofs, which such a community can supply, of the purity of their faith, and the warmth and wisdom of their charity. Where this is neglected, one main end and object of Christ's coming into the world is disregarded; the eternal interests of a great majority of the human race are wantonly and impiously trifled with; and they, whom the meek and merciful Saviour of all distinguished by a peculiar measure of regard and tenderness, are excluded (so far as it is in our power to exclude them,) from the