stake, we cannot lightly pass by any means to further this all-essential end. We must not slight any filament of attraction that leads us on and up, and attaches us to the sun and centre of all good, and yields the fruition of our purest yearnings and spiritual desires.

And in the means provided in the Church of Christ, in the simple emblems of faith and the ritual of devotion, we enter into wide and ennobling communion, not only with him who is our exalted Head, but into fellowship of soul with good men, living and dead, of all times and all nations and all beliefs. The hoary bond of centu ries is upon us; the ties of ages link us to virtue and heaven.

One may say, "I am not affected; it profits me not; it has not to me the quickening of life and the inspiration of holiness." But it is very marvellous if it have not a divine efficacy; if it stir not unwonted emotions, and pervade not the mind with a breath and odor from another sphere than the careful and troubled earth. It must be a peculiar organization that can pass unmoved and unimproved through scenes of the ancient and the divine, a crucified Saviour, an ascending Redeemer, an opening heaven. And precisely herein, as we have sought to show in this whole discourse, is the consummation and perfect excellence of the Christian revelation, that its Author and Finisher did not neglect the practical and familiar while he provided for the universal and eternal. Wiser than many of his followers have been, he did not discard the power of association and symbol, the appeal to sense and sight, the embodiment of the infinite in the finite. Because heaven is gloriously spiritual, he did not therefore despise the humble rounds of the ladder by which mortals are to climb on high.

He

did not rest all on abstract principles, however potent. He paid deference to the visible and customary. He recognized the force of the outward. He associated even with an ordinary event illustrious meanings. He bound his disciples by no awful oath, but by gentle sympathies, and endeared memories, and glorified hopes. He teaches us the simplicity and naturalness of his religion by no marvellous and unusual rites, no fearful ceremonies, but by the ordinary language of human friendship, and by the participation of food. He has thus

met the wants of the intellect, the senses, the heart, the whole Christian man. Here is no doubt, no dread. All is affectionate and significant. Blessed memories wait on the occasion, glorious hopes illumine the future. A beloved and suffering Master, fond but wavering disciples, the long line of the saintly dead, the populous heaven of the just made perfect, the reunion of the lost, the final gathering, and the blessed abode, where the dim hopes of this world are swallowed up in the unclouded brightness of eternal realities, all these gather around, as holy angels of the New Covenant, to hallow the Lord's Supper to a Christian imagination, and endear it to a Christian heart.

SERMON X.

BY JASON WHITMAN.

THE GOSPEL SUITED TO HUMAN WEAKNESS.

A BRUISED REED SHALL HE NOT BREAK, AND SMOKING FLAX SHALL HE NOT QUENCH, TILL HE SEND FORTH JUDGMENT UNTO VICTOMatthew xii. 20.

RY.

HAVE you never, my friends, looked upon the reed, or the slender rush, as, in its most vigorous and flourishing condition, it waves with the slightest breath of air, and seems a fit emblem of ever-yielding weakness? Have you not regarded it as a vegetable production, which, for want of strength of fibre and firmness of texture, may be carelessly thrown aside as utterly useless? Nay, further, have you not seen this frail and apparently useless thing beaten and bruised, and have you not felt that now, at least, it is utterly worthless, and that any thought of converting it to a useful purpose is vain and hopeless, that it may as well be at once broken in sunder and left to be the sport of the winds? But to apply the lesson. Have you not, at times, looked upon a fellow-man who has become the sport of temptation and the slave of sin? Have you not seen him forming good resolutions and then forgetting them, wishing and praying to be delivered from the power of sin, and

straightway yielding to its allurements and falling a victim to sinful indulgences? And when you have thought of his ever-yielding weakness, of his being borne about by every breath of outward influence, and carried away by the slightest temptation, have you not felt that there was so little of moral firmness in his nature that there was no firm ground of hope, no real encouragement to exertion, for his rescue? And when you have seen him bowed down under a sense of his own sinfulness, truly penitent and contrite, have you not felt that still there was no hope, no just ground of confidence, so utterly destitute has he appeared of all moral strength? Have you not expected that the pure and spotless Jesus, so distinguished for his own devotion to duty, for hist strength of moral principle, for his firmness of moral purpose, for his unconquerable resolution in withstanding temptation and avoiding sin, and so well able to penetrate the inmost recesses of the very soul of man, have you not expected, nay, almost believed, that the pure and spotless Jesus would pass him by in neglect, would leave him to himself, to be not merely bruised, but broken and destroyed? Such might, perhaps, have been the feelings of man, and such his treatment towards his brother-man. Such, I say, might have been the feelings of man, buoyed up by a false estimate of the correctness of his own conduct and of the strength of his own principles, towards a fellow-man, bowed down under sorrow for past sin and a consciousness of his own weakness. But such were not the feelings of him who spake as never man spake, such is not his treatment of the broken-hearted and contrite sinner. You see him taking the bruised reed tenderly in his hand, carefully binding it up and training it by the side of

some firm support, until it shall have gained strength to stand by itself. You see him taking the frail and yielding, but contrite, sinner by the hand, whispering in his ear the word of encouragement, kindly cherishing the faintest virtuous wish, the feeblest holy desire, assuring him of God's willingness to forgive, and promising those spiritual influences of which he now so deeply feels his need. And thus he perseveres in his course of kindness, until he has established the power of Gospel truth over the soul, and fixed firmly the principles of religion in the heart, yea, even until Gospel truth and religious principles have become victorious over every sinful propensity, over every moral weakness, over every spiritual enemy. "The bruised reed shall he not break, till he send forth judgment unto victory."

Again, have you not looked upon the lamp whose light you had hoped to enjoy, the lamp which has burned brightly for a while until the oil has been consumed ? Have you not seen its feeble and flickering flame, now flashing up with momentary brightness, and now dying away into almost total darkness, with no signs of life save the offensive smoke that hovers over it? And, as your eyes have been pained by this faint and changing light, have you not been prompted to extinguish it utterly and at once? So, too, I may ask if you have not at times looked upon the professed follower of Jesus, upon one who has walked worthy of his vocation, the light of whose Christian life has burned brightly, the influence of whose Christian example has been sensibly and widely felt, have you not looked upon such a one, as he has fallen from his first love, become engrossed in worldly pursuits, forgetting the high calling whereby he is called? Have you not seen his Christian graces