his soul and kept it low, he expressed most wisely his sense of the fact, that we must not feed our minds always with great and high thoughts, but that the common trifling interests and conversation of every-day society, are, in their turn, a most wholesome variety. I have often thought that what is sometimes charged as a defect on such society,— that it dwells too much upon personal and individual topics, upon the conduct and affairs of those immediately around us, is capable of becoming most useful to him who regrets his own want of interest in the common matters of life, and with whom himself and his own pursuits and labours occupy too large a share of his attention.

But, besides this wholesome intercourse with our own families, another way of mixing with our brethren, in a manner most especially pleasing to Christ and useful to ourselves, is by holding frequent intercourse with the poor. Perhaps, to young men of the richer classes, there is nothing which makes their frequent residence in large towns so mischievous to them, as the difficulties which they find in the way of this intercourse. In the country, many a young man knows something, at least, of his poorer neighbours; but in towns, the numbers of the poor, and the absence of any special connexion between him and any of them in particular, hinder him, too often, from knowing any thing of them at all: an evil as much to be

regretted on the one side as the other; and which is quite as mischievous to the minds and tempers of the rich, as it is to the bodily condition of the poor. I can imagine hardly any thing more useful to a young man of an active and powerful mind, advancing rapidly in knowledge, and with high distinction either actually obtained or close in prospect, than to take him-or much better that he should go of himself to the abodes of poverty, and sickness, and old age. Every thing there is a lesson; in every thing Christ speaks, and the Spirit of Christ is ready to convey to his heart all that he witnesses. Accustomed to all the comforts of life, and hardly ever thinking what it would be to want them, he sees poverty and all its evils; scanty room, and, too often, scanty fuel, scanty clothing, and scanty food. Instead of the quiet and neatness of his own chamber, he finds, very often, a noise and a confusion which would render deep thought impossible; instead of the stores of knowledge with which his own study is filled, he finds, perhaps, only a prayer-book and a Bible. Then let him see, and it is no fancied picture, for he will see it often, if he looks for it,-how Christ is to them that serve him, wisdom, at once, and sanctification, and blessing. He will find, amidst all this poverty, in those narrow, close, and crowded rooms, amidst noise and disorder, and, sometimes, want of cleanliness also, he will see old age, and

sickness, and labour, borne, not only with patience, but with thankfulness, through the aid of that Bible, and the grace of that Holy Spirit who is its author. He will find that while his language and studies would be utterly unintelligible to the ears of those whom he is visiting, yet that they, in their turn, have a language and feelings to which he is no less a stranger. And he may think too,—and, if he does, he may for ever bless the hour that took him there, that, in fifty years or less, his studies and all concerned with them will have perished for ever, whilst their language and their feelings, only perfected in the putting off their mortal bodies, will be those of all glorified and all wise spirits, in the presence of God and of Christ.

Nor is this most profitable duty of visiting the poor, as I have said on former occasions, one which you can only practise hereafter, and which does not concern you here. Those who really think of their own souls, and who are desirous of improving them, would find that even here it is by no means impossible. It would indeed be a blessed thing, and would make this place really a seminary of true religion and useful learning, if those among us who are of more thoughtful years, and especially those who are likely to become ministers of Christ hereafter, would remember that their Christian education has commenced already, and that he cannot learn in Christ's school who does not

acquaint himself something with the poor. Two or three at first, five or six afterwards,-a very small number might begin a practice which, under proper regulation, and guided by Christian prudence, as well as actuated by Christian love, would be equally beneficial to the poor and to yourselves. Depend upon it the time must come, and come speedily, when the spirit of the schools of the prophets, such as we read of in Israel in old times, must be revived amongst us here, or a worse fate than that of Jerusalem will be ours. If such were the case, if young men here remembered that they were preparing to become, some ministers of Christ, and all his servants, and if, therefore, they would begin, even here, to practise Christ's lessons, and to follow Christ's example,—I should not dread, but fully rejoice in the highest exertion of their intellectual powers; and a blessing, both on themselves and others, would come upon that pursuit of truth which did not exclude humility, and ministered to the purposes of charity, and to the service of Christ.

SERMON XXIV.

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1 PETER, V. 6, 7.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that exalt may in due time: casting all your care upon you him; for he careth for you.

WE read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it became Him, for whom and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings. And again, it is said of Christ, that because "he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, that, therefore, God has also highly exalted him, and has given him a name which is above every name." So also when James and John besought him, that they might sit, the one on his right hand, the other on his left, in his kingdom, his answer was, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized with?"-meaning, that if they would be like him in his glory, they must first be like him in his sufferings; that they must, in short,