highest order, and from which his wonderful power of attraction was derived. He never discusses a question on debateable ground, but at once pours on it a flood of light, by an exposition of the everlasting principles with which it must be brought into harmony. Argument, in the common sense of that word, was not his instrument, nor logical power his characteristic, nor in his writings is there to be found much of consecutive thought,-perhaps not a single subject systematically treated, and according to the laws of a philosophical arrangement. It was not that he was deficient in such powers, for his mind was eminently clear, but they were not his highest instruments; he had diviner, brighter, fuller evidences; he rose more freely into the light of those spiritual faculties, sentiments and aspirations, in whose precepts and revealings there is felt to be no uncertainty. His writings, beyond all others in the language, are marked by a moral inspiration,—he fans the soul of his reader, and elevates it to pure vision, sentiment, and insight. When you close his pages, you may not feel that all the materials of a subject have been placed within your reach, or that you have been made capable of systematically developing it for yourself;but you will feel that your spiritual nature has been brought into right relations towards it, that the great principles, the holy and merciful sentiments which ought to determine it, have received from him a new glow of life. His power lies in making you feel rightly towards God and man; and few are the questions, in Theology or Social Morality, that require any thing more for their settlement than the heart being brought into this right spiritual frame.

His style partakes of this character of his mind. He presents you with a series of moral intuitions, which are found to exhaust the essence of the subject. Yet the single features are rather taken up numerically, than in any organic connection. There is no necessary sequence in the order of his topics. His mind emits light rather than developed thought, and flashes out its intense revelations, often in the fewest possible words, though his unexhausted interest in a great subject frequently leads him to repeat himself, but never without renewing in his reader the glow of kindred sentiment. He never repeats but to rekindle. His style is a true image of his mind; the spiritual outshines the philosophical faculty; but still the philosophic element is never absent. You are never in any doubt as to the soundness of his views, however intense may the light of his sentiments, you always feel that the truths, which are the basis of this interest, are as living rock."

"The action of his mind on all the highest interests of man was singularly varied and extensive. On no great moral question affecting his times has he been silent, and into every subject that he touched he has carried the same intensity of spiritual insight. He has elevated and purified every question on which he has written,

as though he had not conferred on it with flesh and blood, but brought it into the presence of God, and examined it with the eye and heart of Christ. The mere theologian, politician, reasoner, moralist, disappears, and we hear only the all-reconciling spirit and truth coming from one who, in Christian earnestness and simplicity, speaks of God as his Father, and of man as his brother. Indeed his constant resort to these great principles has given some sameness to his method of treatment, but it enabled him to throw the light of eternal truth on moral questions, by which others had been dazzled or corrupted."

"Space would fail us to recount his labors in the service of humanity—the various directions of his influence for the elevation of his country, which he rebuked so openly, yet loved and trusted still. Yet country was not all to him. He had, indeed, something of the partial feelings of patriotism, but above a patriot, he was eminently a man and a Christian. It was he who made the most effective and scornful exposure of a State Paper of his own Government, advancing the monstrous demand that England, within her own territory, should work the slave law of America. It was he who declared, not here, but there, that, by such a demand, America had degraded herself before the nations of the world. His country should number him among her purest benefactors. Not far below Washington should he be placed who labored not for civil but for moral redemption, to make the liberty of that mighty nation a reality and a truth, and not a falsehood and a mockery before the face of Almighty God. She will raise a monument to his name, when she can do it with clean, self-justifying hands. Her repentance and her righteousness would be a monument, that would make his heaven more blessed. To which of her interests was he inattentive or unfaithful? There was no movement he did not help. His strength was found out in the cause of Temperance; of Peace; of the Ministry to the Poor; of the Elevation of her Laboring classes; of Self-culture among her people; of the purity of her Public Men; of the strict union of Morality and Politics; of the means and importance of her National Literature,as if for these alone he lived and thought. And she honored him while living. She was proud of his genius and his fame. Will she let him die, and heap upon her head the retribution of his slighted messages from God?"

We have given many pages to the subject which we now leave, but we have not a word to offer in way of apology. If any one think the theme deserved not so much space, his feelings are probably so different from ours that we should in vain attempt to lead him to a better judgment.

E. S. G.

THE ANSWER TO PRAYER.

A SERMON, BY REV. FREDERICK W. HOLLAND.

MARK xi. 24. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

A CROWD of Scripture testimonies consent to the same cheering truth. Innumerable voices from all the older and later manifestations of God, from our own hearts and the lives of holy men, declare that God heareth and answereth prayer. That, as his presence surrounds, his power sustains, his love embraces us all, so the weakest cry of the prodigal son cannot escape the Father's ear, cannot miss the Father's blessing;-may not be met as our folly would choose and our presumption dictate, but must be met, as our hearts are true and God in Christ is true, by the gift of that very thing we most need. It is, as I think, the vast underground of all revelation, the great tableland on which the altar and the temple have in all ages stood, that many things which would never be given to us without, may be given to us with, our prayers; that many gifts, whose measure would be stinted but for our urgent entreaties, by these conductors of Divine mercy may come in correspondence to the unsearchable riches of heavenly grace and the unspeakable necessity of earthly weakness, want and peril. Many an angel-blessing, as I believe, waits now our importunate supplication, to create in our soul that state of mind, and in our life that tender relation to God, which may enable it to leave the Blessed Presence, and make its abode with us, the life, peace, joy, crown of existence.

It has never struck me as idle or selfish, that curiosity which inquires about the answer of prayer. No question reaches more immediately the profound depths of our faith; none, if susceptible of reply, could be more satisfying to the heart or inspiring to the life. I do not see even, how we can really ask, without some confidence that God will give-that it makes some difference in his giving whether we ask or not—that the state of trust and expectation, into which the prayer of faith throws us, is an indispensable preparation for the reception of his gift. "He that cometh to God

must believe that He is," and not less "that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him: " else, discarding this motive, this assurance, he will come seldom and with frozen heart-by and bye will cease coming at all. He that prays with his whole soul must expect and know, that according as he asks so will he receive, as he seeks so will he find; or, his prayers will sink into an empty form, perhaps a dreamy meditation-their fervor, urgency, trustfulness, rapture, efficacy gone. This doubt has made so many pray-ers fearful; has smothered their aspirations, benumbed their hearts, and shut out God by a heavy cloud from the trembling and wishing soul.

Our hearts can never feel what they do not believe. The stream cannot rise higher than the fountain. The voice of Christ echoing continually in every true heart is, "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." It cannot be otherwise. We need to feel, when we crave mercy, that, as the spirit is right, is obedient, trustful, contrite, the prayer is heard and answered-peace is shed abroad in the heart-blessing and glory wait on the future; that we have not to inquire cautiously if such things can be, but to know rather that they are; not to search into the soul and scrutinize the process, but to feel that it must have taken place—to feel that the chilling doubt would impair the very possibility of what we so much desire—the wavering heart would deny itself every blessing, and live, like Gideon's fleece, dry in the midst of refreshing dews.

I should have to believe this, it appears to me, even were it contradictory to, instead of being a part of, the good providence of God, so numerous, repeated and convincing are the Scripture assurances. My text is among the most decisive pledges ever given by God to man. Nothing can well go beyond this promise,"What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive and ye shall receive them." The context fortifies the statement, and raises it upon a lofty pedestal before the eyes of mankind," Verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith; " and then follows the promise, "Whatsoever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive and ye shall receive." Elsewhere we are

told, that "the fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much : and then, instances of amazing and immediate success are given. The tone of Jesus never becomes more emphatic, his annunciation never more startling, than when he declares," Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name, he giveth you. Ask and receive, that your joy may be full." Words of divine encouragement, addressed indeed to the immediate disciples; but yet, under the Christian dispensation, belonging in a spiritual sense to every faithful follower. The fact, that such a promise was given and kept, proves that neither God's providence nor man's responsibility is invaded by such an attention to our requests. So too the blessing promised, in addition to that resting on private supplication, "If two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven! So too all the Apostles. Indeed, where one word bordering on this truth can be found in the Old Testament, so instinct with the peculiar inspiration of our own loftier faith is this promise, a chapter can be gathered from the New. John declares, "If we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him; whatsoever we ask we receive of him: almost a reiteration of my text. "If any of you lack wisdom," says James, "let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally. -But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering."

66

But, not to allude to those parables which, like that of" the unjust judge," clothe this fact in the richest and most life-like drapery; more than any mere assertion to my mind, is the vast store of blissful thought and quickening promise, contained in the name, Father," ," "Our Father." With that annunciation of God Christianity begins and ends. Enthroning that in the childlike soul, carrying it out in the filial life, its kingdom comes. That truth we have never yet comprehended, never unfolded in its vast influences, never thoroughly raised our life by its inspiration, never felt it so deeply as to shed around its divine sunlight.

The Heavenly Father's relation differs from that borne by the earthly parent to his child, not, as the weakness of our faith would fain persuade us, by the coldness of his regard, by his chastening the tenderness we feel for our offspring by the cold majesty of a king, the general but distant care of a wise governor.