prove ourselves scarcely more to be commended than the presumptuous blind, who, unconscious of his own infirmities, would lead his companion in privation safe through the path of danger. Observant of them, may we not hope that the "heart's desire” and “ prayer to God" of him, whose spirit is even now perhaps looking down upon us, and watching our every movement, with the same anxious feeling still vivid within it, which possessed and busied it when on earth-may we not hope that his heart's desire," his "prayer to God," may yet be accomplished? May we not hope that, desolate as may be the prospect around us, the day may not be so far distant, "when the Lord shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth;"

66

and there shall be "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father

of all, above all, through all, and in us all?"

Now to God, &c.

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SERMON X.

ON PART OF GOSPEL FOR THE FIFTEENTH

SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

MATTHEW Vi. 24.

No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other; ye cannot serve God and Mam

mon.

INDEPENDENT of the moral excellence of our Lord's discourses, without taking into consideration those sublime and interesting truths, which, found here for the first time, could not fail in arresting the attention; there is a simplicity and a charm in the very language itself, which stript, though it be, of almost every as

sociation with which it was originally accompanied, preserves still much of its early beauty and freshness; supplied with the most unerring characters of power; the touch that could heal the sick, the voice that could raise the dead, the feet that could move on the surface of the waters, as lightly as one walks on earth, eyes before whose glance the spirits of darkness trembled and were abashed, it might be expected that every word coming from the lips of a teacher so eminently gifted, would be received with the same reverence, and obeyed with the same devotion, as the letters that were traced by the finger of God on the tables at Sinai. But to execute successfully the mission on which he came, more was wanting than all these; he who knew what was in the heart of man, knew well the quality and extent of the obstacles that would retard his progress; he was fully aware how firm

a hold early opinions, erroneous though they be, have on the minds of men. One less intimately versed in the mystery of nature, had rudely attempted to force it to his purpose; but he who preceded nature herself was content to untwine, one by one, those complicated folds, which wound, as it were, about the human heart, resisted admission to that knowledge which was to become its future consolation and support: to console the sorrowing, to reassure the weak, to strengthen the wavering, to silence the reproachful man, to refute the unbeliever, to convince the honest seeker after truth; such were the exercises of his graver hours, such the plan and method of his being. To mingle in the harmless pleasantries of life, to make one in the joys of the marriage feast, to sit down at table with the hated publican, to extend the hand of kindness to the rejected sinner, to raise the humbled