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ing we ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive!

And now let me put one other thought before you, which your assembling here in God's House suggests to me. When I saw you walking to-day in orderly array to church, I was reminded of that beautiful picture of the early Christians which is set before us in the Acts of the Apostles. All that believed were together The

multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers.

Now what a power for good would it be were this our constant practice in regard to religion! How it would help to advance godliness if all the men in a parish were to be seen, Sunday after Sunday, coming, as we have come to-day, to the House of God as friends! What a reality, what a life, would such an assembling of ourselves together give to the public worship of the Almighty! Two are better than one in the seat at church!Two are better than one in singing God's praises!-Two are better than one when we kneel at the Lord's Table!

Man is so made by His great Creator as to be the better, and to do things better, when he has a companion. It is so, we have seen, in the affairs of common life, and it is so in religion. Never do we praise our God so heartily, never do we pray so fervently, as when we praise and pray in a great congregation. There is a link of sympathy there which draws our hearts, and stirs us up to a generous rivalry. We feel that we are part

of a great brotherhood whose wants and infirmities, and hidden sorrows are the same-alike in need of healing— and we wish not to be behind in entreating the Lord's mercy. We send up our petitions to Him in the heavens on the breath of a united accordant supplication.

Do think of this, brethren! Do reflect how truly joyful and good a thing it is, to be together in worshipping our God!

Nor is it only in the paying of this outward service to God-though this is much-that I would urge you to cooperate, but still more in that service of the heart and life which we owe Him, and which we have all promised to render Him. Think how you might help one another also there! Think how much easier it would be for us all to do the right thing, and to avoid the wrong, if we were sure of being supported in it by the countenance and sympathy of our brethren!

As it is, souls I fear are lost, not a few, for lack of this friendly sympathy and aid.

The young especially are discouraged at the outset of their Christian course by want of others to run it with them. They draw back from the narrow path because so often they are called to tread it alone!

And yet, brethren, God did not mean them to tread it alone. God by joining them together in One Body, in the Church of Jesus Christ, meant that they should have companions:-that they should be helped, and not hindered in running the race He has set before them!

O let this be more considered! Let us resolve, God helping us, to give one another the best aid we can in passing through this perilous world !

It will not be lost labour-God will not forget it when He reviews our own life, all that we have done of good or evil, at the last. God, I say, will not forget it-He will recompence it to us with an exceeding great reward.

There is, we believe, no more acceptable service that. we can render than this of which I am speaking-the smoothing the path-taking stumbling-blocks out of the way of a younger brother.

We know from our Lord's own lips, how precious one lost but recovered soul is, before God. We know what is said by an Apostle of the man who converteth a sinner from the error of his way-and we may judge from this how truly blessed of our Father will they be hereafter, who have kept a brother's soul from evil; who by word or deed of theirs have saved him from going astray; who have been, as it were, a wall to him on the right hand or on the left-have helped him across some dangerous passage—some critical period of his life's journey -have lifted him up when he was down-have cheered him when he was faint and weary-have nerved him to persevere-in short, who have been his fellow-workers unto the kingdom of heaven!

A SERMON PREACHED AT THE RE-OPENING OF FALKINGHAM CHURCH, LINCOLNSHIRE, NOV. 10, 1858.

THE FORMER AND THE LATTER HOUSE.

HAGGAI II. 9.

The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace saith the Lord of hosts.

THESE words were spoken by Haggai the prophet at a very critical moment of his nation's history. It was in the second year of Darius the king, that the word of the Lord came to him, and that second year of Darius, was about fourteen years after the decree of his predecessor Artaxerxes forbidding the Jews to re-build their temple. During those fourteen years the work begun so prosperously under Cyrus, had been at a standstill. It ceasedwrites the historian Ezra-unto the second year of the reign of Darius, King of Persia.

In that year God remembered Zion-He thought upon her stones, and it pitied Him to see her in the dust.

He put it into the heart of Haggai and Zechariah to stir up the discouraged temple-builders to go on with the work. And so effectual were the words of these prophets, so ready were the people to make their offerings and give their labour at the call, that after a short while, the new temple was completed-built upon its old siteand once more the broken thread of Israel's public praise was joined once more from within those hallowed walls where the Lord had recorded His name to be there, went up the old strains of their solemn national worship, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody-once more were the people made joyful in God's House of Prayer!

And note the argument, brethren, by which Haggai stirred up the Jews to re-build the temple-as we read it in the first and second chapters of his prophecy. He appealed to the calamities under which they had been suffering to the drought upon the land, to the failure in the earth's fruits-and all because of mine house that is waste.-And-what must have had the greatest weight with them, he set before them this promise-he declared that the second temple should exceed the first— The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.

That greater glory was not to be in any material thing: in no beauty of wood, or precious stone, or costly overlaying of gold. In all these things, in mere outward splendour, the first Temple was by far the more magnificent. But it was to be in this-in the fact that while the new Temple was yet standing, the Desire of all nations, the long expected Messias should come. Yes, it was this -the Presence of Christ in His Father's House: sitting

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