unbroken cords of affection will still draw up those left behind, so they be faithful. In years gone, that daughter and sister, since a mother, was a teacher in our Sunday-school, performing her duties, as a fellow-teacher informs me, in sincere love. If that recollection came to her mind, it was not a useless thought in the last struggle. To none of you, my friends, will whatever of a disinterested spirit you have shown be vain in your last trial.

There were others lost in that fatal bark, connected in interesting ways with some who sit in these seats,-one who had himself once worshipped here. And one* there was in that company, not who sat here with the congregation, but who has stood where I stand, and in simple words, from sincere lips, and a brave and loving heart as could beat, uttered his deep convictions of gospel-truth. I have been struck with the now very strong and universal tributes of respect for his character. I gladly join mine with them—to a simplicity, meekness, consistency and courage, I have never seen more sweetly mingled. To him, God willing, what mattered it, whether he stood at his new altar on earth, or joined the old eternal choir in heaven? The blaze of destruction will be but a halo, to shine long, like the flame of a martyr, round his humble, noble head!

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Oh, man is dear to man." The flames may kindle, on the shore, city after city-Mobile, Wilmington, New York, and millions of wealth melt in them; and the burning of one boat-load of lives shall eclipse them all! Would, those transient flames might never die out from human recollection, but burn forever an everlasting beacon-light and warning against human carelessness and cupidity. Some, in our late calamities, may have murmured against Providence. Rather let us bless Providence. Had that boat sunk from any failure of Providence to its engagements, from any snapping or loosening of the laws of God,-had the water grown light as air, and that vessel sunk,—had the powers of steam become impotent, and her motion ceased, or the atmosphere closed around her hard and unyielding; we might indeed be alarmed, and be in horrible suspense what ship would be the next victim of this falsehood of nature. Oh no. To a hair's breadth Providence was true. If there was any

violation of truth and law, it was on the part of man.

And I rejoice that the public sensibility, excited, runs in this direction. I trust it

*Rev. Dr. Follen.

may not be appeased, without new pledges for the public security, so that this voyage of disaster may make all future voyaging safe.

Providence not true! It even opens to men means of escape from the consequences of error. Suppose that very boat to have been in flames as it was, yet all on board to have been true men. In all human probability but few lives, if any, would have been lost. I am willing to make the supposition, only to show the importance of character. Some sneer at spiritual character, as a good thing for one to delight himself with in private, in his solitary room, but having nothing to do with the practical concerns of life. Suppose then, I say, they had been all true spiritual men. It would not have been a scene of confusion and horror; for the spiritual are not daunted by the prospect of death. There would have been no indiscriminate crowding to those boats, till they were lowered in haste and sunk by folly; for the spiritual are not selfish. Each would have been as willing another should go as himself. The calmness of virtue would have been faithful at the engine and the helm, wisely to check the vessel's fiery speed. It would have been conspicuous in the order and forbearance of every individual. It would have guided one by one to a place of safety, and the precious cargoes moving away have left the red hull to sink alone. There were men there, we know, of lofty traits; but had they all to Christian self-possession added the perfect fulfilment of the precept, to love one's neighbor as one's self, who can say that one death-shriek need have pierced that gloomy air? Such a scene illustrates nothing more solemnly than the importance of character.

Will you murmur at Providence, and think God deals hardly, when he never, after any error or fault, suffers the being of the soul, the truly vital part, to be compromised? We are wont to say, the vessel went down and so many souls perished. We should better say so many bodies perished. The ocean is not deep enough to drown, nor the globe large enough to be the grave of a single soul! Is not the truth, such truth as this, indeed the comforter?

Let us, my friends, also bless God, for the privileges of grief in this age of the world, when truth has been more fully revealed in the Gospel. The ancient mourner, having a less clear vision of immortality, had to rely more on earthly consolations. It is a touching story of the Roman general, Æmilius, that, when, during a triumph given him for having conquered the king of Macedon, two dear children lay struck with death, he addressed his audience with a calm

countenance, and assured them he was more willing that change should come over his own household than over the fortunes of the Republic. At which, the historian informs us, those that heard were more overwhelmed, than if he had, however piteously, bewailed his own bereavement. Could patriotism so nerve the poor Heathen not to falter from his duty for the sharp throbbing of his heart-strings; and shall we be made helpless by grief, with the promises of Christianity? With a mightier comforter than the Pagan, shall we show less grandeur of soul? No. Let us be ashamed to lie prostrate. Let us but perform our duties more purely and strongly. Let the departure of the good but set new stars in the firmament, for us to steer by. Let the truth of Heaven descend on us with something of that same energy, which was symbolized on the day of Pentecost by the mighty rushing wind and the cloven tongues as of fire. And, as they who had lost the best friend that ever lived, were only moved to higher effort, devotion, hope and aspiration; so let sorrow purify and invigo rate our ministry, that we may be worthy to rejoin the good and blessed, once enlightening us on earth, now enlightening us from heaven.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

THE phrase "kingdom of Heaven," or, which is the same thing, "kingdom of God," is used in various senses in the New Testament. I propose to give a brief and plain explanation of some of those senses, with a view of throwing light on the passages in which the phrase occurs.

Its original signification is, the coming of the Messiah. The Jews used it to denote the happy period, when the great purpose for which they had been chosen from among all the nations of the earth should be finally and fully accomplished; when the Gentiles were to be brought to acknowledge Jehovah and to yield supremacy to his peculiar people; when Jerusalem was to become the holy metropolis of the world, and the Jews a nation of priests and princes. This hope they were led to cherish by the interpretation which they put upon the language of their prophets. They greatly misapprehended

the meaning of those prophecies. The fulfilment was to be widely different from their expectations. Still, however, the only accomplishment their hopes were destined to meet was in the coming of Jesus, and accordingly his forerunner did not scruple to employ the language which was in common use respecting the Messiah, though it was liable to be misconstrued by those to whom it was addressed. It was in this sense, therefore, that John used the words, when he cried in the wilderness, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" and in the same sense did Jesus use them, when, at the commencement of his ministry, he went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching "the Gospel of the kingdom," or the glad tidings of the kingdom;-announcing the joyful intelligence that the Messiah had come.

This expression also denotes the establishment of Christianity in the world as an independent religion. The period at which that establishment may be considered as commencing is the destruction of Jerusalem. Before this event the old dispensation had never been formally abolished. Christianity had grown up in the bosom of the Jewish Church and might be considered a part of it. By the destruction of the holy city the former dispensation was closed, the chosen people were rejected, their peculiar privileges withdrawn; and the Gospel succeeded to the Law as the acknowledged religion of the true God. This important crisis in the history of the religion is denoted by the expression "coming of the kingdom," and by the similar one "coming of the Son of Man." This is what Jesus meant when he said, "I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God." In a parallel passage in another Gospel, he uses equivalent language; "Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." This is what he meant also, when in his directions to his disciples on sending them out to preach the Gospel, he said, " Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come ;" and when he said of the beloved disciple, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ?"

Again, this phrase is used to indicate the reign of the gospel spirit in the hearts of individuals. Thus was it used by our Lord when he said, "Behold the kingdom of God is within you." This is the sort of influence which the Gospel was especially intended to exercise.

The religious character it would form consists in a right state of the soul. Outward professions and services are of no avail except as they are true expressions of that inward state. The piety of the Gospel is the actual emotion of the touched and softened heart, without which no prostration of the body is homage, no language of the lips is prayer. Christian virtue is that obedience which proceeds from a holy intention of serving God, and a devout desire of conformity to his will. True Christian love is a deep inward principle, without which the sacrifice of property and life for the good of others is not charity. The purity which our religion requires is freedom from the conception and the wish of evil, as well as from external pollution.

The sense last mentioned is the most important in which this phrase can be understood. All the good effects which Christianity produces upon the state of society, all that it does to promote the general happiness of mankind, must necessarily begin with individuals. It has no power over the condition of communities, separate from that which it exercises over single hearts. The power of the Gospel is undoubtedly to be manifested in the world more signally than it has ever yet been. It is an expansive and ever increasing power. In our own day we see it successfully attacking moral evils, which in former ages were not thought of as inconsistent with its spirit, or were considered beyond its reach. And we see no reason why it should not go on, exalting and improving the condition of man, till the excellence of Christianity and the happiness it confers shall be so powerfully illustrated by the example of Christian nations as to command the assent of the Heathen to its divine origin, and the whole earth shall become a happy Christian world. Then will the kingdom of God come in another and a glorious sense. I say that if this consummation is ever effected, it must be by the operation of the spirit of the Gospel upon individual hearts. Every man, who, having this hope in him, purifies himself, does most effectually what he can to promote that blessed kingdom.

I doubt whether there is a single passage in the New Testament, in which the phrase under consideration can be said with certainty to mean exclusively what we commonly understand by the word Heaven, that is, the condition of the good in the future world; though in very many passages it undoubtedly includes that idea, for the kingdom of God, in any spiritual sense of the term, is begun in this life, to be