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suffered the current of thy good-will to be turned from any fellow-being! Go, learn from the example of him whom the angels of heaven adore, to pity the insolent, to pardon the injurious.

I will only add in the last place, that this act of our Lord affords encouragement as well as instruction, to those who are following him in the paths of humility. Some such there are, who "love mercy and walk humbly with their God," who consider the foot as well as the hand a part of the body, and never reject the impulse of humanity when it urges them to the service of the humblest of their fellow-beings. They here may learn that they are imitators of Christ Jesus-imitators of him in that virtue, which shone conspicuous in every stage of his life. The finger of scorn may be pointed against them. The tongue of the thoughtless may scoff at their condescension. But the finger of the Lord records their humility in the chancery of heaven, and his tongue will proclaim their reward when he cometh with his angels to judge the world.

Thus we have seen, that the lesson conveyed by our Lord, in the act of washing his disciples' feet, has a general application to all who in the various paths of this sublunary state are journeying together to one common home, but that it is particularly applicable to the selfish, the proud, and the malevolent, and also affords a special encouragement to the humble imitators of Christ. I have said no more than the apostle said when he required the followers of his Master to be "clothed with humility." Mistake not this virtue, nor turn your hearts from it. It is a stream which descends indeed into the humblest meadow; but it carries its own praises with it, and extends its beauty as it flows. It is, I conceive, fundamental to the Christian character. As if our Lord's birth in a stable, and repose in a manger, his modest seclusion from the pomps and honours of the world, his acts of kindness to the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, and his many encomiums upon the meek and the humble, as if all these had not been sufficient to express the excellence of this cardinal virtue, it was reserved for his last

interview with his disciples; for "the night in which he was betrayed," to impress it upon them by such an act as would convey a memorial of its value to all generations. And unless some portion of the temper which this act manifested to be in our Lord, be also in us, small will be our experience of his peace. For "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." Yea, it is with "the humble and contrite spirit" that "the wisdom which is from above" delights to dwell.

SERMON LI.

THE ODIOUSNESS OF A MALICIOUS DISPOSITION.

THERE

1 CORINTHIANS, xiv. 20.

"In malice, be ye children."

With all their

HERE is something in the innocence and simplicity of the children who are yet unskilled in the arts and habits of the world, which will ever interest the feelings of sensibility, and be a reproof to the folly of maturer years. ignorance, they are eloquent instructors, and as such, they are frequently brought forward in the gospel of the humble Redeemer. When Christ wished to instruct his followers in the dispositions, qualities, and habits which would obtain admission and distinction in his kingdom, he took a little child, and set him in the midst, and required them all to imitate his innocence, meekness, and docility. By a similar reference, St. Paul most emphatically expressed that lesson of love, which he gave to the Corinthians in the words I have just repeated. "In malice be ye children." As if he had said, strive to retain all that freedom from hatred and animosity with which you were born, for you cannot be too young nor too inexperienced in the outrageous feelings, malevolent wishes, and hostile designs of a heart bent upon hating and injuring any fellow being.

My design in the following discourse, will be to induce you to a compliance with this excellent precept of the gospel, by setting before you the odious nature and evil tendency of a malicious disposition, and the disquietude which must attend it, and its incompatibility with the Christian character.

VOL. II.-29

With regard to the nature of a malicious disposition, there is something in the very thought of it, from which we shrink, abhorrent. It seems to carry in it, even in the abstract, all that is most odious to the moral mind. Let us analyze it. Of what is it formed? Do any of the properties which we are wont to consider as amiable and useful, enter into its composition? No. Its basis is selfishness; passion, envy, prejudice, and subtilty give it its modification; and pride will be found, upon strict scrutiny, to be the secret principle which keeps it in strength. Let us compare it with those perfections which are the immutable standards by which we make our moral estimates. Does it approach or resemble any of those traits of character which we are accustomed to admire, and to think it our duty and excellence to imitate? No. It is among the first features that would occur to him who would exhibit a portrait of the most deformed and debased, the most odious and dangerous intelligence.

But the odiousness of a malicious disposition will be yet more evident, if we proceed to consider its evil tendency. Here I know not with what to begin. For "where envy and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work." Its first operation is to render man hostile to man,-to fill him with enmity against his brother. Solemn are those ties which bind men together as partakers of the same nature, and children of the same heavenly Parent. Just, sublime, and important to the general happiness are those principles which teach them to seek the welfare of each other. But these ties malice severs; upon these principles it tramples; and in its very outset tends to destroy the happiest appointment of nature, by erecting a banner hostile to some of the race, upon the ground which benevolence should exclusively occupy.

But this is not all. When once a malicious disposition has strengthened itself in the bosom, there is no knowing to what it may lead or impel. Like fire, it will spread secretly and gradually at first; and like fire, when it has risen to its height, it is not easy to restrain nor to direct its ravages. We see it

blinding men to the true character of persons and the real state of things. It deprives them of candour and justice, of compassion, and natural affection. They are rendered by it insensible to the sentiments of propriety, hurried by it beyond the sacred limits of truth, induced to become the abettors of wrong, the fabricators of scandal, the cruel contrivers of mean, and base, of black and nefarious designs. What indeed has it not sometimes impelled men to wish and purpose, to resolve and attempt. So powerful is its tendency to destroy or fetter the good principles of the bosom it has subjected to its control, that neither truth, nor obligation, neither the bonds of consanguinity, nor the claims of religion, neither reputation nor life, are secure in their sacred nature from the outrages which it prompts and perpetrates.

Nor does the evil tendency terminate here. The effects of this passion are not confined to those who indulge it, and those by whom it is excited. Society feels and deplores them. When animosities rage in the bosom, the streams of social duties are obstructed, or turned from their course. With sullen machination or loquacious slander, malice delights to bring others into its contentions, and families, neighbourhoods, and nations, lose through its malignant influence the choicest of their blessings, peace. Yes, to this evil spirit, party owes its fomentation, scandal the feathers which wing its darts, the assassin his employer, war its first patron and its last, humanity its deepest disgrace, and its sorest wounds. "The beginning of strife," says Solomon, "is as when one letteth out water," and its end we may add is as the overflowing of the ocean, when it riseth in its rage to lay cities in ruin.

Amid this wreck of principles and turmoil of social life, which a malicious disposition naturally promotes, it would seem strange if malice were at ease. The disquietude which constantly attends it, arises to the attention of every observer of the passions. No sea in all the violence of storms, is less at rest than the mind which is agitated by wrath and resentment. Its calm is gone, successive gusts, conflicting wishes, boisterous res

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