termination to have published them to the world, together with the facts and reasons on which they were founded.

At a time when skepticism, shallow and superficial indeed, but depraved and malignant, is breathing forth its pestilential vapor, and pɔlluting, by its unhallowed touch, every thing divine and sacred, it is consoling to a devout mind to reflect that the great, and the wise, and the good of all ages-those superior geniuses, whose splendid talents have elevated them almost above mortality, and placed them next in order to angelic natures; yes, it is consoling to a devout mind to reflect, that while dwarfish infidelity lifts up its deformed head, and mocks these ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES, though living in different ages, inhabiting different countries, nurtured in different schools, destined to different pursuits, and differing on various subjects, should all, as if touched with an impulse from heaven, agree to vindicate the sacredness of revelation, and present, with one accord, their learning, their talents, and their virtue, on the gospel altar, as an offering to Emanuel.

This is not exaggeration. Who was it, that, overleaping the narrow bounds which had hitherto been set to the human mind, ranged abroad through the immensity of space, discovered and illustrated those laws by which the DEITY unites, binds, and governs all things? Who was it, soaring into the sublime of astronomic science, numbered the stars of heaven, measured their spheres, and called them by their names? It was NEWTON. But Newton was a Christian. Newton, great as he was, received instruction from the lips, and laid his honors at the feet of JESUS. Who was it that developed the hidden combination, the component parts of bodies? Who was it that dissected the animal, examined the flower, penetrated the earth, and ranged the extent of organic nature? It was BOYLE. But Boyle was a Christian. Who was it that lifted the vail which had for ages covered the intellectual world, analyzed the human mind, defined its powers, and reduced its operations to certain fixed laws? It was LoCKE. But Locke, too, was a Christian.

What more shall I say? For time would fail me to speak of HALE, learned in the law; of ADDISON, admired in the schools; of MILTON, celebrated among the poets; and of WASHINGTON, immortal in the field and in the cabinet. To this catalogue of professing Christians, from among, if I may speak so, a higher order of beings, may now be added the name of ALEXANDER HAMILTON-a name which raises in the mind the idea of whatever is great, whatever is splendid, whatever is illustrious in human nature; and which is now added to a catalogue which might be lengthened-and lengthened-and lengthened-with the names of illustrious characters, whose lives have blessed society, and whose works form a COLUMN high as heaven-a column of learning, of wisdom, and of greatness, which will stand to future ages, an ETERNAL MONUMENT of the transcendent talents of the advocates of Christianity, when every fugitive leaf from the pen of the canting infidel witlings of the

*

day, shall be swept by the tide of time from the annals of the world, and buried with the names of their authors in oblivion. To conclude. How are the mighty fallen! Fallen before the desolating hand of death. Alas! the ruins of the tomb! * * The ruins of the tomb are an emblem of the ruins of the world! When not an individual, but a universe, already marred by sin, and hastening to dissolution, shall agonize and die! Directing your thoughts from the one, fix them for a moment on the other. Anticipate the concluding scene-the final catastrophe of nature. When the sign of the Son of man shall be seen in heaven. When the Son of man himself shall appear in the glory of his Father, and send forth judgment unto victory. The fiery desolation envelops towns, palaces, and fortresses. The heavens pass away! The earth melts! And all those magnificent productions of art, which ages, heaped on ages, have reared up, are in one awful day reduced to ashes!

Against the ruins of that day, as well as the ruins of the tomb which precede it, the gospel in the CROSS of its great HIGH PRIEST, offers you all a sanctuary. A sanctuary secure and abiding. A sanctuary which no lapse of time nor change of circumstances can destroy. No; neither life nor death; no, neither principalities nor powers. Every thing else is fugitive; every thing else is mutable; every thing else will fail you. But this, the CITADEL of the Christian's hopes, will never fail you. Its base is adamant. It is cemented with the richest blood. The ransomed of the Lord crowd its portals. Embosomed in the dust which it incloses, the bodies of the redeemed "rest in hope." On its top dwells the church of the firstborn, who, in delightful response with the angels of light, chant redeeming love. Against this citadel the tempest beats, and around it the storm rages and spends its force in vain. Immortal in its nature, and incapable of change, it stands, and stands firm amid the ruins of a moldering world, and endures forever. Thither fly, ye prisoners of hope! that when earth, air, elements, shall have passed away, secure of existence and felicity, you may join with saints in glory to perpetuate the song which lingered on the faltering tongue of HAMILTON, "Grace, RICH GRACE."

GOD grant us this honor. Then shall the measure of our joy be full, and to his name shall be the glory in CHRIST. AMEN.

DISCOURSE XXIX.

JOHN P. DURBIN, D.D.

THE early life of this distinguished Methodist divine was spent in Kentucky, in which State (Bourbon county) he was born, the son of a farmer in humble life, October 10th, 1800. When he was fourteen years of age he became an apprentice in a cabinet maker's shop, where he remained three years. After this he worked one year at his trade, when, having within this time been brought to a saving knowledge of Christ, he felt a holy impulse to set before others the light which had beamed upon his own spirit. He almost immediately joined the Western Conference, and commenced his labors as a pioneer and preacher in the north-west corner of Ohio, when now only about eighteen years of age.

Here the young preacher began his studies in the cabins, reading generally in the winter by fire-light, made by pine knots and dry wood. His principal books were Dr. Clark's Com. on Old and New Test, and Wesley's and Fletcher's works. A year after this he was sent to Indiana, where he began to study English grammar, committing rules and examples to memory while riding on horseback to his appointToward the close of the year he commenced the study of Latin and Greek. Being afterward stationed in Cincinnati, he was admitted to the Cincinnati College, and there took the degree of A. M.

ments.

So untiring had been his application to study, and such his success, that he was almost immediately appointed Professor of Languages in Augusta College, Kentucky. In 1831 he was elected Chaplain to the Senate of the United States. His sermons in the Capitol are still remembered for their pungency and power. In 1832 he was elected Professor of Natural Sciences in the Wesleyan University, which he resigned upon being called, soon after, to the editorial chair of the Christian Advocate and Journal. In 1834, without being consulted, he was elected President of Dickinson College, from which he retired in 1845, and subsequently preached in and around Philadelphia. In 1850 he was appointed Missionary Secretary, in the place of Dr. Pitman, who resigned on account of ill health, a position which he still holds with eminent success.

Dr. Durbin is the author of two popular works, "Observations in Europe," and "Observations in the East." He is distinguished both as a preacher and an executive officer. It is very difficult to describe his preaching. He begins with a tone, look, and style which would at once damp all favorable expectation, if you did not know him from former instances. The statement of his subject, and the nature of his discourse, do not strike you usually as remarkable; but as he advances, some unique thought, or some extraordinary thought uniquely presented, startles your interest, and your attention is riveted through the remainder of the sermon. Three

peculiarities are represented as keeping up this interest. The first is the entire selfpossession and apparent facility with which the preacher proceeds in the discourse. We know of no one who excels him in this respect.

You are delighted with the relief which his manner thus affords to his voice and to the effort of your own attention. It is similar to pleasant, artless, but intelligent ⚫ conversation. Another is the frequent recurrence of the unique passages we have referred to unique often by their beauty, but often, also, by the mere manner of their utterance, yet always endowed with a strange, a mystic power over the soul of the hearer, calling forth spontaneous ejaculations or sudden tears. The third is a habit he has of introducing into almost every discourse some odd and equivocal speculative suggestions. This is considered by many an artifice, designed to interest the attention of the audience: it may be; but if so, it is not without high sanction.

"We have no hesitancy," says Dr. Stevens,* "in pronouncing Dr. Durbin the most interesting preacher now in the Methodist pulpit. We gave Dr. Olin this distinction once, but it remains now with Durbin. Others there are who excel him in particular respects, but not that equal him either in popular effect or in the interest of intelligent, thoughtful minds. His sermons are usually long, but no one tires with them, no one hears the last sentence without regret, nor leaves the church without a vivid, if not a profound, impression of the discourse. His language is remarkably simple. He excels in illustration, in picturesque description, and in pathos."

It is with great pleasure that we insert the valuable and eloquent discourse, never before printed, which Dr. Durbin has kindly furnished for this work.

THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD.

"But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the neaven of heavens can not contain thee; how much less this house which I have built."— 2 CHRON., vi. 18.

A CONSIDERATION of the character and condition of the author of the text, will show clearly that the highest degrees of vital piety are perfectly consistent with the most consummate wisdom, grandeur, and power. The words of the text are the words of Solomon, King of Israel, and the grand successor of the illustrious David, son of Jesse. A consideration of the chapter will convince us that his heart was fired with the liveliest devotion, of the most rational and exalted kind. It is the dedication service of the celebrated temple at Jerusalem, and was performed by the king himself, in the midst of the thousands of Israel, being a prayer which he pronounced in the attitude of kneeling, on a slightly elevated stage in the midst of the temple. The character and condition of the author, in regard to worldly wisdom, grandeur, and power, are too well known *Article in "National Magazine," Vol. VI, to which we are indebted in the preparation of this sketch.

to require special notice in detail. As it regards his wisdom, it has passed into a proverb in all nations. "As wise as Solomon," is an adage pronounced by every tongue, when it would express the highest attainments in wisdom. As it regards his grandeur, the account of it, as detailed in the Scriptures, almost exceeds, and, indeed, would exceed, belief, did we not know their rigid integrity in stating the truth. His power, of course, must be considered, in this age, relatively; and although we can not rank his kingdom with the great empires and kingdoms of modern days, we can, with propriety, pronounce it the first in his own age, and not so much inferior to modern powers as we might imagine. These observations establish the proposition, That the highest degrees of vital piety are perfectly consistent with the most consummate wisdom, grandeur and power.

An examination of the character of this extraordinary man in another view, will produce conviction on another important point, viz., That no selection, or combination of any, or all the pleasures of the world, can vermanently satisfy the rational spirit of man. Solomon, like most persons in similar circumstances, was well-nigh ruined by being brought up in luxury and ease, and succeeding to an immense amount of wealth and power. During his prodigality (he himself has left it on record), he indulged in every species of pleasure and gratification that heart could wish, or a licentious and excited imagination could devise. And yet he pronounces the whole "vanity and vexation of spirit," and in proof of his conviction he became deeply and uniformly pious. His is but the expe rience, on a broader scale, of every devotee of pleasure; but few make so happy an escape.

By a close examination of this prayer, it will be clearly seen that the whole service proceeds on the supposition, that God would make his abode in the temple built for him; from this place manifest his presence, and listen to the prayers of his creatures. The subsequent history of the Jews proves that this expectation was realized. This idea was not peculiar to the Jews, or to Solomon's temple. All nations, in all countries, in reference to all religions and deities, have considered their houses of worship as the peculiar residence of their gods, and have, of course, held them sacred; and required a corresponding sanctity in the utensils of worship, and in the persons and deportment of the worshipers, while in the temple. And this is consistent with the best dictates of reason and utility, and should be strictly observed in all Christian churches.

Impressed with this view, Solomon uttered the text, which is a parenthetical exclamation of surprise, hesitancy, and assurance blended and alternating. From it we may learn,

I. The strong inclination in the human heart to exclude the presence and superintendency of the Divine Being from the world and the affairs of men.