value-never underrate them—place them where God has placed them; but the fact that you trust in them shows that your heart is wrong. Wait not for these for the power is not in them—but for the baptism of fire.

III. AS TO THE SCALE ON WHICH OUR EXPECTATIONS SHOULD BE FRAMED. In our age invention, by aid of natural science, often seems to leap almost within the bounds of the supernatural. The impossibilities of our fathers are disappearing, one becoming a traffic and another a pastime. This has produced a state of mind in which nothing seems impossible to natural science. Concurrently with this has arisen a tendency to bring spiritual progress and action within natural bounds. We are proud of our knowledge of the laws of the natural kingdom, and impatient of any phenomena which can not be judged by them. Yet we do not object to judging the vegetable kingdom by laws totally different from those which we apply to the mineral, and the animal by laws totally different from what we apply to the vegetable, and the pervasive fluids by laws different from those we apply to any of those three kingdoms. To shrink from the marvels of vegetable life because they are unaccountable on chemical principles, or from those of instinct because they are unfathomable mysteries on botanical principles, or from those of intellect because they are inexplicable by the laws of natural history, or from the mysteries of light because they can not be metaphysically analyzed and conditioned, would not be more unreasonable than to shrink from marvels in the spiritual kingdom, because they can not be judged by the laws of the natural. The supernatural has its own laws, and there is a supernatural.

Instead of seeking to keep down spiritual movements to the level of natural explanation, in an age when natural marvels reach almost to miracles, we ought rather to be impelled to pray that they may put on a more striking character of supernatural manifestation. To-day more by far is necessary to carry into the mind of the multitude a clear conviction, "It is the hand of God," than was necessay in other ages. When men saw a few wonders from natural science, they readily ascribed each wonder to divine agency; but now that they are accustomed to see them daily, moral wonders must swell beyond all pretext of natural explanation, before they are felt to be from God. Is our footing firm? Do we stand, or do we tremble? Is Christianity to seat herself in the circle of natural agency, or to arise from the dust, and prove that there is a God in Israel? Are we to shrink from things extraordinary? Are we to be afraid of any thing that would make skeptical or prayerless men mock? Are we to desire that the Spirit shall use us and work in us just to such a degree as will never bring a sneer upon us-to pray, as a continental writer represents some as meaning, "Give us of the Holy Spirit; but not too much; lest the people should say that we are full of new wine?" * *Pasteur Augustin Bost.

Much good exists, in which we do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice; but O! the evil, the evil is day by day, breaking thousands of hearts, ruining thousands of characters, and destroying thousands of souls! Looking abroad beyond the one little sphere of Britain and America, which we proud boasters of the two nations are prone to look upon as being nearly the whole world—though we are not one twentieth of the human race— how dreary and how lonely does the soul of the Christian feel, as it floats, in imagination, over the rest of the earth! That Europe, so learned, so splendid, so brave-what misery is by its fireside! What stains upon its conscience! What superstition, stoicism, or despair around its death beds! And yonder bright old Asia, where the "tongue of fire" first spoke-how rare and how few are the scenes of moral beauty which there meet the eye! Instead of the family, the seraglio; instead of religion, superstition; instead of peace, oppression; instead of enterprise, war; instead of morals, ceremonials; instead of a God, idols; instead of refinement and growth, corruption and collapse: here, there, thinly so— and scarcely within sight one of the other, a school, a book, a man of God-one star in a sky of darkness. And poor Africa! What is to become of the present generation of her sons? Thinly around her coasts are beginnings of good things; but O! the blood, and darkness, and woe, the base superstition, and the miserable cruelties, under which the majority of her youth are now trained, amid which her old men are going down to the grave!

All this existed a century ago, but was not then known as we know it now. The world is not yet explored by the church, much less occupied ; but the exploration at least is carried so far, that we know its plagues as our fathers knew them not; and if our hearts were rightly affected, we should weep over them as they never wept; for, although the spread of Christianity has greatly multiplied the number of Christians, the increase of population has been such, that more men are sinning and suffering now than were a hundred years ago.

Taking the forces of the church, comparing them with the length and breadth of the world, and then asking, "Are these ever to be the means of converting all ?" we feel that only the promise of God could inspire such a hope. But that promise is so confirmed, illustrated, and exalted by the success of the past century, that when we look back to the few faithful men in this country and in America, men in different circumstances and of different views, who then began in earnest to call the churches to their work, and see how far their labors and those of their spiritual sons have advanced the kingdom of Christ beyond where it stood then, we are led to say, "Suppose that all the good men, now loving God and desiring his glory, were but to be multiplied in equal ratio during the next century, as those few have been during the last century; what an amazing stride would be made toward the conversion of the whole world!"

Is this too much to expect? Are we to conclude, that the force of the animating Spirit is spent, and that an age of feebleness must succeed to

If

one of power? To do so is fearfully to disbelieve at once the goodness and the faithfulness of our God. Some say that, because populations have become familiarized with the truths of the gospel, we are not to expect the same converting effects as when those truths were new. this be so, we had better make way for a generation of rationalists and formalists, to prepare the ground again for spiritual cultivation! Some say that, because the age is so educated, intellectual, scientific, and inquisitive, men are not so susceptible of the influence of Christianity. Then shall we wait for an age less enlightened and less educated? Some say that the age is so unduly active, forcing enterprise and commerce to the point of absorbing every man, till religion is pushed aside. Must we then wait for a duller and more lethargic time? Some say that the Lord does not give us great success lest we should be uplifted. Is it his way to promote humility by giving small results to great agencies, or by giving great results to small ones? And would not results after the Pentecostal scale make any of our agencies seem small? These are miserable withs wherewith to bind the giant church of God. Away with them every one! After going round all the reasons which one hears ordinarily assigned for the greater direct success of preachers in the last century than now, our mind finds rest only in that one reason, which carries a world of rebuke and of humiliation to ourselves: they produced greater effects, simply because of the greater power of God within them.

Every ray of gospel truth that exists in any man is on our side. All intelligence, all intellectual activity, all vigor of character, are more for us than their opposites would be. In fact, they are very much the fruit, the indirect and secondary fruit, of the past triumphs of religion; for it is impossible that true godliness shall spread among any people, without stimulating their intellectual and social energies. It is hard to imagine a satire on the gospel more bitter than that it should be powerful when new to men, and impotent when familiar; that it should be good for the half barbarous, but not for those whom itself had refined; capable of captivating the inert, but incapable of commanding the masculine and the energetic. We expect ages not less instructed in Christian doctrine, but far more instructed; not intellectually duller, but more active; not darker as to science and literature, but inconceivably brighter; not slower as to invention, enterprise, and progress, but more vigorous by far. And am I to return to "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," whereto I feel that I and mine, my kindred, my conntry, the race from which I have sprung, the lands in which I have traveled, are all indebted for their purest and brightest things—and say to it, "When these bright ages come, thou shalt lag behind, perhaps recollected as one of the infantine instructors of the world, but distanced by the progress of man ?" Let those who assign reasons for our want of fruitfulness which fairly sow the seeds of rationalism, prepare to render an account when the fruit of sowing comes to be reaped!

DISCOURSE XLIII.

CHARLES H. SPURGEON.

THE appearance of no man since the days of Wesley and Whitefield, has produced a deeper sensation in Great Britain than has that of this young clergyman. He is now but about twenty-three years of age, having been born at Kelvedon, Essex, June the 19th, 1834. His father and grandfather are both Independent ministers. There is a younger brother of much promise, now in the Baptist College at Stepney. His early education was respectable. To use his own words, in answer to our inquiries, he obtained his education "nominally at divers schools, really by summer rambles, hard private studies, and close observation." He passed a year in the Agricultural College at Maidstone, in the study of natural science, then he became usher of a school, first in Newmarket, and subsequently at Cambridge. While thus employed, he began to address Sabbath-schools; and, finding that his efforts in this way proved attractive, he commenced preaching, in 1851, on Sunday evenings, in the surrounding villages. In the autumn of that year, a small Baptist church at Waterbeach (five miles north-east of Cambridge), invited him to become their pastor. Answering to their call, he entered earnestly upon the labors of the ministry, preaching as many as three hundred and sixty-five sermons in a year-not only in his own chapel, but as an evangelist in surrounding villages. His fervid and engaging manner, his extreme youth, and the wonderful activity which he manifested, attracted public attention, and, in January, 1854, he was invited to the pastoral care of the Baptist church in New Park-street, London, where he now preaches. The church, which was then small, now numbers nearly a thousand communicants. Mr. Spurgeon never appears on the platform, but only in the pulpit, and he preaches some ten times a week, often traveling miles to accomplish it. One hundred persons who have united with his church, date their conversion, under God, to the sermons he preached in Exeter Hall, while his house was being enlarged, and fifteen of them to one sermon. A thousand people are said to be present, sometimes, at the prayer-meeting.

Mr. Spurgeon is said to be of the middle size, thick set in figure, with a deep, capacious chest, and a throat, and tongue, and lip, all formed for oratory. His hair is black, over a tolerably wide forehead; his eyes dark, and deeply set. His manner in the pulpit is energy from first to last, impelled by a vehement purpose, and a determination to arouse from the beginning. A frequent hearer gives the following description: "When he is fairly engaged with his subject, his countenance is full of earnestness, and he speaks with a force and impetuosity, an intensity and nimbleness, which at once engages and rivets the attention of his audience. The force of his diction is absolutely overwhelming. He plunges at once into his subject, illustrates it with the noblest and grandest images which the imagination is capable of

conceiving, until he conducts the listener to a climax at once startling from its novelty, and striking from its appositeness. His readiness and command of language, strong, idiomatic, and varied, is quite astonishing in so young a man; and he pours forth a torrent of eloquence with a vigor and velocity which is only equaled by the skill and consummate ability with which it is sustained to the end of his discourse." His sermons are wholly unwritten, but are usually taken down in short-hand by the reporters, at whose request he is understood frequently to revise them before publication. Immense numbers of them are printed, and circulated all through Great Britain. Two volumes have been published in this country, of the first of which more than twenty thousand copies were called for in less than a year, and of the second (lately published), some ten thousand or over are understood to have been sold.

pulpit, or the platform, They invite criticism, to In one thing, how

It has been remarked, that great orators, whether of the or the senate-chamber, make many friends and many foes. say the least; and of this Mr. Spurgeon has had his full share. ever, we believe there is unanimity of opinion: that he is not open to the censure of Quintilian: "His greatest excellence is, that he has no fault; and his greatest fault is, that he has no excellence." By common consent, too, he has pulpit power. There must be something more than vehement declamation to hold an audience, of several thousands of hearers, spell-bound for a full hour, and be compelled, even at the expiration of a period of two years or more, to use tickets of admission, and hang out placards that the house was filled, in order to prevent suffocation in the largest places of public gathering. A still more striking evidence of his ministerial ability, is the approval of the Spirit, in the piety and edification of his flock, and the large and almost constant accession of converts to the faith of the gospel. No man could accomplish what Mr. Spurgeon has done and is doing, especially with his lack of the culture of the schools, unless remarkably endowed by the great Head of the church. It is, moreover, universally admitted, we believe, that he is a man of prayer, and of deep and unaffected piety. If the grace of humility continues to be vouchsafed, his career may become one of most extended usefulness.

As to the character of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons, while they contain things exceptionable, and would not in all cases suit a fastidious taste, they may yet be read with profit. They would be of special service in cases where a preacher is "dull by rule," and his pulpit is "dying of dignity." Their more marked peculiarities, are, a happy choice of texts and subjects, simple and natural arrangement of the several parts, almost always textual; an entire absence of learned criticism, and thorough exposition; a happy weaving in of Scripture phraseology, the evangelical element being their warp and woof; a lucid, simple, colloquial style of utterance; sprightliness, and originality of conception; frequent and graphic narrative; apt poetical quotations, and striking figures and illustrations, sometimes homely, but always telling; high-toned doctrinal sentiment, and fervid, faithíu. home appeals to the heart and conscience of saint and unbeliever.

The sermon which we have selected is a favorable specimen. Some of Mr. Spurgeon's most marked felicities of conception and style are here perceivable. The subject affords room for the play of his wonderful fancy, and his seemingly instinctive ingenuity in bringing forward just the points which are most telling and attractive.