corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Rom. viii. 20.

Had we been made acquainted merely with the fall of man and its effect upon his moral constitution, we should have still been bewildered in the perplexities of our condition. A consciousness of guilt would have filled our minds with apprehension, and the fear of the Divine displeasure would have mingled its bitterness with every gratification, would have seized upon every hope. Like Cain, we should have cried out, "Our punishment is greater than we can bear," and solicited the black mark of slavery as an antidote to threatened and instant death.

But the mercy of God, which always tempers even the natural events to the delicate sensibilities of our physical perceptions, concealed from our view the desolation of our condition, till, in the maturity of his counsels, he saw fit to blend with the discovery the bright visions "of the glory about to be revealed." Rom. viii. 18.

The heathen nations, although painfully alive to the brevity of human life, and deeply impressed with the vanity of our hopes, were equally ignorant of our fallen nature, and of the holiness of that God before whom we are to be adjudged. Their conception of an existence after death was cheerless and indistinct, although, even at this late day, among the most lofty intellects of their time, we can now perceive a longing desire after something to them unknown, a hankering for the proof of a spiritual immortality. Thus, while there was but little in their anticipations of a future state to excite their apprehension or alarm, there was but little to stimulate their hope.

The vulgar were sometimes alarmed by the majestic terrors of the Thunderer, and the philosopher was sometimes penetrated by those perfections which he was led to ascribe to the mighty Mind.

Yet the wisest sages of antiquity do not seem to have perceived in human guilt an internal malignity, which no penitence can expiate, nor blood of dying victims wash away.

If some glimpses of the miseries and dangers in which sin had involved us were disclosed to the favoured few, yet visions of prophecy dispelled the gloom; for, "where there is no vision the people perish." Prov. xxix. 18.

It was not till our Saviour had sealed the charter of our hope, that our condition, with a full view of its desolation, was proclaimed to a fallen world. A knowledge of the disease and the remedy has in mercy kept pace with each other. If we learn that the

"creature was made subject to vanity," we also learn that he was made so in hope.

Now, when we behold our condition, although we see evidences of our fallen state, of the degradation of our intellectual and moral faculties, yet we see also a provision of mercy by which the creature may be delivered from "the bondage (dovλeias, slavery) of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

Viewed in connection with this sublime truth, the value of human interests, the pain of human sufferings, and the grief of human wrongs disappear; yea, vanish from the eye of the true believer. The grandeur of his future prospects dignifies his present state, however humble. His present evils, which might overwhelm him if attached to his ultimate condition, lose all their bitterness when converted by redeeming love into mere lessons of moral discipline. The pain is softened by the endearment of paternal tenderness, and he feels and knows that they will only accompany the mere infancy of his being.

The poor, humble, but Christian slave, hears constantly the les sons of Titus, and is happy in his obedience to his own master, that he may please him well in all things, watchful to not contradict, nor purloin from any one, and careful to show all good fidelity, that he may adorn the doctrine of God. He feels that no one has a deeper interest in that grace; for it hath equally appeared to all

men.

He remembers his fellow-slaves of Colosse, and while with singleness of eye he heartily serves his earthly master, he feels that the act is ennobled, and is transferred to be an act of devotion and obedience to the great Jehovah.

Sympathy carries him back to his Corinthian brethren, in common with whom he feels no anxious care to change the condition in which he was called, for while he is content to abide where God has placed him, he knows that he has been purchased by the blood of Christ, and promoted to the rank of a freeman of the Lord.

With his fellow-slaves of Ephesus, he may tremble with fear lest his obedience to his master shall not be performed with good-will and singleness of heart, as unto Christ himself, for he knows that God has not required of him merely eye-service; yet he also knows that Christians, whether bond or free in this world, will hereafter be remembered of God for whatever good they do. Yea, he yields himself to the exhortations of Timothy, and accounts his own master worthy of all honour and obedience, that the name

of God and his doctrine should not be blasphemed; nor does he feel the less reverence for his believing master, but rather does his service with alacrity as to a brother, and with heart-felt joy, because he is a faithful and beloved partaker of the benefits of his labour.

And when he hears men, whose ignorance of God has caused them to be puffed up with the idea of their own importance and purity, evidently filled with pride, as though they could teach God a more holy government, attempting to exhort and teach them a different doctrine, he feels, he knows that such are not only evil and bad men, but ignorant ones, such as dote about questions, and strifes of words, which have no other tendency than to fill the mind with envy, strife, railing, and evil surmises, such as are among men of corrupt minds, among men who are destitute of the truth, and among men who suppose that gain is godliness. He will view such men, however thoughtless they may be of their true position or sincere in their belief, as standing in the position of the serpent in Eden. Their lessons to him are disobedience to God. From such he will withdraw himself; yea, he will fly from them as from a deadly poison, because disobedience to God for ever ends in ruin and death. But from Timothy he learns contentment, for, as he brought nothing into the world with him, and as he can most certainly carry nothing out, so, having food and raiment, he will be content, and especially so as contentment and godliness are great gain.

And finally he hears as it were a trumpet sounding from the very gates of heaven, and looking, he beholds Peter standing there; he hears a still small voice, the voice of Jesus Christ, saying, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." Matt. xvi. 18, 19. And then Peter, raising his arm in the direction of the Gentile nations, says to the slaves: "Be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward: for this is thank-worthy, if a man for conscience towards God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye take it patiently? But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable to God. For even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his

steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously; who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep gone astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."

LESSON XV.

FROM the immense disproportion between our finite minds and the infinite objects of future hope, our conceptions of the disimbodied spirit must necessarily be feeble. But while we anticipate the promised freedom of the celestial world, the disenthralment of our intellectual faculties, and the deliverance of our moral powers from all corruption, the mind becomes more and more habituated to the scenes thus disclosed, and even reaches to prospects of resplendent beauty; to visions of unclouded truth; to the solution of the little difficulties of our own earthly trials; to the evolutions of the Divine character in connection with our little planet, and even to that infinitude that mocks the bounds of time and space.

Thus the pious Christian, who meditates upon God and the heavens, the work of his hand, feels a divine influence spread over his soul, while the active and the retired, the ardent and the timid, the philosopher whose mind is illumined by the varied lights of science, and the pious slave, whose researches are confined to the sayings of some unlettered expositor, will each cherish anticipations congenial to his peculiar state of mind. Yet all will grow in grace; all will rise above the level of temporal delights; and all will embrace in their expanding conceptions the mighty import of that glorious promise, that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him," 1 Cor. ii. 9, till elevated so far above earthly associations, that each can say, "I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness." Ps. xvii. 15.

What degree of moral likeness will gradually be produced by a near contemplation of unveiled perfection is reserved for eternity

to disclose. But the time will at length come when to every sincere Christian and true disciple, dazzled by the refulgence that will break upon his astonished sight, Jesus Christ will address the language of affection, as he did to Martha: "Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the glory of God?" John xi. 40.

"Then we all, with open face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of God, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory." 2 Cor. iii. 18.

Such, then, is the picture and such the prospect of the Christian character; and well may Christians, even the slave, "Reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed." Rom. viii. 18.

From the monarch down, viewed from the distance of eternity, man occupies but a point. All earthly distinctions become so small that nothing short of the eye of omnipotence can see them. The same language describes, and the same God will prepare their

rest.

The Christian slave feels exalted even while on earth, for he is. well persuaded "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi- . palities, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God." Rom. viii. 38.

If for a few days the afflicted Christian and slave "wander in the wilderness in a solitary way;" if, "hungry and thirsty, their souls faint in them," he is yet "hastening to a city of habitations." Ps. cvii. 4, 5, 7.

If even the sun of his earthly hopes be set, yet he is hastening to a country where "thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." Isa. lx. 20.

With such views the heart is elevated above the pains and miseries of this transitory world to the contemplation of hope celestial. The mere philosopher, who views the mutilated structure of the moral world, sees no renovating principle to reorganize its scattered fragments. He mourns with unavailing sorrow over the ruins of his race, and chills with horror at the prospect of his own decay. But the Christian sees a fairer earth and a more radiant heaven. And should the poor slave, forgetful of this high destiny of his Christian character, and of his ultimate home, feeling, like Hagar,