OR OF NATURAL POWERS,

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a difference as to excite discontent or jealousy. It may be, that some are apt to exult over others, by talking of the pleasures, or the liberty, which they enjoy; and which the friends of others, either from necessity or from a sense of duty, are obliged to withhold. If this be ever felt by any of you as a trial; if it gall your pride, as well as restrict your enjoyments; then remember, that here, even in this seemingly little thing, the inferiority of which you complain may be either increased ten-fold, or changed into a blessed superiority. Increased ten-fold, even as from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath, if by discontent, and evil passions towards God and man, you make yourselves a hundred times more inferior spiritually than you were in outward circumstances; but changed into a blessed superiority, if it be borne with meekness, and patience, and thankfulness, even as it was said of the Gentile centurion, that there had not been found faith equal to his, no, not in Israel.

But turning from worldly advantages to those which are called natural, and the inequality here is at once as great as elsewhere. In all faculties of body and mind; in the vigour of the senses, of the limbs, of the general constitution ; in the greater or less liability to disease generally, or to any particular form of it; or, again, in

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powers of mind, in quickness, in memory, in imagination, in judgment; the differences between different persons in this congregation must be exceedingly wide. But, with regard to bodily powers, the trial is little felt, till the inferiority is shown in actual suffering from pain or from disease. So long as we are in health, our enjoyments are so many, and we so easily accommodate our habits to our powers, that a mere inferiority of strength, whether it be of limb or of constitution, is not apt to make us dissatisfied. But if it comes to actual illness or to pain, if we are deprived of the common enjoyments and occupations of our age, then perhaps the trial begins to be severe; and when we look at others who have taken the same liberties with their health as we have done, and see them notwithstanding perfectly well and strong, while we are disabled or suffering, we may think that God has dealt hardly with us, and may be inclined to ask with Esau, "Hast thou but one blessing, my Father? bless me, even me also, O my Father!" Now this language, according to the sense in which we use it, is either blameable or innocent. If we mean to say, "Hast thou health to give to others only and not to me: give me this blessing also, as thou hast given it to my brethren ;” then it has in it somewhat of discontent and murmuring; it implies a claim to which God never listens.

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But if we mean, "Hast thou only one kind of blessing, my Father? If thou hast blest others in one way, I murmur not nor complain; but out of thine infinite store, give me also such a blessing as may be convenient for me;" then God hears the prayer, then he gives the blessing, and gives it so richly, and makes it bear so evidently the mark of his love, that they who were last are become first; if others have health, and we have sickness, yet the spirit of patience and cheerful submission which God gives with it, is so great a blessing, and makes us so certainly happy, that the strongest and healthiest of our friends have often far more reason to wish to change places with us, than we with them.

Let us now take inequality in powers of mind. And here, undoubtedly, the difference is apt to be a trial. Not that, probably, it excites discontent or murmuring against God; nor jealousy against those whose faculties are better than our own; the trial is of another kind; we are tempted to make our inferiority an excuse for neglect; because we cannot do so much nor so easily as others, we do far less than we might do. But the parable shows us plainly, that if one talent only has been given us, while others have ten, yet that the one, no less than the ten, must be made to yield its increase. Here is the feeling expressed so earnestly by the woman entreating

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Christ to heal her daughter. "The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." Small as may be the portion of power given us, when compared with the plenty vouchsafed to others, still it is capable of nourishing us if we make use of it; still it shows that we too have our blessing. And if using it with thankfulness, if doing our very best with it, knowing that

a man is accepted according to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not," we labour humbly and diligently; then, not only does the talent itself become increased, so that our Lord, when he comes to reckon with us, may receive his own with usury; but a blessing of another kind is added to our labours, again, as in the former case, making those who were last to become first. For if there be one thing on earth, which is truly admirable, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when they have been honestly, humbly, and zealously cultivated. From how many pains are they delivered, to which great natural talents are continually exposed; irritation, jealousy, a morbid and nervous activity, bearing fruits, not of peace, but of gall! With what blessings are they crowned, to which the most powerful natural understanding is a stranger; the love of truth gratified, without the fear that truth will demand the sacrifice of personal vanity; the

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line of duty clearly discerned, because those mists of passion and selfishness which obscure it so often from the view of the keenest natural perception, have been dispersed by the Spirit of humility and love; imperfect knowledge patiently endured, because whatever knowledge is enjoyed is known to be God's gift, and what he gives, or what he withholds, is alike welcome. This is the blessing of those, who having had inferior natural powers, have so laboured to improve them according to God's will, that on all there has been grafted, as it were, some better power of grace, to yield a fruit most precious both for earth and heaven.

But I spoke of an inequality of spiritual advantages also, and this is perhaps the hardest trial of all. O how great is this inequality in truth, when it seems to be so little! All of you, the children of Christian parents; all members of the Christian Church; all partaking here of the same worship, the same prayers, the same word of God, the same sacrament; are you not all the Israel of God, and not, like Esau, or the Syrophoenician woman, strangers to the covenant of blessing? Yet your real condition is, notwithstanding, very unequal. How unlike are your friends at home; how unlike, also, are your

friends here! Are there not some to whom their homes, both by direct precept and by example,