scene, however lowly, is to them as if it were not Though they would indignantly repel any insinuation which the thorough sceptic would cast on revelation, and shrink from being classed with the avowed unbeliever, yet to them revelation has given no message of power, and the coldness of apathy has frozen their heartsprings as firmly as if locked in utter unbelief. By many such minds, as a rational yet vivifying principle, Unitarianism, if offered, would be accepted, oh, how gladly! And under its benignant influence the pent-up feelings would well out in the gushes of sincerest devotion to the Father of love which it unfolds, and in deepest affection to the brotherhood of man which it presents. To be the instrument of conferring such a boon on even one fellow-being, should be to us the motive of most arduous effort, as it would unquestionably be a source of unmingled satisfaction, when most of those plans about which we now busy ourselves will be remembered with regret.

Around us, in groups widely differing in character, we can fancy we see the different classes at whom we have now briefly glanced,-the gloomy doubter, to whom creation seems a riddle, Providence the unreasoning workings of blind chance, and man the veriest insect of an hour; the dreary bigot, to whom nature in her most joyous garb speaks only of decay, to whom man appears a creature hateful in his instincts, inevitably blinded in his judgments, and prone only to evil, and to whom God appears only as a partial and unnatural despot, not as a kind and ever-affectionate parent; the loud boaster in his own infallible church, without whose magic pale the wailings of unutterable woe from the eternally lost should even now be heard to rise; the fearful, yet sincere, seeker after truth, whose mind the priest has infected, and the fanatic darkened; and the passiontost wanderer on life's troubled ocean, guided by no principle, and lightened by no bright beaming hope,and from them all there comes the earnest call, in varying tones, which but to hear, should arouse us for ever from our slumbers.

THE WIDOW'S MITE.-A DISCOURSE.

BY WILLIAM MACCALL.

PRAYER.

ETERNAL GOD! Thou before whom we are now presenting ourselves in the position of worshippers, hear our accents, however feeble, incline thine ear to our adorations, however mistaken. Thou art our father, listen to us with a father's kindness. Thou art our Creator, listen to us with a Creator's knowledge. When kneeling as suppliants in this thy sanctuary, may our bosoms be transfused by the feelings that suppliants should possess before the Lord their King. Not as trembling slaves do we appear, or dost thou require us to appear in thy sight, but as the erring, yet still beloved children of a benignant parent. Not the bloody offerings of superstition dost thou exact from us, but clean hands, and a pure heart. What thou requirest, what thou exactest, may we willingly, cheerfully bestow. Teach us to convert our homage toward thee into an instrument of improvement. We are too apt to conclude, after having breathed forth thy praises in the assemblies of the faithful, that the fulfilment of our duty to Jehovah above, dispenses from the fulfilment of our duty to man below. Prevent, Oh! God of mercy, prevent by the strongest and rapidest agency of thy spirit this lamentable delusion from laying hold upon and destroying our souls. Show us that thou canst only be acceptably served by him who is the minister of blessing to his brethren. Show us that he who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love thee whom he hath not seen. Show us that the only way by which our services here can be welcome at thy throne of grace, or conducive to our eternal interests, is by rendering all our faculties subservient to the virtue and happiness of the world. Show us how vain is the attempt to hallow thy name, unless it is accompanied by the endeavour to make thy kingdom come. Here, or elsewhere, in public or in private, may thou urge us unceasingly to act on the conviction that our reverence of

thee, that our benevolence to our fellow creatures, and that our progress in self-amelioration, must have the same principle, the same object, the same means. Amen.

DISCOURSE.

"And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.

"And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.

"And he called unto him his disciples, and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury.

"For all they did cast in of their abundance: but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."-Mark, xii. 41.

The incident which these words relate, has been often the subject of pulpit illustration, and the lesson that they teach can never be sufficiently impressed. Christianity brings many great ideas before us, but none greater than that of unbounded affection. It tells us of an immortal life where sin and sorrow shall be unknown; it tells us of the grandeur of our spiritual nature that no earthly joy can satisfy; it tells of the love of our father God, that no error of ours can quench; above all it tells us of the infinite links by which we are bound, and ought still more to be bound, in sympathy to our brethren. And when was ever a more touching example of benevolence than that which has grown illustrious under the name of the widow's mite? When was ever a more victorious example of the spirit of love? Humbly and unostentatiously did she come to present her gift. Unceasingly, perhaps for days, had she laboured to amass the scanty pittance that she offered. A child of poverty, she yet imagined that there were those who were poorer than herself. She was moved with compassion towards their wants. She felt that she could not lie down on her lowly pal.. let in peace. She felt that she could not lift up her prayers to heaven. She felt that concience would be an unpausing curse in her existence if her fellow crea

tures mourned, and that yet she did not minister in some measure to their consolation. She knew not that an eye gazed on her modest generosity, to admire and to honour it. She knew not that a being was the witness of her disinterested goodness, who would make her apparently unknown and insignificant act a portion of his religion, and a theme for the eloquence of all future times. Of human applause or of human gratitude she thought not, her only motive, her only feeling, was human suffering. One strong overpowering impulse mastered her heart, she obeyed that, and obeying that she has become an undying reality in the memories of

men.

The prominent truth which the poor widow's charity teaches, and it is a truth which mankind are evermore. forgetting, is, that the merit of an action consists not in its results, not in its dazzling accompaniments, but in the spirit that inspired it. Let that spirit be just, and pure, and holy, let it be untinctured by egotism or by any base propensity, and he who possesses it is evidently fulfilling his mission. Picture him obscure in his lot, limited in his knowledge, harassed in his circumstances, living on the daily bread of his daily toil; yet a moral sublimity floats as a halo around his steps. The only morality of an elevated description is not that which our position enables us to elaborate, but that which we create in spite of our position. There is no morality in merely obeying the tendencies of a favourably constructed temperament. It is by struggle, by toil, by the vanquishing of difficulties, that substantial morality must be evolved. It is only by the regeneration of our whole being that we can march on to perfection. Till we arrive at the years of maturity, our character grows like the forest wild of an untrodden country, where stately trees, and gorgeous coloured flowers, and stunted shrubs, and noxious weeds, all spring in luxuriance and confusion together. Our moral work commences, not with the planting of any new element, but with the education of those that already exist. And thenceforth that remains the work of our entire pilgrimage. And what thwarts us most in the fulfilment of this work is, the inclination that we can.

not easily suppress, of confounding the motives of actions with their effects, and of supposing that we are fulfilling a duty when we are only obeying an impulse. If this is true, then undoubtedly the best morality is that which is never known, and the best men are those who sink unnoticed into the dust. One man spends the whole of a long life in accumulating riches, he makes himself remarkable for no particular quality, either good or bad, he has been just according to the tradesman notion of justice; and when he dies, he leaves the whole or some large portion of his fortune for some charitable purpose. This passes in the world for charity, but most clearly it is not, though it accomplishes all the objects of charity. Contrast such a case with numberless cases that may be found in the annals of the poor, where egotism dies in the midst of heroic sacrifice. See what parents willingly and unshrinkingly undergo for their children. See what the wretched willingly and unshrinkingly undergo for the wretched. Which is nobler, the mother who, day after day, and night after night, toils to satisfy, however meagrely, her infants' hunger, and to clothe her infants' nakedness, who refuses the food which her shattered exhausted frame demands, in order that those who are dearer than herself may have bread, and who would be ready to meet death in its worst form, if she could be assured that the cup of plenty would be given to her children, which is nobler, this self-forgetting disinterested being, or the spoiled child of fortune, in whom conventionalism has not altogether strangled affection, who casts some small fraction of his superfluities to those whom famine is hurrying to the grave? And yet one hears not of the profound affection and unceasing sacrifices of the first, while the last is made the topic of every one's applause. Are there not at this time, and at all times, millions of fathers and mothers in our native land, whose prilgrimage is one long course of self-denial for the benefit of others; who die without a murmur, in order that those to whom they have given the breath of life may live, and who have only one regret at quitting what to them has always been a desert of tears, the regret that they will leave their or