even of the mere unorganized minerals. What must INFINITE Wisdom and love and power do, but endow all creatures in the rank and order in which those boundless attributes have placed them? God arrays the lily in beauty surpassing Solomon's, but not on the principles of unorganized matter, as he forms the solid granite, and the beautiful marble, and crystal, and topaz; but on the principles of organic structure and vegetable life. Its roots must extend into the soil; its leaves must be expanded to the light, it must imbibe the sun and the rain. God feeds the birds; gives them strength of body and moults them with their robe of feathers, not as he clothes the lily,-but on the principles of animal life. And man he feeds and clothes--but on the wider principles of his nature, which if he transgress, and conform only to the meaner animals, he will live like the oxen, and the eagles, an outcast from his dignity; base and miserable amidst the plenty and glory of the rank into which he sinks. Or if he do but conform in mere savage proportion to the methods of his nature, then shall he in the same proportion fail to be endowed with the gifts which divine Providence has poured forth upon man; shall have but his blanket and his wigwam, and his wanderings. If he will have the whole blessing and comfort of a man, he must meet God's kindness with the powers of a man-with the reason and the thinking-with the science and arts and industry of civilized life. In like manner do we say, God saves the souls of men; but still on the principles

of that very nature which alone is capable of eternal salvation; he saves them as beings capable of faith and obedience. What then will become of that man who hopes to be saved, as the rock of granite is removed by main strength from the mountain's side? Or as the lily, like a mere passive receiver? Has he any roots, which will drink up the rain, or leaves that will passively expand to the sun? Or as the swallow has he an instinct perfect from the beginning, which will carry him away from the winter of the grave to an eternal summer?

The warrant is perfect but golden as it is, how alarming! Alas! pluck up the lily, and lay it on the granite or the marble rock, and see if it will grow, and put on its robe of beauty, and not wilt and wither and die! Take the raven and plant him in the soil by the side of the blooming lily, and see if his claws will take root, and serve him with his daily food, on the principles of vegetable life; will he not die? Turn out man into the raven's store-house, into the cattle's pasture, and see whether he will thrive and grow like the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air; see if his hair do not grow like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws; if he will have plenty, and health and comfort, without spinning and weaving, without sowing and reaping, and gathering into barns. Will he not live a wretch, and perish in the trial? What then will become of the soul that is false to its rank in the scale of being-which degrades itself from its high nature, and still hopes, absurdly, to be blessed,

on the principles, by which the rock is solid, or the lily beautiful, or the bird a living animal? Alas! for those who hope for salvation from Infinite power and skill and love, without and against the principles of that rank of being to which the INFINITE has exalted them: who honor God, by claiming what can be bestowed only upon natures lower than their own! The question of a universal salvation, resolves itself into a question as to our scale of being. What are we? Where are we? We are not stones, whom God fixes or removes by mere power from the mountain side; nor plants growing by mere organic supplies; nor animals, knowing, without thought or learning, the pathway of their food but men, provided with a way of salvation suited to our scale of being-to our rational and moral natures. Alas! you forgot, amidst your dreams of future glory, what you were-where you were, in the scale of God's creatures; when you applied to yourself, absurdly, the principles which belong to the marble, the lilies and the birds, and not to man-made for faith, and obedience, that he might be the heir of salvation. Accept the warrant, and you shall live forever. Whosoever believeth, shall "not perish, but have everlasting life."

6

SERMON IV.

THE EARTHLY OPPORTUNITY FOR FAITH.

MATTHEW, 6: 31-33.

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? - For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

It is not many years since an eloquent and venerable divine was walking the streets of a great commercial city, on a pecuniary errand; - perplexed, embarrassed, limited to time, and on the pivot of utter failure. The stake, indeed, was not personal, and the failure would not have been a personal bankruptcy, yet was success so important, so indispensable, that he felt all the interest possible in a personal case. "As I was occupied," (said he to a friend some years afterwards,) "As I was occupied many days in trying to accomplish what seemed to all human view impossible, and yet absolutely indispensable, pacing the crowded thoroughfares; I felt that if I had not had a God to go to, I should die in the street." I had often listened with admiration, perhaps I may say with a holy sympathy,

to the strains of sacred eloquence by which thousands had been entranced in many an awed and melted auditory; had heard of the trust in God which planteth man by the waters, and spreadeth out his roots by the rivers, and giveth the green leaf even in the year of drought, and the unceasing fruit; - of a strength from waiting on the Lord, which mounts up on wings, as eagles, which runs and is not weary, which walks and is not faint; - but not with more assurance that my venerable friend was ascending the path of faith, the road of everlasting life, than I gained from this simple account of approach to God in a pecuniary necessity.

We may easily conceive the feelings which must have been concentrated in that single expression of faith. There must have been an awful, humbling, cheering sense of God, present, not to the closet and the pulpit and the sanctuary merely, but unseen, about the paths of busy life; a confiding application to a covenant God, and a pledge of service and submission in the time to come. It is not enough to say those days were begun with prayer-they were spent in prayer. Every stroke fell upon the pavement, every path was chosen, and every word spoken, coming boldly to the throne of grace; seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Passing through a narrow and precipitous defile, by a road hemmed in by overhanging mountains, the traveller presently emerges from a hill-top, in sight of a sequestered and romantic valley, of beauty unsurpassed