the single word, "Mary!" waked all the slumbering echoes in her desolate heart, and drew from her the cry of recognition, "Master!"

The affectionate character of Jesus possesses the two essential attributes of true love.

While his af

fections were continually extending to every new object, that came within his blessed influence, the ties, which he had already formed, became even more intimate and enduring.

The ever growing, ever expanding nature of his love may be traced in the story of his life. Only follow him in his course, from his first love, his affection for his mother, to his high and warm admiration of John the Baptist, his gathering around him, one by one, the little flock, that knew the voice of the true Shepherd. Still more, it is the nature of true love, like water, continually to descend and seek the lowest places, to enrich and bless them. The true physician goes to seek the sick; the faithful shepherd goes in search of the lamb that has strayed; the father's heart warms towards the returning prodigal. And then, again, see him weeping over Jerusalem; see him laboring, dying for mankind. The enduring nature of his affection is expressed in those affecting words, "Having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end!" When the band of officers, sent by the chief priests, came to seize Jesus and his followers, he delivered himself up, while he thought only of saving his friends. therefore ye seek me, let these go their way."

"If

On the cross, in the midst of his agony, the whole

strength of his affection centred upon his mother and the disciple whom Jesus loved. "Behold thy mothand "Behold thy son ! It was not till after

er ! he had established a maternal and filial union between his best friend by nature, and his best friend by choice, that his affections resumed their unbounded range, in declaring the great work of benevolence, which God gave him to do, finished; in praying for his crucifiers; in commending his soul to God.

My friends, I have set before you the affectionate character of Jesus, as it stands recorded by some of those who knew and loved him best. I have nothing to add, either by way of comment or admonition. Words could only weaken and mar the impression, which the mute eloquence of such facts never fails to make on the listening heart. Let me, in parting, only remind you of what the Saviour declared to be the practical test, by which the true friends of Jesus may be known. "By this shall all men know, that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.'

SERMON XIX.

ACTS XVII. 28.

"In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

THESE words occur in the sermon of the Apostle Paul to the Athenians. This passage is closely connected with that which follows immediately after it, "that we are also his offspring"; a truth, which, as the Apostle says, was recognised by their own poets. Indeed, not only poets and sages had expressed this thought, but the doctrine of one supreme, all-pervading, and all-controlling Power may be obscurely traced in all the different systems of polytheism. It is recorded of one of the most ancient nations of the old world, that, while they were yet uncivilized heathens, and believers in many gods, they would not represent them in any shape or form, but in sacred groves adored that secret something, which they contemplated in devotion. And thus we find among our Indians, amidst many superstitious notions, the recognition of the great Spirit, of whose powerful presence they are reminded by every signally grand, awful, or merciful event, which they experience. In short, whatever be our creed or sect, these words,

that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being," speak to every heart, in its own language, of what all have sometimes felt, however vaguely, that, as we are surrounded by the atmosphere, from which we draw our breath, and as our body stands upon the earth from which it is taken, so our spirit, the principle of thought and of love within us, is compassed and upheld by omnipotent and omnipresent Intelligence and Love.

Whenever I read these words of the Apostle, they call up, in my mind, the image of every thing great and beautiful, that has ever moved before my senses, or lived in my imagination, and become a part of my conscious being. Heaven-bound mountains, and the boundless sea; works of architecture, of painting, and of poetry, produced by human genius as the credentials of its divine mission; the heroic actions and more heroic sufferings, the glorious achievements and still more glorious failures of aspiring and persevering virtue, all these objects of contemplation, amazement, and delight, are brought before me by the words of the text. But as I strive to enter more and more into the depth and fulness of meaning, that is bound up in this text, all those glorious realities in nature and in man appear to me unsatisfactory, and the fond admiration, with which I behold them, seems like idolatry, until I view them as manifestations of that incomprehensible, though omnipresent Power, in whom alone we live, and move, and have our being.

The simple and sublime truth, embodied in these words, is the same at all times, and may be felt

equally in all places. But it would seem as if this quickening truth came home to us more readily and fully, when, surrounded by the living works of nature, we are breathing the free air of the country, than amid the dead productions of human industry, when our steps, our looks, and our very thoughts are shụt up within the narrow walls of a crowded city. In the wild woods, amidst trees, and shrubs, and plants of every shape and color, we feel as if the same power, that animates and expands so many unknown germs into an infinite variety of forms of vegetable and animal life, was quickening, enlarging, and invigorating every faculty of our own material and spiritual being. We feel and we are convinced, that this endless variety of form and color, sound and motion, so destitute of every thing like preconceived plan and studied arrangement, is yet pervaded and controlled by the omnipresent Spirit of harmony, which moves the inmost chords of our own nature. The wilderness seems to us as a vast temple, full of animated paint`ings, and living statuary, and sacred music, and we return, unconsciously, to the primitive worship of the uncivilized children of nature, who, in the silent gloom of primeval forests, perceived the footsteps, and listened to the voice, of the present Deity, And thus, in the midst of the ocean, when the calm face of the waters opens a prospect far exceeding the utmost stretch of our vision, and tempts the inner eye to venture a glance into the unseen regions of infinity; or, when wind and water conspire to dispute the controlling power of human prudence and courage, when,