his righteous career, and heap degradation on his head. Nor was his voluntary submissiveness of disposition less conspicuous. Far from seeking the applauses of men, or courting the notice of the powerful, like others, all his regards wree bestowed upon the poor and needy, on publicans and sinners. In this respect most fully did he verify the commandment he enunciated-"When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee. For thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." In washing his disciples' feet, and performing other similar acts of condescension, his own practice and deportment invariably illustrated the precepts which with so much dignity and truth he everywhere inculcated.

Of all the stains which pollute man's nature, none is more deadly or universal than that of pride, and no other is there by which the just displeasure of Almighty God is so frequently aroused. Widely disseminated as is every species of this unsubdued temper upon earth, where pride of ancestry, of personal appearance, of wealth, of intellect, and countless other imaginary and assumed pre-eminences prevail, a more offensive habit of mind is not to be found within the whole black catalogue of human depravity. Even in regard to

man, this hateful vice is at the very root of his most embittered woes. And as respects the Author of his being, not from any single passage of divine revelation is its offensive character to be gathered, but from texts, all but innumerable. The averment that God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble, is interwoven with every portion of that divine treatise, and indelibly stamped upon almost every one of its pages. So effectually has this been done, so fully has the hatefulness of the principle been developed in positive precepts or incidental allusions, that upon this subject he who runs may read. In fact, the universality and certainty of the command are coincident with the extensive range and notoriety of the crime. Yet when it is considered what contradiction of sinners, and inconceivable humility thereunder, the Saviour of mankind suffered and evinced on the one hand, and what mischiefs pride has entailed upon those portions of the universe where its baneful effects have been experienced on the other; how ought the reflection to force conviction upon every mind, as to the heinous nature of a vice which has occasioned the blessed Redeemer such a depth of humiliation, and its victims such a load of woe! How ought the consideration of such degradation and wretchedness-the ruin of a world, and the subversion of

a province of heaven, having been occasioned by pride-banish from our regard every vain-glorious and false conceit, and teach us to pray for the advent of that kingdom where pride shall be for ever excluded, and where all the grace of a meek and lowly spirit shall be duly recognised, nurtured, and appreciated!

What is the proximate cause of almost every human calamity, but the absence of a gentle and contrite disposition? From whence come wars and fightings, the root of all evil-the love of money, and every baneful lust which interdicts and disturbs the repose of man? May they not, one and all, with the utmost truth be ascribed to the hell-born passion which disenthroned one of the loftiest of heaven's spirits, and drove man from paradise? Inasmuch as humility and love are two of the cardinal associates of divinity, so are hatred and pride the master-passions of the devil and his angels. The attendants of all that is little and abject, are invariably to be discerned in the one; all that is exalted and God-like, are inseparably connected with the other. "Pride," we read, "goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." And again, "Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud." In the beatitudes pronounced by the Saviour in the Sermon on

the Mount, it is written, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth;" and again, in another part of Scripture, "A broken heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." As, in the bright exemplar Christ hath set us, humility and lowliness of mind are conjoined with loveliness, we may receive the same as an earnest and assurance that, in the divine presence, humility, irradiating with its chastened splendour the utmost confines of heaven, will ever be found among the foremost of the heavenly graces encircling the throne, and pervading the throng who worship Him that sitteth thereon.

CHAPTER IV.

AMID the adjuncts of heaven's delights, if such an expression may be hazarded, it is not improbable but music may form no inconsiderable portionseeing that it is an accompaniment of no mean account in some of the loftiest aspirations associated with our feelings upon earth. We are told that the trump of God will harbinger in the great and all-important day of retribution; and, in many other passages of Scripture, allusion is made to this subject in a way to justify the expectation, that in heaven the hallelujahs of the blessed, and celestial music, will commingle. It is true, there may not be much specifically advanced upon the subject; yet it is by no means an irrational conclusion to infer, that the harmony of heaven will perpetuate something of that attractive ceremonial which has ever prevailed in all the earthly churches. David, the man after God's own heart, is no less