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IN

PULPIT ELOQUENCE.

I.—THE PRACTICE OF PATIENCE.-Jeremy Taylor.

Ar the first address and presence of sickness, stand still and arrest thy spirit, that it may without amazement or affright consider, that this was that thou lookedst for, and wert always certain should happen; and that now thou art to enter into the actions of a new religion, the agony of a strange constitution. At no hand suffer thy spirits to be dispersed with fear or wildness of thought, but stay their looseness and dispersion by a serious consideration of the present and future employment. For so doth the Lybian lion, spying the fierce huntsman: he first beats himself with the strokes of his tail, and curls up his spirits, making them strong with union and recollection; till, being struck with a Mauritanian spear, he rushes forth into his defence and noblest contention; and either 'scapes into the secrets of his own dwelling, or else dies the bravest of the forest. Every man when shot with an arrow from God's quiver, must then draw in all the auxiliaries of reason, and know that then is the time to try his strength, and to reduce the words of his religion into action; and consider that, if he behaves himself weakly and timorously, he suffers never the less of sickness; but, if he returns to health, he carries along with him the mask of a coward and a fool; and if he descends into his grave, he enters into the state of the faithless and unbelievers. Let him set his heart firm upon this resolution:-"I must bear it inevitably, and I will, by God's grace, do it nobly.”

II.—ON THE NATIONAL HUMILIATION (1855).—Henry Melville. WE learn, from Scripture, that Public Humiliation was resorted to of old in varieties of exigence; and that the attendant success was such as to show God's approval, and therefore to give to the act the authority of His command. It was the sincerity of the humiliation which gave to it its virtue. Whilst we would shun, with the greatest earnestness, ascribing to

what is formal and outward the efficiency which belongs only to what is spiritual and inward, there is something which should commend itself to our most sacred feelings in this public appointment of a day of humiliation. It is a legislative recognition that the nation has sinned, and that the Almighty is the avenger of sin.

We are summoned to humble ourselves before God, because we are engaged in a war which has entailed on us no common disasters but on which we entered with no selfish purpose. We saw that Europe was already darkened by the shadow of a colossal power which was ever pushing forward its boundary; and it was not for England to sit tamely by, whilst country after country lost its independence. If we had no fears for ourselves-if we could not contemplate the possibility that this advancing tide would beat on our own shoresat least it was in our "charter" not to suffer the weak to be borne down by the strong. And if we have unsheathed the sword only to maintain rights which ought not to be invaded, and to prevent aggressions which threaten worse disasters than themselves, we may the better hope that God will not turn a deaf ear, when, falling low at His footstool,the ashes on our hearts, and the sackcloth on our souls,we exclaim, "Hear Thou in heaven our supplication, and maintain our cause!"

It is like lifting us from degradation to represent our prayers as received where cherubim and seraphim veil their faces"Hear Thou in heaven!" Neither angels nor archangels have greater privilege than ourselves to inform us that, in those very halls of uncreated splendour, reared of the attributes of Divinity, where burning and beautiful beings weave the high chorus of enraptured adoration, even we-the children of dust, the heirs of death-may pour forth our souls and make known our wants. It is not alone in a building made with hands that we have audience of our God. The poor cottager, when he kneels in his lowly hovel, is worshipping in heaven-the very scene where the Almighty receives the homage of the thousand times ten thousand spirits who wait to do His will. The wanderer on the waters, whose voice seems drowned amid the din of the tempest, is speaking audibly "within the veil," where is cast that "anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast," by which a universe might hold, and never know shipwreck. The soldier who, amid the furies of the battle, or by his lonely watchfire, breathes from the heart a petition unto God, has his utterance above-far away from

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the tented field and the crash of war-in that tranquil abode where there can be no strife, because there can be no sin!

It is thus, as suppliants in heaven, though tabernacling on earth, that we are now assembled to confess the hand of the Almighty in the calamities with which we have been visitedmeekly and submissively to own that we have been smitten of God-to whom human errors, as well as human triumphs, are but instruments for furthering His will. . . . Let us strive, by genuine contrition and humiliation, to turn from us the wrath, and to obtain for us the forgiveness, of God; for the worst evil that can fall upon a land is, that God's judgment produces no amendment. Come anything rather than that! come anything rather than persistence in evil in the very face of its retribution. And forasmuch as national sin is but the aggregate sins of individuals, let each do his part by ceasing to do evil and learning to do well, towards procuring that the Scourge may be removed and all strife overruled, to the renewal of kindly brotherhood among nations.

III.-WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD. -Robert Hall.

THE exclusion of a Supreme Being, and of a superintending Providence, tends directly to the destruction of moral taste. It robs the universe of all finished and consummate excellence, even in idea. The admiration of perfect wisdom and goodness for which we are formed, and which kindles such unspeakable rapture in the soul, finding, in the regions of scepticism, nothing to which it corresponds, droops, and languishes. In a world which presents a fair spectacle of order and beauty; of a vast family, nourished and supported by an Almighty Parent; in a world which leads the devout mind, step by step, to the contemplation of the first fair, and the first good,—the sceptic is encompassed with nothing but obscurity, meanness, and disorder.

When we reflect on the manner in which the idea of Deity is formed, we must be convinced that such an idea, intimately present to the mind, must have a most powerful effect in refining the moral taste. Composed of the richest elements, it embraces, in the character of a beneficent Parent and Almighty Ruler, whatever is venerable in wisdom, whatever is awful in authority, whatever is touching in goodness.

Human excellence is blended with many imperfections, and seen under many limitations. It is beheld only in detached and separate portions, nor ever appears, in any one character, whole and entire. So that, when, in imitation of the Stoics,

we wish to form, out of these fragments, the notion of a perfectly wise and good man, we know it is a mere fiction of the mind, without any real being in whom it is embodied and realised. In the belief of a Deity, these conceptions are reduced to reality; the scattered rays of an ideal excellence are concentrated, and become the real attributes of that Being with whom we stand in the nearest relation;-who sits supreme at the head of the universe, is armed with infinite power, and pervades all nature with His presence.

The efficacy of these sentiments, in producing and augmenting a virtuous taste, will indeed be proportioned to the vividness with which they are formed, and the frequency with which they recur; yet some benefit will not fail to result from them, even in their lowest degree.

The idea of the Supreme Being has this peculiar propertythat, as it admits of no substitute, so, from the first moment it is impressed, it is capable of continual growth and enlargement. God Himself is immutable; but our conception of His character is continually receiving fresh accessions,-is continually growing more extended and effulgent, by having transferred upon it new perceptions of beauty and goodness; by attracting to itself, as a centre, whatever bears the impress of dignity, order, or happiness. It borrows splendour from all that is fair, subordinates to itself all that is great, and sits enthroned on the riches of the universe.

IV. CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION.-Finlayson.

WHAT is it, O child of sorrow, what is it that now wrings thy heart, and bends thee in sadness to the ground? Whatever it be, if thou knowest the truth, the truth shall give thee relief. Have the terrors of guilt taken hold of thee? Dost thou go all the day long, mourning for thy iniquities, refusing to be comforted? And, in thy bed at night, do visions of remorse disturb thy rest, and haunt thee with the fears of a judgment to come? Behold, the Redeemer hath borne thy sins in His own body on the tree; and if thou art willing to forsake them, thou knowest, with certainty, that they shall not be remembered in the judgment against thee.

Hast thou, with weeping eyes, committed to the grave the child of thy affections, the virtuous friend of thy youth, or the tender partner whose pious attachment lightened thy load of life? Behold, they are not dead! Thou knowest that they live in a better region, with their Saviour and their

God; that still thou holdest thy place in their remembrance; and that thou shalt soon meet them again, to part no more.

Dost thou look forward with trembling to the days of darkness-when thou shalt lie on the bed of sickness-when thy pulse shall have become low-when the cold damps have gathered on thy brow-when the mournful looks of thy attendants have told thee that the hour of thy departure has come? To the mere natural man, this scene is awful and alarming. But, if thou art a Christian, if thou knowest and obeyest the truth, thou shalt fear no evil. The shadows which hang over the Valley of Death, shall retire at thy approach; and thou shalt see beyond it the spirits of the just, and an innumerable company of angels,-the future companions of thy bliss,-bending from their thrones to cheer thy departing soul, and to welcome thee into everlasting habitations.

V. THE DEATH OF THE WICKED.-Massillon.

THE remembrance of the past, and the view of the present, would be little to the expiring sinner: could he confine himself to these, he would not be so completely miserable; but the thoughts of a futurity convulse him with horror and despair. That futurity, that incomprehensible region of darkness, which he now approaches,-conscience his only companion; that futurity, that unknown land from which no traveller has ever returned, where he knows not whom he shall find, nor what awaits him; that futurity, that fathomless abyss, in which his mind is lost and bewildered, and into which he must now plunge, ignorant of his destiny; that futurity, that tomb, that residence of horror, where he must now occupy his place amongst the ashes and the carcasses of his ancestors; that futurity, that incomprehensible eternity, even the aspect of which he cannot support; that futurity, in a word, that dreadful judgment, to which, before the wrath of God, he must now appear, and render account of a life, of which every moment almost has been occupied by crimes:Alas! while he only looked forward to this terrible futurity at a distance, he made an infamous boast of not dreading it; he continually demanded, with a tone of blasphemy and derision, Who is returned from it? He ridiculed the vulgar apprehensions, and piqued himself upon his undaunted courage. But, from the moment that the hand of God is upon him; from the moment that death approaches near, that the gates of

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