authority. Prophets and apostles, by Divine inspiration, have been permitted to resuscitate the dead, and to rekindle the fire from which the last spark has departed; but, as if to shew that there was one achievement of power that was not allowed for the creature to compass, the original impulse of being, the first breathing of the breath of life into the insensate clay, has been the work of God. Man, to be sure, has done his utmost to create. The sculptor has chiselled upon the shapeless marble the features of the human face, and the proportion has been apparent, and the attitude has been graceful, and a rejoicing world has been loud in its admiration of the artist's skill; but though the eye reposed in beauty, no sparkle flashed from it; though the cheek was well rounded and symmetrical, it had no mantling blush; though the lips were true to nature, they could not speak to thrill the soul. The painter also has spread his canvas, and, with the light pencil's witchery, has drawn for us the images of friends. And when those friends have died, they who beheld the lifelike appearance of the portraits have called so vividly to remembrance the forms of the

loved, that they have apostrophised them plaintively-

"Oh, that those lips had language !"

Nay, in the very spirit of Promethean ambition, man has practised something on the lifeless corpse, and has imitated the fitful workings of apparent existence—the distorted writhings of galvanic life; but the spirit that has fled would not listen to his invitations to return, and the blood would not resume its pulse at his bidding. Life, the unattainable object of his far-reaching ambition, has returned to heights beyond him; and whether he chisel, or paint, or galvanise, the result of all experience only proclaims more forcibly the impressive truth-that life is the gift of God.

We go about carelessly, and eat and drink, and pursue our business and pleasure, without ever thinking of the power that quickened us, and by whom we are so fearfully and wonderfully made. We find ourselves in being, and we take it as a matter of course

that our pulses should beat and our affections glow, forgetting that it is in God "we live, and move, and have our being." These frames of ours would be inert and lifeless, like the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision, without the breath of Heaven.

Intellectual Life the Gift of God.

Our minds are active, and exercise themselves in the various subjects of knowledge; reflection is busy, and we lay down premises and draw conclusions without ever thinking of the power that has gifted us with our scientific capacity, and enabled us to invent, to expand, to illustrate, to combine: but it is in God alone that we have our being. If we are roused sometimes to inquire into the causes of the mighty operations of mind, we are apt to ascribe them to the effects of instruction and intercourse. This is so far true, as without association and teaching man would have neither motive nor disposition to aspire. But there is a fallacy at the very beginning. It is just as though we were to ascribe the developed petals and the diver

sified hues of the flower to the skill of the gardener, because he prepared the ground, and sowed the seed, and watched the growth of the plant with fostering and assiduous care. But what gardener could ever bring a flower from a stone? The sun might shine on it from on high, and the dew might fall gently, and man might labour till his bones ached with fatigue, it would be a stone still. There must be the principle of life, or all his efforts to evolve are in vain: and who gives to the germ its vitality? Who, but God? And in like manner, if there had not been a divine infusion into me of an apprehension that was capable of improvement, all the advantages of experience and all the opportunities of academic training would have been in vain.

Spiritual Life the Gift of God.

The degeneracy of mankind has been the subject of universal admission. What is the fact to-day? Why, that the world is hung round with the solemnities of spiritual mourning,-dead, dead in trespasses and in sins. Can corpses animate corpses? that is the

question. The curdled death is in the veins of all, and motionless and still,—a very congregation of the dead we must remain, until Jesus shall say, "I am come that ye may have life."

Rest.

The Saviour's most gracious invitation, addressed to a world of the heavy-laden, contains within it a promise of rest. O ye who have toiled so long, and who have reaped nothing from your profitless labour, take the yoke upon you, and you shall find rest unto your souls. Rest of all kinds. Rest for the vexed mind-for the bewilderments of its unbelief shall be disentangled, and it shall rejoice in settled principles which no doubts disturb. Rest for the awakening conscience --for its remorseful memory shall be still, and its accusing voice silent, and the brand of its condemnation removed, and there shall come a great calm as when the lone lake sleeps beneath the hush of summer. Rest for the wayward heart-for it shall be weaned from its idols, and all its wanderings shall be forgiven, and it shall cleave to Jesus, and flutter