many ways by which professing christians now practically enquire, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

1. By the most palpable indifference to the claims of the perishing heathen. The state of our missions and missionary societies too painfully attests that we are quite content, each with our own spiritual advantages, and that we consider the necessities of others, in this respect, as a matter in which we have no concern. O the labours, the arts, the contrivances, of committees and secretaries of religious societies to scrape together the annual income by which christian efforts are to be sustained! The thousands of begging letters-the numerous and costly deputationsthe reams of printed circulars-the repeated pulpit appeals that must be resorted to as the indispensable machinery of an institution for dispensing that bread of life to famishing millions abroad, of which we possess an abundance, often to satiety at home. Does not every one remonstrate in the language of Cain, who requires their christian liberality to be stimulated by such means?

2. By the lamentable exclusiveness that isolates from each other believers in the one Lord, and children of the one Father. The church of God is one, and cannot be divided. Men, from caprice or for convenience, have formed a variety of religious communities; but their outward distinctions cannot efface the lineaments of a common fraternity in those who are God's adopted ones, by whatever name or peculiarity they pass among men. They are brethren, and are bound to each other much more closely than to the mere adherents of the same sect or party to which they incidentally belong, see 1 Cor. xii. 13, &c., and yet are they taught to speak the language of the first murderer. Well is it if they do not also learn to feel like him towards one another because they belong to different earthly communities, and have chosen a form of worship arranged after a different model. We should remember that God will not adopt our plan of portioning out His Church. He has one of His own, and we must ultimately accommodate ourselves to His. It will be well for us to begin now, "endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," see Eph. iv. 1-6.

3. By the pride, indifference, and selfishness which have driven away the spirit of brotherhood from among the members, even of the same christian communion. Here, if anywhere, the professing followers of a loving Redeemer should feel bound to identify themselves with each other; and this for mutual recognition, assistance, edification, and comfort. But, is it not a fact, that many worship together for years under the same roof, yea, and partake of the memorials of a love -as indifferent to sects and symbols as it is ardent and untiring at the same table, who have never exchanged one kindly word, or made a single enquiry of each others physical or spiritual health or prosperity? And what better reason could be alleged among us for such a strange illustration of brotherly love than that given by Cain? O, who can wonder that vital religion does not thrive in such ungenial soil? God, whose name is love, is not our God; and Jesus, who humbled Himself to the cross for us, is kept out of our assemblies by the partition walls, which our pride, coldness, and exclusiveness, have reared.

4. By the ordinary treatment of servants. Many and loud are the complaints made of this useful and, in many respects, valuable class, but they might often respond to the class of employers in the language of the afflicted Israelites in Egypt, and say, "Behold, thy servants are beaten, but the fault is in thine own people," Exod. v. 16. Superhuman burthens are laid upon them, and superhuman virtues are expected of them, but what masters or mistresses trouble themselves to enquire after the source from whence their strength or moral qualifications are to be derived? Who teaches them to pray, or opens statedly to them the living fountain of all spiritual and moral improvement? Believe it, my friends, you cannot reap where you have not sown, nor gather where you have not strawed. Your servants ought to be considered and treated as brethren beloved-God has made you, while they are members of your household, keepers of their souls, and you cannot decline the task without identifying yourself with him who first set its duties at nought.

5. By the neglect of opportunities for dealing faithfully, as the servants of our coming Lord, with persons

with whom we come into occasional contact-relatives, friends, acquaintances, partners in business, associates in our daily occupation, guests tarrying for a night in our house, or sharing a family meal. Had we some secular purpose to serve in impressing the minds of such parties with our views, and gaining them to our purpose, we should watch anxiously for the favourable moment of address, and suffer no trifling obstruction to interfere; but we are neither wise nor sedulous to win souls to Christ. O, my friends, is there not a fearfully applicable view that may be taken of the Divine declaration, "At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man?" Gen. ix. 5.

6. And lastly. By contented ignorance of, and indifference to, the physical sorrows and privations of our fellow men-"If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou say, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?" Prov. xxiv. 11, 12. One of our sinful inconsistencies is the attempt to perform our duties to our fellow-men by deputy. Poor-law inspectors, mendicity societies, and other benevolent intruments have, we conceive, relieved us of the task of enquiring after our brethren in the retreats to which poverty, sickness, and sorrow have consigned them; but God has made each of us our brother's keeper, and we can devolve neither the duties nor the responsibilities of the office upon another. Individual obligations necessarily imply indi.. vidual judgments to be pronounced hereafter, and individual sentences to be executed-none of the representatives of the selfish or indolent holders of talents committed to their individual keeping for employment "Can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him," Ps. xlix. 7,

LECTURE V.

ENOCH.

WALKING WITH GOD.

"And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him,"—Gen. v. 24.

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SOLOMON made the discovery that "God had made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions," Eccl. vii. 29, which means, that the great Creator had placed man at the first in the way of righteousness, capable of loving and enjoying what was holy and good; but that in course of time he had selected for himself many devious and crooked paths which led him astray from God, and consequently from peace and blessedness. It is in reference to this fact that the word "sin" in the Greek language means a missing of the mark or way, and the word error in our own implies a wandering from some ascertained path. The Scriptures sustain this idea: for example, we have sin there called, "Departing from the Lord," Jer. xvii. 5-" Erring from His ways," Is. Ixiii. 17"Wandering from His commandments," Ps. cxix. 10 -"Going astray," Is, liii. 6-" Forsaking the way," Prov. xv. 10-and the language of the wicked to God is said to be," Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways," Job xxi. 14, while, in the ears of the erring and miserable, "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort," 2 Cor. 1, 3, is ceaselessly repeating, 46 Stand ye in the ways, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and see and walk therein, and ye shall find rest unto your souls," Jer. vi. 16.

If all the posterity of Adam had "gone in the way of Cain," God's paths would have been utterly for

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saken; all would have rushed down the broad way of destruction, or, as Isaiah says, Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah," Is. i. 9; but He has never left Himself without a witness of His saving grace. He has had a family existing from the first-represented in the beginning by Abel-always comparatively small, and, for the most part, afflicted, despised, bruised, but never extinguished. Of this blessed family Enoch was a distinguished member. Let us try and discover something of his history.

Enoch, the seventh from Adam in the line of faithful Seth, was the son of Jared, and was born in the year of the world, six hundred and twenty-two, when men had greatly multiplied in the earth. If we may judge of his father by the name he bears in the sacred history (and names there are often significant of character or office), meaning "he that rules or commands," he was a man who ruled his own house well; having his children in subjection with all gravity," 1 Tim. iii. 4. And of Enoch himself, whose name signifies "dedicated and disciplined," we can have no hesitation in concluding that

1. He was dedicated by his pious and judicious father from his birth to the service of God.

2. God graciously accepted the parental offering in this case, as He subsequently did, under similar circumstances, in that of Samuel, and thus expressed His approval of this conduct on the part of those whom He has charged with the training of children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," Eph. vi. 4.

3. Young Enoch, when he came to years of discernment, and learned what his father had done, fully adopted his godly act, and surrendered himself to the Lord, determining to "glorify Him in his body and spirit, which were His," 1 Cor. vi. 20.

4. His education, we may be assured, accorded with the will and character of the holy Being to whose service he was devoted. Thus "faith worked by love," and love brought forth its appropriate fruits, which perish" not in the using."

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Here I desire to address myself to young persons especially. Listen to me, my young friends. You