ing as "a still, small voice," ever listened to with joy and profit.

There are those, who have made the com. mandments of God the absorbing theme upon which their whole conduct rests. In the moral firmament, there are brilliant stars of example, whose light guides truly to holiness. Preeminent among them is the Lord and Savior. His Father had laid upon him a sublime work to do, difficult to fulfil, yet of momentous interest to the world. That command was the rule of his life. To do the will of his Father was his meat and drink. No event, however gloomy and startling, was permitted to swerve him from this great moral duty. The crown of Judah might glitter over his head-his doctrine might be misrepresented and his motives impeachedpersecution might hedge up his pathway with the briars and thorns of suffering-the perjured witnesses, the mock trial, the scorning purple, the scourging rods, the crown of thorns, the hor. rors of crucifixion between two thieves, the crowd of infuriated enemies, the certain death, might all loom up in terrible array before him; but they could not shake the steady purpose of his soul, nor enfeeble the moral grandeur of his determination. He successfully resisted every difficulty, and consummated his work on the cross, thereby establishing a truth which is the glory and salvation of the world, and whose moral influence he illustrated by a life, upon which the wildest unbelief can not fasten a true suspicion, nor sin show one spot of contamination. The apostles followed in the same pathway. Amid the great difficulties that attended their ministry-the sufferings and indignities they endured-and even in death itself to obey

God was their guiding star. Nobly did they do that work which the world shall feel to remotest generations Nor have thousands been want. ing, since their day, who have prayerfully sought to know the commandments of God; who have conscientiously striven to obey them; who have loved the right, and the right alone; and who have made it the supreme object of their lives to walk near to the Father, in love, in good will to men, and in practicing the precepts of Jesus.

Here are admirable examples of conforming the life to all that God commands, and of making that conformation the rule of moral action. If we would be Christians, we must follow these examples, and strive earnestly, constantly, prayerfully, for that entire consecration of the mind to virtue, that shall make obedience to God the primary rule of our actions, regardless of any worldly influence which may tend to lessen the power of that rule over us. It is true, strong temptations beset us every where; for life is full of them. But we must so discipline ourselves, as to be able to resist temptations; and if they bear upon us strongly, to turn and fly from them.. To do this, we must search out the will of God,. and create that love and reverence for it in our souls, which will enable us to cease from listening and cherishing thoughts of evil-for it is by thinking of sin and entertaining desires for the gratification of the passions, that temptation has that hold upon us which makes us yield to iniquity.

SERMON XVI.

INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE.

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5: 16.)

Christian truth, in working out its special objects, establishes its reign in the soul, and there applies its moral influences and regenerating powers. It strives to give man the command of himself; to instruct his intellect with the perfect knowledge of his duty to God, to himself, and to the world; to stimulate his moral sentiments with active energies to discharge that duty; to teach him the necessity of controlling the passions, and to warm all his powers with an ardent and a practical love for truth and virtue.

Besides giving men a faith-view of their ultimate destiny and of the salvation to be developed by the operations of divine Providence, it presents the purest forms of moral action. It unfolds the sublime law of supreme love towards the Father, which shows its existence in a soul, by outward and practical love for neighbors and for all men. It presents the rule of doing unto others as we would have others do unto us, as the best principle of communion between

man and man, nation and nation. It enunciates the admirable duty of overcoming evil with good; of utterly repudiating revenge, hatred, and retaliation, as guides to conduct; and of acting in that spirit which aims to destroy enmity and to reform the evil heart. It inculcates all moral principles, from the most elevated form of virtue, to that of avoiding even the ap

pearance of sin. All these precepts, Christian

truth seeks to plant in the mind, as the best seed of the Father's holiness, of the Savior's purity, and of obedient conduct. And it strives to germinate that seed, by infusing a reverent, devo. ted, loving spirit into the soul, which teaches one to abjure sin, because it is an enemy to progress in knowledge and righteousness, and is full of misery; and to cling to practical religion, because it brings one into a close communion with God, the Savior, angels, heaven, and every thing calculated to regenerate the world and bless men with the genuine liberty of doing right.

The grand work of the Savior, then, is in the individual soul. His altar is there. His dominion is there. "The kingdom of God is within you." It is there, Jesus establishes a faith, which, with piercing eye, looks through the mists that hang over moral and physical evil, and sees the blessed land, where God in his love, and Jesus with truth, will attract all men from error and sin, into the happiness of joy without sorrow, of virtue without disobedience, of knowledge without doubts, and of life without death. It is there, the crucified Savior enables one to draw from that faith a power, by which suffering can be endured patiently, by which duty can be done without faltering, and virtue followed as the best earthly good. And

when the Sun of Righteousness has performed these marvelous things in a soul, he has achieved one of his greatest triumphs, secured one of the victories of his truth, and added a brilliant jew. el to the crown of his moral and spiritual reign.

It is from this inward work, this regeneration of the soul, that all Christian reforms have sprung; and all that are yet to come, will spring. It is not by isolated, outward movements alone, that any great reform has been effected. Truth does not fall from heaven, and miraculously overturn evil institutions, and move masses of men in the direction of a civilization and freedom which consult the interest and happiness of all, of the rich and the poor, of the powerful and the feeble. It acts only through the soul. Men grow to an understanding of the evils, which are in the world. They become profoundly impressed with the right. souls love it. And by its inspiration, they speak it fearlessly. They utter it in voices loud as "the sound of many waters." They govern themselves by its principles. And, letting their light shine before men, that they may be induced thereby to glorify God, they wake up others to the right. And, as moral forces ani mate soul after soul, strength is obtained to pull down the old evils and banish them from the earth. And thus vast results are produced by the work which Jesus effects in the mind.

Their

Let us look at the method of this work. In order to do so, let us begin with a family, in which there is discord-whose whole happiness is destroyed by wild and ungoverned feelingswhose members are alienated from each other, by the want of that unity and harmony which can alone be produced by principle and affection.