wailing. And still it clings to Nature as a child of God, contending for us, and contending with us, to accomplish our redemption.

III. Our Doctrine of Man. First of all, the essential character of man has been a sore puzzle to mere Philosophy. Sometimes the ground is taken, that man is altogether such as his Maker would have him to be; guilty of no sins, burdened by no depravity.

But such a position is utterly untenable. The conscience of the race is against it. All human experience is against it. All human legislation is against it.

Sometimes, on the other hand, the ground is taken, that men are not mere men, as they appear to be, but ruined angels, put here on a new probation, to see if, perhaps, one or more in a thousand of them may not somehow be reclaimed.

And so our speculation swings and surges about, while we are seeking to know ourselves. It is only the Gospel that can give us rest. According to this, Sin is indeed acknowledged as a startling, monstrous development, but is not wholly divorced from the righteous and merciful Providence of God. It had some sort. of place amongst the eternal Counsels of God. It was permitted, we are taught to say. Without excuse or palliation; wholly chargeable upon man himself; and yet permitted. This much is required by reason; for sin is certainly in the world, and the world is God's world. But this alone, though not to be denied, would only distress and stagger us. Forever should we toss our questions against the Heavens, demanding to know the meaning of this tremendous permission.

Christianity resolves the difficulty by presenting the remedy provided. This also lay in the counsels of God. It was promised as soon as needed; and the whole history of our race has been what Edwards so nobly described it, a History of Redemption. A man now may murmur if he will. But that will only prove him perverse. For Redemption stands over against Sin, as Gerizim against Ebal, meeting the shouted curse with a shouted blessing.

Next arises the great question of human destiny. Out of Christ, the historic problem is a very hard one. It might most plausibly be argued, that human progress is all a fiction; that nations, like individuals, have their youth, their manhood, and their inevitable decay; and that the course of history, from the beginning, has been nothing better than the constant revolving of a wheel. Reasons might also be given for believing, that modern Society, almost everywhere, is in its decadence, and that the end is near.

But looking with an eye of faith upon the present and the past, we discern a Divine Form moving about. It is not the nations, but the Church, that God has cherished as the apple of his eye.

The three great nationalities, Jewish, Greek, and Roman, that stood together over the cradle of our Religion, perished not till they had ceased to be of service to Christ. Charlemagne, Charles V., Cromwell and Napoleon, were all soldiers of the church, whether conscious of it or not; whether willingly or not. So now. France will be humbled, or England, or Germany, or Russia, or Turkey; one, or more, or all of them together, just as may be required in order to the progress of Christian truth. Christ, we may well believe, cares more for his little band of missionaries in Turkey, than for the pride of imperial courts, or all the commerce of the Euxine. Here we find a key of the history of other ages and nations; a thread, that will lead us out of any labyrinth of the present or the future. Towards Calvary, for thousands of years, all the lines of history converged. And now for other thousands of years, to the end of time, from Calvary will the lines diverge, till the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and he shall reign forever and ever.

But there remains another question of destiny, of more moment to us personally than all these problems of history. We are all sooner or later to die, laying down our worn-out bodies, as our fathers have done before us, in the silent grave. And we revolve the question, as well we may, whether we are to live again? And where? And how? The human heart has indeed had faith always in immortality. The mother has always believed it of her dying child. Nations have believed it of their dying heroes. Men like Socrates have believed it of themselves. And yet the point is difficult to prove. Plato's famous treatise has vastly more of sweet persuasion in it, than of solid argument. He convinces only such as were convinced before.

It is the glory of the gospel, that it has accomplished, for the humblest and most unlettered of our race, all, and more than all, that was ever accomplished by Philosophy for her most favored votaries. Greece could boast but a single Socrates, Rome but a single Tully; while Stephen, dying for his faith, was but the first of a noble army of martyrs. And now to-day on many a lowly pillow there rest lowly heads, on whose fading sight there crowd the splendors of an opening Paradise.

Add now to this assurance of a blessed immortality the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection, in a new and glorified body, in the midst of the New Heavens and the New Earth, and the history of man is sublimely finished. Sin is cured; Death is conquered; and the ways of God are justified.

Such is the Religion of Christ our Lord. A positive Religion, attested abundantly by most conspicuous Providences, by Miracles and Prophecies; with an immense crowd of witnesses, out of all ages and nations, gathered, and gathering, to do it reverence. For doctrine, it lays open to us the very bosom of our God; it

explains the mysteries of Nature; it unfolds the character and destiny of Man. And so it floods with heavenly light every problem of our Philosophy, every period of our majestic and endless career. While, in demonstration of its power, it renews our decayed affections, succors our faltering wills, and brings our feet to tread at last the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem. Then, then shall our swelling anthems rise: "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings aud priests unto God and his Father: to him be glory and dominion forever and ever."

It is to Him, our Lord, that we consecrate this House. On its windows have we traced his name, and the emblems of his dying but triumphant love. Above us the story gleams and glows in the light of rising and of setting suns. The Alpha and the Omega, the Jesus Hominum Salvator, the Lamb of God, the Cross, the Crown, all are here, with the open Bible to beam upon our vision as often as we cross the sacred threshold. Such is the offering we bring. Accept it, our Heavenly Father. Accept it, our dear Redeemer. Accept it, thou Sanctifying Spirit of our God. And for generations may it stand, when we all are in our graves, witnessing for Christian Truth, while it witnesses also for Christian Art, and Christian Science, leading up the mind and leading up the heart of every ingenuous and ardent scholar to the highest wisdom and the purest love.

SERMON DCLXXII.

BY REV. W. W. NEWELL,

SYRACUSE, N. Y.

CHRIST A MORAL PAINTER.

"And he spake many things unto them, in parables."- MATT. xiii. 3.

ATTRACTED by the teachings of Christ, great multitudes are gathered to hear him. To avoid the throng Jesus enters a little boat upon the calm sea. How impressive this scene. Here sits the great Teacher, the master of all doctrine and logic and science. The crowded shore waits and listens. What an opportunity to display the depth of his intellect, and the vastness of his He opens his mouth, and behold! according to his custom, the simple comparison. He abounds in imagery and metaphor. He descends to fields and gardens, to the woman

resources.

sweeping her house, to the hen gathering her chickens. And this from Heaven's greatest intellect, and earth's greatest preach

Even the style of Christ's teaching is sufficiently important to engage the attention of his followers. Passing over the more weighty themes ordinarily discussed on occasions like the present,* I ask your attention to the subject of CHRIST, A MORAL PAINTER.

Notwithstanding the divine authority of Jesus, he did not confine himself to the mere announcement or proof of a doctrine. But by means of words, he often presented to his hearers a moral picture. He flashed upon the mind's eye, a whole scene of truth, with such vividness and power, that it could not be well perverted or forgotten.

Thus at the time our text was uttered, he might have proved to his hearers, that they would lose all the benefit of his teachings, unless they laid them to heart. And they would probably have turned from it all, unaffected. But here he shows them a picture. They see the sower going forth to sow. They see the seed devoured by the way side. They deplore the tender sprouts choked by the thorns, and fading away under the blaze of the scorching sun; they rejoice in the golden harvests waving to the autumn breeze; and to their dying day they never would forget it. They never would hear a single discourse, without fearing that the word might be caught away by the Devil, crushed by persecution, or choked by the cares of the world or the deceitfulness of riches.

Our Lord might have told his hearers, that they must account to God for the improvement of their talents. He might have proved it, by the soundest chain of reasoning, without moving their hearts, or exciting their attention. But when he shows them a man travelling into a far country, and delivering to his servants his goods according to their several ability, and closes with the stern command, "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth;" the moved and earnest multitude were so thrilled with this fearful drama, that they broke in upon his discourse. And never again could they idle their time, or hoard their money, or waste their powers, without encountering the fearful prospect, of the unprofitable servant.

(But I must hasten to that master-piece of all ages and of all tongues, the prodigal son.) You may hear it a thousand times and yet it thrills you with its freshness and its weight. The son has received his fortune. His farewell kiss is given, and he is far away. Having spent all in riotous living, he is feeding swine. "And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him." In this perishing condition, he comes to himself. He starts to his feet, with the exclamation,

* Preached at Geneva, N. Y., Sept. 25th, at the opening of the Synod of Geneva.

"My Father's servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." I will arise and go to my Father. I will be as one of his hired servants. But when he was yet a great way off, the eye of a Father's love pierced his rags. There is my son! He rushes from the house. He runs and falls upon his neck and kisses him, and the robe and the ring, and the shoes, and the fatted calf, testify to the heartiness of his forgiveness. Oh! what inimitable painting. What points of tender and eternal interests to man, and how stupendous the results.

Had Christ told us that God would receive the returning sinner, we might doubt. Had he proved to us, by incontrovertible reasoning, that God would receive us in all our unworthiness; that we need not wait for pharisaic goodness, or popish penance, we still might hesitate. But in this picture, the whole scene flashes upon us. The poor sinner in his rags and starvation, coming, just as he was. The infinite yearnings of God's great heart towards him. And down to the end of time, this picture will go into every nation and kindred and tongue under the whole heavens, awakening a smile in the face of despair, kindling hope in the bosom of the dying, bringing succor to the poor soul, just sinking under the tempests of the wrath of God.

My brethren, our business is to co-operate with him, who "came to seek and to save that which was lost." But in this respect, how many of our sermons are failures. In millions of cases they are lost. Unmoved and unreached the people are perishing. The pictures of Jesus are celestial gems, painted in heaven. They are scattering over the earth, hung up around the walls of memory, establishing great truths, breaking hard hearts, and eliciting tears of joy. And yet, there are congregations among us that cannot at the end of a year recall one single living scene of truth. Formalities and common places in the pulpit, are an abomination. Mere beauty of conception and language is frivolous. Simply profound and great sermons, are the curse of any age. Is it not time that we rise above such preaching and imitate the pointed emotional preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ?

I. Some reasons for the use of moral painting in sermons. 1. It imitates the style of Christ's painting, and is a part of his gospel. We cannot preach the gospel, without presenting the illustrations of Christ, from the pulpit. Why should we not, like Him, lay the great world around us under tribute to the cause?

2. Moral painting meets a want in our nature. It appeals to man's perceptive faculties. God has met this want in the natural world. Instead of the leaden sky, and the dull clod, how of ten does he hang about us the most gorgeous colorings, and spread beneath us the most charming pictures. In a child, the perceptive are the most active and impressible faculties. Who before me, does not remember his weariness in childhood, while lis