culture. In all your reading, let that sacred Book which contains the revelation of God and immortality, have the first place and the deepest attention. Indulge not for a moment the idea that it has been superseded by any other utterance, that its freshness is exhausted by age, or that its truths are inapplicable at this distance in time. Give it your mind, and it shall illuminate your understanding with divine realities. Open your soul, and it shall breathe into it a holy influence, and fill all its wants. Bring to it your individual case of doubt, or sorrow, or sin, and it shall meet it with an aptness which proves it the word of God. Bind it close to your heart, it will be a

shield against all the assaults of evil. Read it in the lonely hour of desertion, it will be the best of companions. Open it when the voyage of life is troubled, — it is a sure chart. Study it in poverty, it will unhoard for you inexhaustible riches. Commune with it in sick

ness,

it contains the medicine of the soul. Clasp it when dying, it is the charter of

immortality. Nor let your confidence in the Bible, or your love for it, be merely the echo of a eulogy like this, or the impression of a traditional reverence. Let your faith in its contents, and your affection for it, spring from your intimate knowledge of it, your own increasing experience of its excellence and its power. The more you study it, the deeper will its wonderful truth open to you, and the more closely will its evidences entwine around your soul. And if you read it with faith indeed, your own life will be another witness to its efficacy.

As another means of religious growth, accustom yourselves to meditate. In the continuous bustle of many things, the freshness of religious life becomes exhausted, the sanctions of duty lose their vivid impression, we grow weary in well-doing, the spontaneousness of conscience petrifies into routine, and our whole perception of spiritual realities grows obscure in the glittering life of the senses. You must often retire, then, from this more active course,

and reflect upon those high truths which pertain to permanent though unseen things.

Again; one of the vital springs of religious life is prayer. You must commune with God, if you would realize his constant presence. You must indulge immortal aspirations if you would cherish your relation to eternal things. The necessity and privilege of prayer I need not illustrate. But I would say that without it you can have but a faint religious consciousness, and no religious growth. Gratitude, hope, want, fear, sorrow, love, all move you to seek its sacred communion. Let no morning open upon you without its uplifting experience let no night close around you without its benediction: let it consecrate the joys and the sorrows of life, its perplexities and its crises, its beginning and its end.

But there is no means of religious growth more immediate and effectual than that which Mary sought. If you would feel the power of a divine life within you, sanctifying the heart, controlling the conduct, quickening the spirit,

M*

clothing your whole mien with a holy beauty, you must sit at Jesus' feet. You must get near to the great Exemplar. You must keep within the inspiration of his presence. You must study his exhaustless life. In him, more than in anything else, are corroborated that faith in immortality, that belief in the nearness of God, which constitute the religious sanctions of morality, which plant these sanctions in your own souls. If you miss the path of rectitude, if you falter in the toil of virtue, if you doubt what you should do, if you are careful and troubled about many things, go to him humbly and teachably, as Mary went, and you shall secure that better part which cannot be taken away; which is permanent and effectual in all the discipline of existence, and which alone can guide, and animate, and support you in the great life-work of DUTY.

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LECTURE V.

FEMALE INFLUENCE.

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed: her husband also, and he praiseth her. PROVERBS 31: 10, 20, 26-28.

ACCORDING to the description of the text, then, the virtuous woman is she who fills the complete sphere of life. Who from the centre of an enlightened mind, and a good heart, looks out upon the whole scope of her duty. Who practically regards all her obligations. She is not selfishly isolated from the world,