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interest, and though presenting no new conception upon the point, delights to pour upon it the exuberant radiance of his teeming imagination. The hearers, too, are as interested as he, and catch with delight the varying aspects of his peculiar oratory. In fact, their minds are in perfect sympathy and harmony with his; and tears start to every eye, as he bursts out, as if applying the subject to himself, in the following beautiful and affecting style: Previous to this manifestation, as long as I had nothing before me but the unseen God, my mind wandered in uncertainty, my busy fancy was free to expatiate, and its images filled my heart with disquietude and terror; but in the life and person and history of Jesus Christ, the attributes of the Deity are brought down to the observation of the senses, and I can no longer mistake them, when, in the Son, who is the express image of his Father, I see them carried home to my understanding by the evidence and expression of human organs when I see the kindness of the Father, in the tears that fell from the Son at the tomb of Lazarus-when I see his justice blended with his mercy, in the exclamation, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! by Jesus Christ, uttered with a tone more tender than human bosom or human sympathy ever utteredI feel the judgment of God himself flashing conviction on my conscience, and calling me to repent, while his wrath is suspended, and he still waiteth to be gracious!"

But a more distinct and well-grounded reason for distrust and fear in reference to the Deity arises

from the consciousness of guilt. In spite of ourselves, in spite of our false theology, we feel that God has a right to be offended with us, that he is offended with us, and not only so, but that we deserve his displeasure. This he shows is counteracted by the doctrine of the atonement: "Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us, and sent his Son into the world to be a propitiation for our sins." By the fact of the incarnation, a conquest is gained over the imagination haunted with the idea of an unknown God; so also by that of the atonement, a conquest is gained over the solid and well-grounded fear of guilt. This idea the Doctor illustrates with equal force and beauty, showing that by means of the Sacrifice of the Cross, justice and mercy are brought into harmony, in the full and free pardon of the believing penitent. By this means the great hindrance to free communion with God is taken away. Guilt is cancelled, for the sake of Him who died, and the poor trembling sinner is taken to the bosom of Infinite Love. "In the glorious spectacle of the Cross, we see the mystery revealed, and the compassion of the parent meeting in fullest harmony with the now asserted and now vindicated prerogative of the Lawgiver. The Gospel is a halo of all the attributes of God, and yet the pre-eminent manifestation there is of God as love, which will shed its lustre amid all the perfections of the Divine nature. And here it should be specially remarked, that the atonement was made for the sins of the whole world; God's direct and primary object being to vindicate the truth and

justice of the Godhead. Instead of taking from his love, it only gave it more emphatic demonstration; for, instead of love, simple and bending itself without difficulty to the happiness of its objects, it was a love which, ere it could reach the guilty being it groaned after, had to force the barriers of a necessity which, to all human appearance, was insuperable." With this fine idea the Doctor concludes his discourse, presenting it with a mingled tenderness and vehemence of style and tone perfectly irresistible. "The love of God," he exclaims, " with such an obstacle and trying to get over it, is a higher exhibition than all the love which radiates from his throne on all the sinless angels. The affirmation that God is love, is strengthened by that other, to him who owns the authority of Scripture, that God so loved the world—I call on you to mark the emphatic so as to give his only-begotten Son. He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;' or that expression, herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' There is a moral, a depth, an intensity of meaning, a richness of sentiment that Paul calls unsearchable, in the Cross of Christ, that tells emphatically that God is righteousness, and that God is love."

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Such is a feeble and imperfect outline of a rich and eloquent discourse, from one of the richest and most expressive texts in the Bible. But we cannot transfer to the written or printed page the tone, look and manner, the vivida vis, the natural and

overwhelming energy, the pathos and power of

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tone, which thrill the hearer as with the shocks of a spiritual electricity. It is this peculiar energy which distinguishes Chalmers, and which distinguishes all great orators. His mind is on fire with his subject, and transfers itself all glowing to the minds of his hearers. For the time being all are fused into one great whole, by the resistless might of his burning eloquence. In this respect Chalmers has been thought to approach, nearer than any other man of modern times, the style and tone of Demosthenes. His manner has a torrent-vehemence, a sea-like swell and sweep, a bannered tramp as of armies rushing to deadly conflict. With one hand on his manuscript, and the other jerked forward with electric energy, he thunders out his gigantic periods, as if winged with " volleyed lightning." The hearers are astonished,-awed,— carried away, lifted up as on the wings of the wind, and borne "whithersoever the master listeth."

CHAPTER VIII.

Biographical Sketch of Dr. Chalmers.

As an evangelical divine, a preacher of great strength and earnestness, a man of a truly devout and generous spirit, of great independence, energy and perseverance, a leader of the Free Church of Scotland, and a successful advocate of the doctrine of Christ's supremacy, Dr. Chalmers may be regarded as a fair embodiment of the religious spirit of his native land. In his mode of thinking, in his doctrinal belief and practice, especially in his devout and fervid eloquence, the Doctor is eminently Scottish. His whole spirit is bathed in the piety of the Covenant." On this account a brief sketch of his history will not be inappropriate in this place.

Thomas Chalmers, D. D., was born about the year 1780, in the town of Anstruther in Fifeshire, the birth-place of another man of genius, Professor Tennant, of St. Andrews, the celebrated author of "Anster Fair," one of the most facetious poems in the language, and making a near approach to the dramatic energy of "Tam O'Shanter." Young Chalmers gave decided indications of genius and energy, and was sent to the College of St. Andrews, and soon became "a mathematician, a natural philosopher, and though there was no regular

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