He has to go up, if he would understand it, to reach the sublimity of his vocation. He has to go up, if he would feel the true and enlarged sympathy of humanity. It is through the want of this true sympathy that many offices are now base, which with it, might be high as heaven, and beautiful as the ministration of angels. It seems to be rare that we find any man great enough to be a man-a breathing soul, of the great humanity-and not being able to be a man, what does he become? He becomes a minister, conscious of power and influence; or a nobleman, conscious of rank; or a rich man, of wealth; or a celebrated man, of fame. The real sinks into the phenomenal; the man becomes a mode; and life, intense, all powerful life, is but a fashion of living. There is a greatness in this life beyond all that is called greatness. All earthly seeking-all business, care, weariness, and strife-is but the clothing of a deeper want-the heaven-sent need of virtue-of the happiness whose essence virtue is. That want, whether it pierces the world with its cry, or struggles in smothered silence, is the grand index of all human fortunes. Reality lives beneath all that is visible, wrestles amidst the turbulent passions, and heaves in the bosom of this world's restless tumult. In those depths of life, is conscience, empassioned yearning, conscious destiny; and from those dark fountains, flow out tears, sorrows, and sighings. To communings with such a life, my brethren, is the pulpit consecrated. The thousand ties that bind that spiritual life, meet-it is an awful thought-meet, as it were, in the pulpit. And here it is that we are to touch those chords, that shall send thrilling into the depths of reality. Must not this ministration, then, be a living sympathy? Such was it to the heart of Jesus. If God is represented to us as all-embracing love; so is Jesus, emphatically, as all-embracing sympathy. Though sinless, he sympathized with the sinful. In that feeling he lived and taught, he suffered and died. And in so far as we can imitate him, that great example should be the model of all who preach his religion. To such a ministration be this pulpit dedicated! All life will pass before it here; for no shadow of consecrated walls can drive out from any bosom, the spirit that is in it. All life shall come here, and here it should be recognized—the gladness and beauty of youth-the swelling heart of manhood-the cares and anxieties of fathers and mothers :-Young men and maidens, old men and children, shall be here; and all that life is—whether it is passed amidst joy or sorrow, amidst thrilling strains of music or "the solemn brood of care," amidst the gaiety of assemblies, or in the solitariness of reflection-amidst troops of happy friends, or by the desolate hearth of the bereaved and stricken one-all must mingle itself with the meditations of his holy place. Yes, my brethren, I know whence ye shall come, and whither in a few days more, ye shall go. From the noise of busy streets, or from the bustle of crowded marts, ye will come; or perhaps from the surgings and soundings on, of the majestic, melancholy sea; from the din of manufactories, or from the tedious hum of school-rooms, or from the litigations of courts, or from the sighs of pain by the sick bed, or from the many-voiced utterances-questions, commands, child C ren's cries, sounds undefinable-of domestic abodes; and will ye not ask for a calm hour, for a clear atmosphere, for the vision and comfort of things divine? God grant that ye may ever find them here! And I know whither, ere long, ye shall go. The day will come, when other eyes than ours will look upon these walls, and upon these crowded streets. It is but a little time-and the last sound of our footsteps will have died away from these pavements; the last shadow of our form shall have passed from this threshold; and the places that know us, shall know us no more for ever. But, thanks be to God! no dark despair, no overwhelming sorrow, mingles with these thoughts. When another generation shall fill and crowd the places where we now live-the walls within which we this day worship; our humble hope, and our trust, is, that we shall dwell in some loftier sphere, and wait the coming of those beloved ones to join us. "In an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens," may we say eternally-—“ blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever!" FINIS. PALMER & CLAYTON, Printers, 9, Crane-court, Fleet-street, |