action this same far-reaching sentiment. Travellers tell us, that, when standing under the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, they have been entirely subdued by an indescribable feeling of the littleness of every earthly thing, and have been awed into silent wonder by the presence of a vastness, which seems ever expanding into infinity.

But all the forms, in which this sentiment has appeared, are shackled and stinted when compared with that which it receives from Christianity. In the Gospel of Christ, the infinite and the eternal are the pervading and quickening influences. The pure spirituality of its doctrines, the deep foundations of everlasting truth on which its precepts are based, its "great and precious promises," by which, according to the Apostle Peter's noble expression, we become "partakers of a divine nature," its warnings, which reveal to us the fearful destiny of spiritual barrenness or corruption, that constant connexion of all duties and hopes with God, as the Fountain of life and blessedness, which breathes a calm and holy spirit through its whole frame and structure, its provisions for making the soul strong in the Lord and in the power of his might,”.

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these characteristics of the dispensation of Jesus are a pledge, that it is adapted by divine energy to give endless expansion to the sentiment of the infinite.

It is wonderful how harmoniously the Christian system has united the most practical with the most sublime spirit. While its precepts are direct, plain, and searching, so that no duty or crisis can occur in life, for which you will not find a guide in the principles it supplies, it suggests or discloses, at the same time, the most lofty views of all that is exclusively spiritual, of

all that may truly be called eternal. Thus it provides most amply, on the one hand, for the moral, and on the other for the religious developement of our nature. It is a mistake to consider these two as identical; but in their just and beautiful harmony may be found one of the internal proofs, that the Gospel of Christ is a system of divine wisdom, admirably fitted to elicit and cherish the full action of man's whole nature. The provision for the infinite, for the sentiment peculiarly religious, is that part of the beneficent power of Christianity which, amidst the downward tendencies of earthly things, we are most apt to neglect or undervalue. Yet it is here, that we most need its elevating and sustaining influence; it is here, that, by its holy truths, it dispenses the refreshment which the soul craves. "It seemed good to infinite goodness and wisdom, to form a noble piece of coin out of clay, and to stamp his own image upon it, with this inscription,— The earthly son of God."* But without those aspirations towards the eternal, which Christianity inspires, this divine image will lose its true expression, will be dulled and tarnished, if not broken into fragments. Without these, the spirit of man, hovering over the restless flood of perishing things, "like the birds in the days of the deluge, will seek a resting-place in vain, and at last sink in the waters."

Let us remember, then, that the temples which we build, by the purposes to which they are devoted, become significant of this high and holy tendency of our Christian faith. Amidst this limited and transient condition of being, they stand day by day pointing silently

*Leighton's Works, IV. 176.

towards heaven, as if to remind us that the home of the soul is in the infinite and eternal, as if to admonish us that all our best and most strenuous aims should be upward, ever upward, as if to keep in perpetual remembrance the beautiful meaning of those expressive words of the Saviour, "Believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father: God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

I have thus attempted to set forth some of those objects or purposes, of which the sanctuary may be regarded as the significant symbol.

To express the whole in few words, a Christian temple is the symbol of spiritual life in the individual heart and through the community. To the individual, it represents that power of devotion and of religious knowledge, which, being inwrought in the structure of the soul and laid deep among the materials of thought, calls into enlightened action the principle of earnest faith, on which our nature leans for its best support; furnishing strength in the hour of weakness and solace in the hour of suffering, protection amidst temptation and stoutness of heart amidst despondency; growing with the wants and exigencies of the free spirit, and helping it to go forth on its heavenward path and be glorified. To the community, the house of worship stands as the memorial of that moral power, which is the golden clasp of the great interests of society, binding together in salutary union the elements of all that is precious, noble, and life-giving. Loose this, and the parts, of which the frame-work of the relations of social

happiness is composed, fall asunder, and nothing is ultimately left to save men from themselves. The religious element hallows our relation to each other, by encircling it with our relation to the common Father. There is a more vital principle of the public welfare, than any which the shallow calculation of the shortsighted politician recognises; and that is a healthy spiritual life diffused through the different parts of the social frame, cementing them and breathing upon them a kindly influence as from heaven. The Bible is the true law book, and God the rightful legislator.

The occasion leads me to advert very briefly to the application of these views to the condition of our own community. We leave our religious institutions entirely to voluntary effort. Religion, as a public agency, must be upheld among us solely by such aid, as the conviction and the conscience of each individual may prompt him to bestow. We have refused to this vital interest the provision, which we extend to the functions of education and civil government; and, having adopted this course, we must now pursue it for better or for worse. But we should be reminded how weighty is the responsibility thus thrown upon individuals, who stand free to give or to withhold help for this great central interest of society. How vitally important does it become, that the public mind should be enlightened, and the public conscience kept alive on this subject; that an intimate and quickening persuasion of the necessity of religious institutions should be more deeply placed among the mind's most familiar convictions; and that the worship of God and the instructions of Christianity should be regarded as "part and parcel" of the social state. Wherever we see a church in our cities

or villages, let us hope that we see a pledge of affectionate respect for those sacred institutions, which maintain and stimulate, as a public principle, the sense of accountableness to God; which afford a holy ground of common interest, whither we can retire from the competitions and exasperations of life; and which exhibit the sanctions even of ordinary duties in a light, that shows them high as heaven and lasting as eternity. God grant that there may be all this meaning in the temples which we build; for, if any dependence is to be placed on the records of man's experience, or on the voice of divine truth, it cannot be questioned, that, when the appurtenances which dignify, or the guards which fortify the religious sentiment, are severed from the confidence and love of a people, there is rottenness at the heart of that people's system, there is a work of withering decay in progress, and on their walls may be inscribed, as on those of Babylon's monarch, "God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it."

And now, brethren and friends, let us turn our thoughts to the special interests of this occasion. By the divine blessing, you have been permitted to undertake and complete this edifice for the service of the Most High. When the progress of time rendered it necessary or expedient to leave the sanctuary, in which you and your fathers had so long worshipped, and which is remembered with affectionate respect for the many pleasant and holy associations that had gathered around it, you began the Christian enterprise of building a new church, having invoked the protecting care of Him, to whose honor it was to be consecrated. You have finished the undertaking in the most praiseworthy