itself of God, brighter than the sun coming, as the ancients deemed, from the ocean in which it had bathed itself for the night, that it might rise the fairer and go forth the more glorious on its morning course. Oh! fear thou never, trustful spirit, though the hosannas of the crowd be followed by the reproaches, the sneers, the threats of the powerful; though the path over the strown palm-branches lead to the lonely watch and its prayer of exceeding sorrow; though the shout which announces the King of Israel die away in the mockery which hails him such, as it puts on his head the crown of thorns; though the very Son of God dies by hands of men. Be still of good cheer; he lives for ever, re-appearing in each new mission and vision of the Lord. He lives, bosomed in the Father, if outcast of men. Leave him not in his desertion and his loneliness. As he goes, amid regal pomp, toward the seat of his power, of the multitudes thronging around him there will be enough to join in the exultation. Prepare thou for an hour of sterner trusts. It will be wanted of thee to watch amidst the midnight shades of Gethsemane. It will be wanted of thee to follow amidst another crowd, infuriated by hate, and bent to destroy; to follow when thou canst give only the confessions and the tears of thy love. It will be wanted of thee to stand, unshaken, unmoved, when dangers press and hope is faint. Thine it is, not to deny, with Peter, thy dearest trust; not, with another disciple, to remove far off; but to stand just as near

8

to the cross as ever thou hast stood to the triumphal procession.

Neither think the vision or the service obsolete, nor yet reckon it to be fulfilled in reverence, according to established modes, of the Messiah as he lived of old. The service is always new, for anew with each age the vision shines; God becomes manifest in the processes of humanity, and every man is called to choose whom he will worship. Not he who echoes loudest the universal voice, praising the heroes, saints, prophets of old; not he who discourses most eloquently of the deeds and prowess of the past; not he who highest extols the work which ancient manifestations of the Messiah have wrought for us, is truest to the Lord, most faithful to his country, most loving to mankind; but rather and only he who lives most divinely this passing hour, who fills up the opening idea of present duty, praying and laboring now for the day which shall bring a new jubilee, united with that spirit of the Lord which rests on each anointed soul, promising good to the poor, healing the bruised heart, freeing the captive and the slave, opening the prison, and hastening the great year of universal redemption.

SERMON VII.

INFLUENCE AND RECEPTION.

2 COR. iv. 10.

THAT THE LIFE ALSO OF JESUS MIGHT BE MADE MANIFEST IN OUR BODY.

THERE is one absolute Life. It reveals itself in the forms of nature and in the capacities of man. During the period of departure from it which sin is, - a state of death, and therein of spiritual unconsciousness, the Life impersonated itself in Jesus Christ. So, according to the thought of John, the Life became apparent; so men saw it, and, having been first beholders, were thence witnesses and messengers announcing it to their brethren. In this general observation is suggested the very essence of Christianity. It is not a form of worship, not a rule of conduct, not a system of ethics, not a scheme of doctrine, but the manifestation of the Life. And in this view the Christ, the living, historical man, becomes to us more than any particular word which he spake, more than the greatest deed which he wrought, more than any measure of suffering which he endured. The Christ! He is no other than the Life which was with the Father, the Word which was with God, impersonated, and dwelling, as in

temple or shrine, among men, the perfect Image of God. Jesus! No other than the same primeval Life appearing unto men as their Saviour, the true God's Presence in the soul of Humanity. But one Saviour, indeed, one Christ; yet the undivided Essence reveals itself in different aspects and agencies. There is the Christ after the flesh, the transitory, historical image of God; there is the Christ according to the spirit, the permanent, unseen Word, the living light of all men. The outward presents to us the inward, the inward interprets the outward. As we come into vital connection with the Lord, this his life becomes manifest also in our persons; the great fact in which Christianity, from an external form, passes into an internal reality. I would it were in my power to convey my thought in some proportion to my estimate of its importance. In default of this, I will illustrate it as I can.

I. I begin, then, with this general remark: All living existence is in its very nature communicative of its own elements. We have types of this universal law in all the finer qualities of what seems to us inanimate nature. The sun, never appearing to grow dim, is yet always imparting of its heat and its light, that all things are warm and bright through its presence. The air, we know it only in its unceasing circulation, nourishing and quickening nature. The ocean is for ever giving itself out to air and earth. The earth, losing nothing of its prolific powers, is always developing them in endless forms of growth. Every flower is prodigal of its hues and its fragrance, and of the seminal vir

tues which it infolds within its bosom. Each animal tribe reproduces its own nature and qualities in a successive generation: man lives anew through the revival of humanity in children and their perpetual offspring. Over and above this physical transmission is an intellectual, a moral and religious influence, which never ceases to flow through the race. From the vital energies of the parent the child receives essential qualities of the new being. As leaf from branch, or branch from stock, so child grows from parent. Nor only through derivation and birth; other channels there are of communication. Words, deeds, are not mere shadows; they are rather wings of thought and love, by which soul flies to soul, and the greater broods over and inspires the less. Thought is vital. Love is one with life. Each is reality, substance, not unreal, not unsubstantial. Thought is the man thinking, or rather coöperating with the Infinite Mind, and growing by the presence. Love is the man loving, or rather accepting and renewing the universal benignity, and receiving with every movement and every prayer a higher inspiration. The word of man, the deed of man, is in the same way the man himself giving forth that which is in him, the thought, the life, the love, the very and imperishable self. And as through the senses, and the organism to which they belong, we receive impressions from nature, as warmth and light from the sun, hues and fragrance from flowers; as we breathe the air, and so live; as we drink the water, and are refreshed; as we receive food, and therewith nourishment and