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The Method of the Divine Government; Physical and Moral. McCosн. 1855.

Outline of the Geology of the Globe, on the Basis of M. Boué. Нгтснсоск. 1853.

The Great Commission. HARRIS. 1842.

MANIFOLD as are the scenes of beauty in our world, and valuable beyond all estimate as are the privileges vouchsafed by divine Goodness to human creatures in their fallen estate, few are the blessings which can be compared with those that centre in a wisely-ordered home; nor is there any other earthly scene on which superior intelligences, nay, even the Father of all, can be supposed to look down with more of sacred satis faction. Here are comfort, duty, and tranquil joy. Here are order without constraint, and freedom unharassed by turbulence. Here united hearts harmonize conflicting interests, and combine activities the most diversified. Here love lightens every labor, divides every sorrow, and multiplies without limit. rational enjoyment. It is, as it were, the garden-spot of hu VOL. VI.-21

man existence, where, beneath heaven's dew and sunshine, and under wise culture, may be seen clustering together in every stage of development, and each marked by its own attractive graces, the bud, the flower, and the fruit immature and fully ripened, of probationary rational being.

But the charities of home are not only of priceless worth as to all that alleviates and adorns our lot, they are even most sacred in their significancy. That double bond of loving parental authority and confiding filial reverence, what is it but a type, simple, instructive, necessary, of transcendent verities? Even of the everlasting relation of Father and Son on the supreme throne? A mystery, which, though in itself infinite, is revealed to practical intelligence as involving the destinies of the whole rational creation. That consecrated union of being in those to whom the children of a household look up, that inviolable tie which makes one of husband and wife, what is it again but also a type of the indissoluble union between the exalted Bridegroom in heaven and His pure, faithful, spiritual Church? Nor is the mutual relation of sister and brother less a representative of those wondrous sympathies which were provided for when the eternal Son became Elder Brother to the entire family of man.

That a Christian home, containing in its very constitution elements thus associated with divine truths and heavenly agencies, is the chosen sphere where character shall be trained in better than earthly virtue, seems, then, little less than a sacred axiom. That there shall be systematically applied the corrective influences which belong to Heaven's great plan of reme dial mercy, and piety be developed in its true excellence, power, and loveliness. When this is realized, then indeed is the family scene on earth typical of that better home which the Supreme Father has prepared for His finally accepted faithful children. Heart then is truly knit to heart in bonds dearer far than links of gold; hope sanctioned by highest wisdom infuses life into every duty, and gilds the very clouds that overhang our way; submission finds its exercise in trial; gratitude in times of gladness summons to more vigorous useful action; and united prayer each day supplies new fuel to the flame of

devout aspiration. Verily is such a home scarce else than another Eden on earth. Its culture how delightful! Its charities how sacred! And its worship-how significant !

"When kneeling down to heaven's eternal King,

The saint, the husband, and the father prays!
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,
That thus they all shall meet in future days;
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere."

But the family scene has also another representative meaning. Typical as it is of things celestial, and adapted as it is to bring them into thorough contact with mind and heart, to the temporal and eternal blessedness of the household, that little circle is besides a type of the relationship existing between all the human creatures that people our world. It exhibits, in perpetual and impressive example, the brotherhood which does really obtain, and the sympathies which are actually due, between all the sons and daughters of human kind,

The reality of such kinship among men, however distant in place, or diverse in condition, may well be thus commended to earnest consideration, because as tribes have wandered and changed, the bonds of charity which should unite them have become greatly enfeebled. And it is one of the tokens of moral perversion in the very heart of humanity. We do not look upon the remote and the degraded as our brethren. We do not feel towards them as fellow-members of one great family, descendants of one parentage, inheritors of a common nature, and candidates for a kindred destiny, children of the same divine Father, partakers of like privileged access to the same exalted Elder Brother. Theoretically, we may be satisfied that science well nigh demonstrates human unity from the general analogies of life, from the laws of body and mind traced among all people, and from the facts found in language and other monumental relics. And we may be no less sure that Scripture exhibits the same important truth, not only his

torically, and in explicit affirmation, but incidentally by universal and inseparable implication in the fundamental principles revealed as belonging to the divine government over mankind. Nor is this conviction to be disparaged. It is an immense gain for the cause of humanity, that the double authority of science and revelation establishes to our intellect the certainty that "God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." (Acts 17: 26.) That the cool, calm understanding is compelled to reject what the great Humboldt so justly designates the "desolating dis tinction,” (Kosmos, i. p. 358,) made by an infidel philosophy, as unamiable as it is unsound, between "superior races born to conquer, rule, and exterminate, and inferior destined despite all philanthropy, legislation, and missionary labor, to be overwhelmed, subjugated, exterminated." (Types of Mankind, p. 79.)

But it is one thing to have the understanding thus convinced, and quite another to have the kindly sympathies suited to the relation of brothers actuating our hearts. One thing to know what is true and right, another widely different so to feel it as to be moved to excellent endeavor.

Now it is, no doubt, one of the reasons why the charities of home have been based upon celestial associations so sacred, and have been made so precious in their influence, that they might cooperate with other great agencies in awakening us to a more appreciative estimate of our relations toward the mighty family of mankind.

Is one member of a well-trained household languishing under some painful, perhaps fatal malady? And can it be other than a common grief? How much more, if it be a moral gangrene, a strange infatuation of vicious propensity, a fearful delusion of ungodliness! Ias some erring prodigal wandered far off into regions of wrong and ruin? Is it possible for less than incessant, yearning anxiety to follow him with all the plead ings of prayer, all the patience of love? And if through Heaven's wondrous mercy he be recovered, shall there be in all the house less than abounding joy?

Then what is this but an arousing lesson divinely addressed

to our inmost hearts, as to all the maladies, all the iniquities, all the degradation, all the wretchedness, and all the peril for eternity of our brother men the world around? Can we with the spirit here caught look unmoved upon the spiritual ignorance, moral disorder, and prevalent evil, even in lands like our own, where Heaven's authority is most recognized? Can we without a pang or an effort behold the filthiness, the destitution, the corruption, the festering wrong, the hopeless misery crowded in the hovels, the cellars, the garrets, the lanes and alleys of all the great cities of Christendom? Especially when in contemplating all this, we discern, after every just allowance for whatever may be included under the idea of misfortune, the conditions of accountability in every individual, and evidences of that love of darkness rather than light, which unerring truth has declared to be the one ground of universal condemnation. And when in view of this, we cast a glance onward to the measureless issues which await the obdurate rejectors of that divine light, which, whatever its degree, they had, or might have obtained, and see our brothers, our sisters, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, children with us of the same Father, embraced in the compassion of the same redeeming Friend and Brother, in that very peril, going into that very doom, oh! can the fraternal heart be quiet in the breast? Shall there be no pleadings with the Bestower of mercy, no anxious thought for remedial agencies, if so be such be practicable, no eager interest in every measure whereby these wretched ones may be comforted, regenerated, saved.

But what are these to the outcast alien multitudes beyond the pale of all ordinary Christian influence? Here we behold one vast assemblage of wanderers, drugged into moral insensibility by an insane imposture, oppressed by the cruelties yet. satisfied with the sensualities of a barbarous civilization; where home charities have no existence, where man is at once a fatalist, philosopher, and a bigoted devotee, a remorseless tyrant, and a shameless brute, and woman, not a sister, wife, mother, daughter, counsellor, friend, but a soulless creature, a fair animal to be caged in the seraglio and petted awhile, a degraded worthless nothing! There our eyes rest upon heathen

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