sentiments of religion; but these sentiments are feeble and distorted. The lowest barbarian has some faint sense of a superior power which rules his destinies, and which he must propitiate. The Australian turns his face to the rising and setting sun, and recognizes a presiding Deity in the savage howl by which he acknowledges the approach and departure of that material emblem of the Creator's glory. The American Indian worships the Great Spirit, while

"his untutored mind

Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind.”

The imaginative inhabitant of the East, as well as the ignorant and abused native of the African Continent, has his idol or his fetish, to which he pays a superstitious homage; the follower of Mohammed is the devoted slave of a system of worship in which the Divine dictates of revealed truth are artfully blended with the grossness of a polluted earthly imagination. All these demonstrate the existence of a deep rooted sentiment,- -a peculiar faculty in our nature, which, though perverted by ignorance, and degraded by vice, may yet be made the foundation of the most exalted and ennobling feelings that can expand the human heart.

This is the faculty on which the sublime doctrines of our Christian faith lay hold, to purify and exalt the human character. It was left there, when the moral powers of the soul were deranged by the rebellion of the first man, that it might be the means of our future restoration to obedience and favour. By the first revelation to Abraham and to Moses, it was partially enlightened; but it was reserved for the Son of God himself, through the medium of this faculty, to bring the mind back to its primeval dignity. He addresses every power of the understanding and the heart,— —our reason, our imagination, our affections ;—and, through every avenue, he finds access to our religious feelings. He incites us by hope, he alarms us with fear, he persuades us, he draws

us by the cords of love; and, by a mysterious and Divine influence, he renews us in the spirit of our minds.

The individuals who are the objects of this paternal discipline are enabled to resist the temptations with which they are surrounded, to rise above the grossness and pollution of the atmosphere in which they dwell, and to shine in the light of heaven. Those very temptations, when overcome, are rendered the means of improving their strength, and enabling them to advance more assiduously on the path of duty and honour; that very grossness and pollution, when they emerge from them, only cause them to rise nearer to the gate of paradise.

Meanwhile the human intellect, under the stimulus of the various causes we have described, rapidly advances; and, while Revelation, with all its motives and influences, is suited to all states of society,-the savage and the civilized; to all talents,—the simple, the acute, and the wise; to all acquirements, the ignorant and the learned, the rich and the poor,—it shines the brightest, and its power extends the farthest, when genius and intelligence are combined with piety. If we look for a character among mere human beings to concentrate all our admiration, and to interest all our affections, it is such a one as that of Newton, who, to the largest range of intellect, and the highest cultivation of his mental powers, added the humility, the purity, and the devotion of a Christian.

402

FOURTEENTH WEEK-SUNDAY.

THE HARVEST IS THE END OF THE WORLD."

THE destruction of any thing that has been constructed at the expense of much pains and ingenuity, is very painful and disappointing to man. The more he has laboured after its excellence, and the more it has been useful to him, the more must its termination afflict him. It is very natural, then, for those who admire this great frame of things, and adore creating power and wisdom, to shrink at the prospect of the end of the world. This wonderful exhibition of grandeur and minuteness, of beauty and sublimity, of adaptation and counteraction, is it to come to an end? Are these heavens to be folded up as a scroll, and all these elements to melt with fervent heat? Yes, so it is decreed. 'So, in the unperturbed tranquillity of his own eternity, hath the Creator appointed. But it will not pass away, as the poet has sung, and thousands have repeated after him, and "leave not a wreck behind." God's harvest is yet to come. It will not be reaped till the end of the world. When the materials whose occupation, in all the seasons, we have been studying, shall be changed, and, by the great Creator, adapted to other uses, or employed for the benefit, and under the control, of other beings, they for whom the sun arose and set, and the seasons bloomed and faded, shall be gathered as the final fruit of this earth, and garnered up in the great store-house, fitted for an eternal and unchanging existence.

We have sown and reaped; we have been enriched with terrestrial abundance, our valleys have smiled in plenty, the little hills have rejoiced on every side; one generation after another has possessed the soil, and enjoyed in autumn the consummation for which they

toiled in spring, little weening that these seeds are but the superficial portion, the fleeting produce, while they themselves are the real germs, which must in their turn be deposited in the earth, until the whole world be sown, and these germs be matured.

Then cometh God's harvest. His plan for our earthly sphere has reached its most important era. His purposes with regard to man in his state of trial are accomplished. His well beloved Son, the Lord of the vineyard, returns in the clouds, with power and great glory, to gather in the fruits. His angels shall collect them from the four winds, from the uttermost part of earth to the uttermost part of heaven. Those whom we have

deemed as dead, were but sown, to spring again and be reaped. "All that are in their graves shall hear His voice." The land, the sea, the cavern, and the wilderness, shall alike spring up instinct with life. O solemn mother earth, on which we tread so carelessly! Is every atom of thy soil engaged in this great concern? Wilt thou on that day heave up a breathing mass of human beings? Will generations, divided by thousands of years, meet face to face on thee? Shall we, of these later days, at last look upon Abraham, and Job, and Daniel? Shall we hear the voice of Paul and Peter, and the beloved disciple? Shall we see come from under the altar those precious ones who were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; shall we admire their spotless robes, and rejoice in their faithfulness? No, we shall not see them at first, not on that great day. The voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, will be in our ears. We shall hear the Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, for the marriage of the Lamb But the eye of all the seed will be fixed on the Lamb himself; on Him, whom not having seen, they have loved; on Him, whom the hope of seeing on that day, has enabled them to rejoice even in this pilgrimage of tears, with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

is come.

What need will there be of a glorified body to enable them to sustain the sight; what need of a spirit made perfect in holiness to comprehend the beauty; what need of an undoubting simple and true love, to admire the Wonderful, the Redeemer! How can mortal flesh contemplate such a scene! How consider the opening of the books, and beholding the Judge! Were not the very Judge himself the Lamb that has been slain, what flesh would not perish away from the presence of his holiness!

And the Judge ;-when we try to apprehend what his feeling may be at that solemn hour, which shall reap and gather in the souls of uncounted multitudes, we cannot. He is far above, out of our sight. Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Yet the Scripture reveals to us glimpses of his views. He will then reap that fruit for which he made his soul an offering. His pleasure shall then prosper. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. He has borne the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors; and here at last, assembled before Him are they for whom he suffered, for whom he interceded, and who are to dwell with him for ever. Shall he, the holy one, be satisfied. Ah, what manner of persons must we be in all holy conversation and godliness, that He may be satisfied?

The harvestman has toiled through the spring and summer; when the in-gathering arrives he is glad, and when it is completed he hails it with a shout of joy. He is satisfied because his object is attained; he hath sown, and he hath reaped and gathered into his barn. So will it be, if we may venture on the analogy, with the Lord. His harvest has come, his angels have reaped, and he is gathering to himself all those who love him, and whom he loves. But there will be a company present, the heart dies at the contemplation,-the company of the rejected, of those despisers, who, whether they will or no, must at last "behold,"-for every eye shall see him, "and wonder" at their own stupidity and perverse