hope in him. Will you walk in this light? Or will you wander on still in darkness? Are your deeds so evil, that ye love the night rather than the day? The road to ruin is, indeed, a downward path, and you may find it readily if you will. But there is another and a brighter way, which angels hover round, and beams of light from God's own throne illumine. Thither let your steps be turned; go, and tarry not. Go, sinner, in humble hope; go, thou prodigal, who hast wasted thy substance, but hast sorrowed over thy days of misery and shame. Thy humble petition will not be disregarded. "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." Hark! 'tis a sound of gladness, of rejoicing-aye, of rejoicing in heaven-the song of angels round the throne of the Redeemer. And why? Because another child has turned him home; because another sinner has sought mercy and found it; because the dead is alive again, and the lost is found.

SERMON VI.

St. MARK iv, 30, 31, 32.

And he said, whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds which be in the earth; But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.

THE life of Jesus of Nazareth, was, as you all know who have read your bibles, one continued course of beneficence and mercy. The very act of his appearance in the flesh, was an instance of love, beyond any which our imagination in its wildest dreams could have conceived. Some there are, indeed, who would degrade the Saviour of the world into a mere child of clay like themselves; a man, commissioned, they allow, from beaven, but still mortal and peccable as they are. Every page of scripture contains something to

invalidate these unfounded and dangerous conceits; and many passages there are, which, without testifying directly to the divine nature of Christ, do yet, by a natural inference, impress upon the unprejudiced mind this solemn and sacred truth, that Jesus our Redeemer is the Son of God. Amongst other parts of his character, which plainly evidence his more than human origin, his manner of teaching claims our most serious notice, both on account of the authority with which he delivered his precepts, and the new and extraordinary channel by which his instruction was conveyed. At present, however, I would confine the short observations, which the limits of a discourse like this will permit me to make, to the parables and similies used by our Lord, as being more immediately connected with the subject before us. On their justness and beauty I will not now enlarge; no one can peruse them carefully, without perceiving their excellence in these respects. But I would call your attention, on this occasion, to a circumstance not so obvious as the last, but more impressive even than that, when it is once understood. I allude to the wonderful manner, in which the things of heaven are likened to the things of earth. Matters of the mightiest import-the mysteries of God's government; the economy of his providence; the operations of his spirit; are all shadowed forth in some pic

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ture of earthly colouring. The eternal happiness of the good, the never ending sorrows of the wicked, are brought home to our imaginations, by some of the frailest and most short-lived of nature's productions. No soul of merely mortal powers, no wisdom of earth, however high its order, could have so compared eternity with a moment, or things unseen and unapproachable, with those which we daily witness, and amongst which we live. The kingdom of heaven and a grain of mustard seed, would, if considered in their resemblance by the wisest of the sons of men, have presented but a feeble picture, if not an absolute absurdity. Yet, in our Saviour's hands, how important and consolatory a lesson do we learn from the comparison. Let us then, whilst our hearts are filled with admiration at the heavenly wisdom, which could thus instruct and edify by means apparently so humble, endeavour with God's blessing to unfold our Saviour's parable, and receive the truths it conveys with gratitude and obedience.

"The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, which when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds which be in the earth: but when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it!" In our own climate, the

plant alluded to above, does not grow to any extraordinary size; but in eastern countries, it is met with large enough to afford the traveller shelter beneath its foliage. These expressions "the kingdom of God," and "the kingdom of heaven," for they both signify the same thing, which are of such frequent occurrence in scripture, are used in two different senses. They sometimes denote the kingdom of God's everlasting rest, the happiness reserved in heaven, for those who have been his faithful servants on earth. But they are, at least, as frequently employed to denote that spiritual rule, which the Messiah came down to establish in the world, that gospel kingdom under whose blessed influence, both Jew and Gentile were to be converted and saved. In this latter sense we must understand the passage before us; it was spoken of the small beginning and rapid growth of the Christian faith; with a reference probably to its future prevalence over all the nations of the earth.

When we consider the humble means, by which the doctrines of the blessed Jesus were first propagated in the world; when we carry our thoughts back to the days of the apostles, and the nations through which they travelled; when we meditate upon the dangers they dared, and the persecutions they endured, in the exercise of their sacred ministry; a feeling of awe and astonish