he will only do that which is generous and ex

alted?

Yes, we are one with those who, in our own or

any other age—who, in our own or any other land— have heard their country's call to labour or to suffer in her cause, to assert her rights, to guard her safety, to redress her grievances, to improve her institutions, and to redeem her population from the darkness of ignorance, the yoke of slavery, the abyss of degradation, and become the heroes or the martyrs of humanity. Yes, we are one with those who, through the long line of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, confessors, reformers, have been heaven's messengers of good to earth; who, in the most pestilential times of moral corruption, have stood like Aaron of old between the dead and the living, to stay the plague of sin and suffering, and avert the stroke that would smite the earth with a curse. Yes, we are one, in holy faith, and reverential love, and sincere obedience, with him, the Son of God, the Son of man, who prayed that his disciples might be in him, and he in them; one with him as he is with the Father; that first-born among many brethren who taught and exemplified perfection, the perfection of boundless, ceaseless love to all that live.

This doctrine makes us one with the oppressed and suffering; with those who pine in the wretchedness of poverty, who wither under the blight of

disease, who sicken with the pangs of hope deferred, whose backs are bared by the lash of slavery, whose hearts are riven by the thunderstroke of calamity; it makes us sad in their sorrows, and ministers to their consolations. It is an appeal that reaches the hearts of those who have little else to proffer for relief but the kind feelings of those hearts.

Man is dear to Man: the poorest poor

Long for some moments, in a weary life,

When they can know, and feel, that they have been
Themselves the fathers, and the dealers out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness; for this single cause
That we have, all of us, ONE HUMAN HEART.

Remember too for purposes of humility and charity, for the suppression of pride, censoriousness, and wrath, that this doctrine makes us one, even with the wicked: with those whom ignorance leads blindfold into guilt and misery; whom successive temptations plunge in ever-deepening degradation; whom passion seizes with its giant arm, and hurls from the proudest height down headlong to ruin.

It unfolds to us, in common principles, the sources of what strikes with horror, and touches with a brother's earnestness for their deliverance; and melts a stern disgust into a tender pity; and teaches, while we rigidly avoid, not so rigidly to condemn ; and reminds that this is not the whole of their character, nor these the sole capacities of their nature;

and if beyond our reach, yet bids us hope that the God who made us of one blood, may yet, though by a long, painful, and awful process, unite us in one destiny. While we feel, and strongly, for the wretched slave, let us remember that the slavemaster too is man. While we have a mournful sympathy with the baffled and crushed patriots of one land, or an exulting sympathy with the triumphant patriots of another, let us remember that the tyrant, and tyrant's minions too, are men; that they were made and meant for better things than these ; and still within them lives that capability, an immortal spark, which futurity may cherish, and raise them to the level of their earthly victims, and purify them even from the bloody stains of their successful guilt, and re-unite them to the humanity they have insulted, and admit them to the happy brotherhood against whose progress they have waged an impious warfare. Believing in the Christian doctrine, we cannot despair of man, either of the individual, or of the whole human race. Good is stronger than evil. God is the common Father. All nations are of one blood. There is yet, in the plan of Providence, a blessing for all nations. It shall cover the earth-cover it as the waters the bed of the ocean-cover it with a boundless deluge of freedom and felicity. Our common nature and lot is the pledge of affection, and the spring of happiness and hope. And it is a latent sense of this

universal fitness for, and universal destiny to virtue, that makes us even now express the strongest praise by language, which else were no commendation at all; and say of uncommon excellence, ‹ This was a MAN!'

117

SERMON VII.

BLESSING THE POOR.

MATTHEW V. 3.

Blessed are the poor, in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'

I APPREHEND that the true construction of this verse requires the separation of the words 'in spirit' from the word 'poor;' that they are the poor, literally, who are spoken of, and not a supposed class of characters described as 'poor in spirit;' and that in spirit,' or by the spirit,' relates not to the character, but to the blessing; or rather to the agency by which that blessing was to be bestowed or manifested. The poor might be despised by the world, throughout all its kingdoms, but the Spirit would bless them by investing them with the dignities and privileges of the kingdom of heaven.

Wetstein, one of the greatest names among critics, connects the words 'in spirit' with the epithet