ment all around them; to be quiet, and tranquil, and at rest, when all else are disturbed, and anxious, and fretted, and impatient. I say, the instance of the apostle St. Matthew shews us that all this is possible; or rather, that it is possible for habits, feelings, temper, disposition, such as are meet and suited for the sacred office of an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be formed and cherished, to live and to grow, in a soil to human eyes the most unsuited, amidst the mean, and common, and every-day pursuits of the most despised trade or traffic in which men are engaged.

And surely it were no rash or irreverent thought, that, as Almighty God, in the vast and unsearchable riches of His holy Word, has left warnings, precepts, examples suited to all ages, times, states, conditions of His creatures, so we of this age and country may find our lesson and our example in St. Matthew. His may be a character which it especially behoves us to study and imitate, in that, being by nature frail as we are, blessed with less abundant means of grace than we have, with a less perfect knowledge of God's will and word, and placed in outward circumstances, in a station and rank of life, at the least as full of trials and temptations, as opposed

(humanly speaking) to religious habits, feelings, and conduct, he yet had formed and cherished within him that temper and disposition of heart which made him meet to be called to be an apostle, and at the same time made him, when called, ready at once to leave all, to rise up, and to follow Him who had called him.

St. Matthew was a publican, that is, he was one of a class of persons whom all hated, despised, and spake evil of. The publicans, as you probably know, were Jews employed by the Romans as officers under themselves to collect the taxes and duties, the payment of which they enforced from the Jewish nation. This payment, to a power at once foreign and heathen, was especially hateful to the Jewish nation; and therefore those Jews who consented to act as the servants and officers of the Romans in this matter, were generally hated by their brethren; and in very many instances, possibly, this hatred was increased by the injustice and extortion which they exercised; their situation gave them the means of doing evil, and, where all hated and despised them, too many, probably, used to the full the means of doing evil which they possessed. This, at least, we must all have observed, that the term "publican" is very generally in Holy

Scripture used as a term of reproach, as marking some guilty, unjust, outcast man: "Let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a publican." God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." "If ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so ?" And again, in this very passage: "And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came, and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto His disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners ?"

St. Matthew was one of this despised and hated class of men, brought up, probably, and living in the midst of those who exercised the same calling with himself, but who, too many possibly, exercised it with injustice and violence. St. Matthew had all the trial and temptation of evil example, beside and beyond the common temptations of his station, and yet St. Matthew had so lived, had so schooled and trained his heart and affections, as that Christ called him to be an apostle, and as that he at once obeyed

the call. For we must remember that, although our Saviour both Himself taught and trained His apostles during His ministry, and, after His resurrection and ascension, endued them with singular gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, yet that there must have been something in their character at the very time of their call which moved, so to speak, our Lord to call them, and led them at once to obey His call. Surely there was already, by God's grace, in its degree, the honest and good heart, the simple and confiding faith, the keen impulses, the warm and affectionate feelings, such as afterwards, when purified, and chastened, and confirmed by the teaching and example of Christ present with them, by the divine power and work of the Holy Ghost descending on them on the day of Pentecost, by the patient suffering for Christ which they bore, formed, in its full outline and lineaments, the sacred apostolic character.

Their very cheerful obedience to Christ's call, their very readiness to follow Christ, and become His disciples first, that so they might be His apostles afterwards,―might first know, and obey and learn of Christ themselves, and then preach Him unto others, their very readiness so to follow Christ was, in some sort, a proof and sign

that they were, in a measure, meet for their office.

For consider, had St. Matthew (living in the midst of the world's business, and engaged in a worldly office himself,) had his heart, his thoughts, feelings, wishes, been merely worldly, merely set on the riches, pleasures, or interests of this world, -I will not say, would Christ have called such an one to follow Him, to be His disciple, to receive, to preach, to suffer for the faith ?—but would there have been any thing in his character to lead him at once to obey Christ, to leave those worldly comforts, those worldly riches and pleasures, on which his heart was set, and wherein his life had been spent ?-to leave all these, and to become the follower of a despised and persecuted Master, through much discomfort, privation, and, possibly, actual suffering? What was there that would lead a man of mere worldly feelings and worldly motives so to act? Christ's kingdom was not of this world; its greatness, its joys, its rewards, were in another world; it was the kingdom of heaven. And then those joys, and those rewards, so pure, so holy, so spiritual, how would they affect a merely worldly and carnal heart? Even if present, would they not be tame and distasteful to such an one ?