leans at times over the pulpit, speaking in a mellow north-country accent, with great ease and fluency, but in the plainest and most idiomatic Saxon. In the matter the attraction lies; his preaching resembling more a conversation than a sermon, each hearer feeling as if it were directed to him.

The style of Dr. Guthrie is quite peculiar. Judging by the published specimens, we should say he must be an ardent lover of nature, must possess a most picturesque imagination, a deep-toned sensibility, a heart overflowing with warmth. and congeniality, and a mind at once vigorous and well-trained. There can be no such thing as tameness in his preaching. His "Gospel in Ezekiel"-consisting of twenty sermons on texts from this old prophet, lately published and now widely circulated in this country-breathes with life and animation from beginning to end. Open sometimes to criticism in matters of interpretation, and with too little contact, or evident connection between the several parts of the discourse, each sermon is nevertheless a thing of exquisite beauty. You seem to be walking in a picture gallery; or rather in a garden of sweets, with meandering streams, and every form of animate and inanimate life surrounding you. Now you weep under the depths of the preacher's pathos; now you are startled with some dazzling luminous sentence rolling out suddenly before you; now you are captivated with the freshness and originality of some thought, the aptness and vividness of some illustrations, or the ease and effectiveness with which some error is exploded, or some glorious doctrine unfolded: but you always arise from the perusal feeling that you have been led beside the waters of salvation, amid the flowers and fruits of paradise, and now return both delighted and enriched. It may be added that the striking portrait accompanying this volume, is copied from a photograph just taken in Edinburg, and forwarded expressly for this purpose.

THE NEW HEART.

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh."EZEKIEL, XXXvi. 26.

As in a machine where the parts all fit each other, and bathed in oil move without din or discord, the most perfect harmony reigns throughout the kingdom of grace. Jesus Christ is the "wisdom," as well as the "power" of God; nor in this kingdom is any thing found corresponding to the anomalies and incongruities of the world lying without. There we sometimes see a high station disgraced by a man of low habits; while others are doomed to an inferior condition, who would shine like gilded ornaments on the very pinnacles of society. That beautiful congruity in Christ's kingdom is secured by those who are the objects of saving mercy being so renewed and sanctified that their nature is in harmony with their position, and the man within corresponds to all without.

Observe how this property of new runs through the whole economy

of grace. When Mercy first rose upon this world, an attribute of divinity appeared which was new to the eyes of men and angels. Again, the Saviour was born of a virgin; and he who came forth from a womb where no child had been previously conceived, was sepulchered in a tomb where no man had been previously interred. The Infant had a new birth-place, the Crucified had a new burial-place. Again, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, the author of a new testament, the founder of a new faith. Again, the redeemed receive a new name; they sing a new song; their home is not to be in the Old, but in the New Jerusalem, where they shall dwell on a new earth, and walk in glory beneath a new heaven. Now, it were surely strange, when all things else are new, if they themselves were not to partake of this general renovation. Nor strange only, for such a change is indispensable. A new name without a new nature were an imposture. It were not more an untruth to call a lion a lamb, or the rapacious vulture by the name of the gentle dove, than to give the title of the sons of God to the venomous seed of the Serpent.

Then, again, unless man received a new nature, how could he sing the new song? The raven, perched on the rock, where she whets her bloody beak, and impatiently watches the dying struggles of some unhappy lamb, can not tune her croaking voice to the rich, mellow music of a thrush; and, since it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh, how could a sinner take up the strain and sing the song of saints? Besides, unless a man were a new creature, he were out of place in the new creation. In circumstances neither adapted to his nature, nor fitted to minister to his happiness, a sinner in heaven would find himself as much out of his element as a finny inhabitant of the deep, or a sightless burrower in the soil, beside an eagle, soaring in the sky, or surveying her wide domain from the mountain crag.

In the works of God we see nothing more beautiful than the divine skill with which he suits his creatures to their condition. He gives wings to birds, fins to fishes, sails to the thistle-seed, a lamp to light the glow-worm, great roots to moor the cedar, and to the aspiring ivy her thousand hands to climb the wall. Nor is the wisdom so conspicuous in nature, less remarkable and adorable in the kingdom of grace. He forms a holy people for a holy heaven-fits heaven for them, and them for heaven. And calling up his Son to prepare the mansions for their tenants, and sending down his Spirit to prepare the tenants for their mansions, he thus establishes a perfect harmony between the new creature and the new creation.

You can not have two hearts beating in the same bosom, else you would be, not a man, but a monster. Therefore, the very first thing to be done, in order to make things new, is just to take that which is old. out of the way. And the taking away of the old heart is, after all, but a preparatory process. It is a means, but not the end. For-strange

V. By conversion man is ennobled.

Infidelity regards man as little better than an animated statue, living clay, a superior animal. She sees no jewel of immortality flashing in this earthly casket. According to her, our future being is a brilliant but baseless dream of the present; death, an everlasting sleep; and that dark, low, loathsome grave our eternal sepulcher.

Vice, again, looks on man as an animal formed for the indulgence of brutal appetites. She sees no divinity in his intellect, nor pure feelings, nor lofty aspirations worthy of cultivation for the coming state. Her foul finger never points him to the skies. She leaves powers and feelings which might have been trained to heaven to trail upon the ground; to be soiled and trodden in the mire, or to entwine themselves around the basest objects. In virtuous shame, in modesty, purity, integrity, gentleness, natural affection, she blights with her poisonous breath whatever vestiges of beauty have survived the Fall; and when she has done her perfect work, she leaves man a wreck, a wretch, an object of loathing, not only to God and angels, but-lowest and deepest of all degradation -an object of contempt and loathing to himself.

While infidelity regards man as a mere animal, to be dissolved at death into ashes and air, and vice changes man into a brute or devil, Mammon enslaves him. She makes him a serf, and condemns him to be a gold-digger for life in the mines. She puts her collar on his neck, and locks it; and bending his neck to the soil, and bathing his brow in sweat, she says, Toil, toil, toil; as if this creature, originally made in the image of God, this dethroned and exiled monarch, to save whom the Son of God descended from the skies, and bled on Calvary, were a living machine, constructed of sinew, bone, and muscle, and made for no higher end than to work to live, and live to work.

Contrast with these the benign aspect in which the gospel looks on man. Religion descends from heaven to break our chains. She alone raises me from degradation, and bids me lift my drooping head, and look up to heaven. Yes; it is that very gospel which by some is supposed to present such dark, degrading, gloomy views of man and his destiny, which lifts me from the dust and the dunghill to set me among princes-on a level with angels—in a sense above them. To say nothing of the divine nobility grace imparts to a soul which is stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred and venerable does even this body appear in the eye of piety! No longer a form of animated dust; no longer the subject of passions shared in common with the brutes; no longer the drudge and slave of Mammon, the once "vile body" rises into a temple of the Holy Ghost. Vile in one sense it may be; yet what, although it be covered with sores? what, although it be clothed in rags? what, although, in unseemly decrepitude, it want its fair proportions? that poor, pale, sickly, shattered form is the casket of a precious jewel. This mean and crumbling tabernacle lodges a guest

nobler than palaces may boast of; angels hover around its walls; the Spirit of God dwells within it. What an incentive to holiness, to purity of life and conduct, lies in the fact that the body of a saint is the temple of God!—a truer, nobler temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his prayers, and Jesus consecrated by his presence. In Popish cathedral, where the light streamed through painted window, and the organ pealed along lofty aisles, and candles gleamed on golden cups and silver crosses, and incense floated in fragrant clouds, we have seen the blinded worshiper uncover his head, drop reverently on his knees, and raise his awe-struck eye on the imposing spectacle; we have seen him kiss the marble floor, and knew that sooner would he be smitten dead upon that floor than be guilty of defiling it. How does this devotee rebuke us! We wonder at his superstition; how may he wonder at our profanity! Can we look on the lowly veneration he expresses for an edifice which has been erected by some dead man's genius, which holds but some image of a deified Virgin, or bones of a canonized saint, and which— proudly as it raises its cathedral towers-time shall one day cast to the ground, and bury in the dust; can we, I say, look on that, and, if sensible to rebuke, not feel reproved by the spectacle? In how much more respect, in how much holier veneration should we hold this body? The shrine of immortality, and a temple dedicated to the Son of God, it is consecrated by the presence of the Spirit-a living temple, over whose porch the eye of piety reads what the finger of inspiration has written -"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

DISCOURSE XLV.

ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D.

THIS distinguished missionary to India was born at Kirkmichael, in Perthshire, Scotland, in the year 1806. After concluding a full academic course at the University of St. Andrews, under the instructions of Dr. Chalmers, with whom he was a favorite student, and others of less note, he was licensed to preach the gospel, and immediately ordained and sent forth as the first missionary of the Church of Scotland to the heathen. He reached Calcutta in the fall of 1830, and set about the work committed to his charge. From the first, the instruction of youth has occupied much of his attention; and he may be considered as having reached a point of perfection in this line of effort which has never been surpassed. In the year 1850 there were over one thousand pupils attending the various classes in the Institution which he founded.

Dr. Duff has twice, at least, revisited Scotland; first in 1835-spending there, to regain his health, some four years—and again a year or two ago, for a like purpose, at which time he made a visit to the United States. Wherever he went, here or abroad, he received the most marked respect, as a man of God, and a self-forgetful and successful missionary. His many powerful appeals on behalf of the heathen will not soon be forgotten. Previous to his departure from his native land, a public meeting was held in the Free High Church in Edinburg, where a multitude of his friends crowded to hear his farewell address. Dr. Tweedie, Convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the Free Church, presided; Dr. Candlish opened the proceedings with prayer; after which Dr. Duff delivered, for the space of two hours, one of his overwhelming appeals on behalf of the missionary enterprise. The conclusion of his speech was a farewell to Scotland and a welcome to India, which, being uttered in his peculiarly powerful and winning style, drew tears from the eyes of almost every person in the great throng of those who listened. He said:

"And now this, my home-work, being for the present finished, while exigences of a peculiar kind appear to call me back again to the Indian field, I cheerfully obey the summons; and despite its manifold ties and attractions, I now feel as if, in fullness of heart, I can say, Farewell to Scotland-to Scotland! honored by ancient memories and associations of undying glory and renown! Scotland, on whose soil were fought some of the mightiest battles for civil and religious liberty! Scotland, thou country and home of the bravest among undaunted Reformers! Scotland, thou chosen abode and last resting-places of the ashes of most heroic and daring martyrs ?—yet, farewell, Scotland! Farewell to all that is in thee, and welcome,