portion of worldly good may be withdrawn, we may be able to show, like those holy ones of old at the heathen court, by the fair serene countenance of the spirit, that we have something better than the world's pulse to feed upon.

But, further, in availing yourself of this divine resource amid the daily exigences of life, why should you wait always for the periodic season and the formal attitude of prayer? The heavens are not open to the believer's call only at intervals. The grace of God's Holy Spirit falls not like the fertilizing shower, only now and then; or like the dew on the earth's face, only at morning and night. At all times, on the uplifted face of the believer's spirit, the gracious element is ready to descend. Pray always; pray without ceasing. When difficulties arise, delay not to seek and obtain at once the succor you need. Swifter than by the subtle electric agent is thought borne from earth to heaven. The Great Spirit on high is in constant sympathy with the spirit beneath, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the thrill of aspiration flashes from the heart of man to God. Whenever any thing vexes you —whenever, from the rude and selfish ways of men, any trials of temper cross your path; when your spirits are ruffled, or your Christian forbearance put to the test, be this your instant resource! Haste away, if only for a moment, to the serene and peace-breathing presence of Jesus, and you will not fail to return with a spirit soothed and calmed. Or when the impure and low-minded surround you—when, in the path of duty, the high tone of your Christian purity is apt to suffer from baser contacts-0, what relief to lift the heart to Christ! to rise on the wings of faith-even for one instant to breathe the air of that region where the infinite Purity dwells, and then return with a mind steeled against temptation, ready to recoil with the instinctive abhorrence of a spirit. that has been beside the throne, from all that is impure and vile. Say not, then, with such aid at your command, that religion can not be brought down to Common Life!

In conclusion, let me once more urge upon you the great lesson upon which we have been insisting. Carry religious principle into every-day life. Principle elevates whatever it touches. Facts lose all their littleness to the mind which brings principle and law to bear upon them. The chemist's or geologist's soiled hands are no sign of base work; the coarsest operations of the laboratory, the breaking of stones with a hammer, cease to be mechanical when intellectual thought and principle govern the mind and guide the hands. And religious principle is the noblest of all. Bring it to bear on common actions and coarse cares, and infinitely nobler even than the philosophic or scientific, becomes the Christian life. Live for Christ in common things, and all your work will become priestly work. As in the temple of old, it was holy work to hew wood or mix oil, because it was done for the altar-sacrifice or the sacred lamps; so all your coarse and common work will receive a conse

cration when done for God's glory, by one who is a true priest to his temple.

Carry religion into common life, and your life will be rendered useful as well as noble. There are many men who listen incredulously to the high-toned exhortations of the pulpit; the religious life there depicted is much too seraphic, they think, for this plain and prosaic world of ours. Show these men that the picture is not a fancy one. Make it a reality. Bring religion down from the clouds. Apply to it the infallible test of experiment, and, by diffusing your daily actions with holy principles, prove that love to God, superiority to worldly pleasure, spirituality, holiness, heavenly-mindedness, are something more than the stock ideas of sermons.

Carry religious principle into common life, and common life will lose its transitoriness. "The world passeth away!" The things that are seen are temporal. Soon business, with all its cares and anxieties-the whole "unprofitable stir and fever of the world "-will be to us a thing of the past. But religion does something better than sigh and muse over the perishableness of earthly things; it finds in them the seed of immortality. No work done for Christ perishes; no action that helps to mold the deathless mind of a saint of God is ever lost. Live for Christ in the world, and you carry out with you into eternity all of the results of the world's business that are worth the keeping. The river of life sweeps on, but the gold grains it held in solution are left behind, depos ited in the holy heart. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." Every other result of our "diligence in business" will soon be gone. You can not invent any mode of exchange between the visible and invisible worlds, so that the balance at your credit in the one can be transferred, when you migrate from it, to your account in the other. Worldly sharpness, acuteness, versatility, are not the qualities in request in the world to come. The capacious intellect, stored with knowledge, and disciplined into admirable perspicacity, tact, worldly wisdom, by a lifetime devoted to politics or business, is not, by such attainments, fitted to take a higher place among the sons of immortality. The honor, fame, respect, obsequious homage that attend worldly greatness up to the grave's brink, will not follow it one step beyond. These advantages are not to be despised; but if these be all that, by the toil of our hand, or the sweat of our brow, we have gained, the hour is fast coming when we shall discover that we have labored in vain, and spent our strength for naught. But while these pass, there are other things that remain. The world's gains and losses may soon cease to affect us, but not the gratitude or the patience, the kindness or the resignation, they drew forth from our hearts. The world's scenes of business may fade on our sight, the noise of its restless pursuits may fall no more upon our ear, when we pass to meet our God; but not one unselfish thought, not one kind and gentle

word, not one act of self-sacrificing love done for Jesus' sake, in the midst of our common work, but will have left an indelible impress on the soul, which will go out with it to its eternal destiny. So live, then, that this may be the result of your labors; so live that your work, whether in the Church or in the world, may become a discipline for that glorious state of being in which the Church and the world shall become one; where work shall be worship, and labor shall be rest; where the worker shall never quit the temple, nor the worshiper the place of work, because "there is no temple therein, but the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof "

DISCOURSE XLVII.

JOHN MCFARLANE, LL.D.

A CHIEF ornament in the way of church architecture, in the city of Glasgow, is the place of worship owned by the ERSKINE CHURCH (so called in honor of the men of this name, the founders of the Scottish Secession, now the United Presbyterian Church), and here it is that Dr. McFarlane has ministered for the last sixteen years. He is a native of Dunfermline, and was ordained in Kincardine in the year 1832.

Eight years after, he was translated to Glasgow to preside over the congregation of the Rev. Dr. Smith, who died some ten years since. The congregation worshiped in Nicholson-street chapel, until they built their place of worship in south Portland-street.

Dr. McFarlane is said to possess a clear and musical voice, a mind, if not profound, yet eminently historical and poetic, an unusual readiness of utterance, and a style of communicating his thoughts, not always remarkable for beauty or finish, but entirely perspicuous and lucid to the most ordinary perception. He has published a number of works, among which are "The Mountains of the Bible," "The Night Lamp," "The Hiding-Place," "Why Weepest Thou?" We remember that the Eclectic Review, some years ago, said of the first mentioned of these, that it was the best series of discourses on this subject that had ever been published The sermon here given was preached before the London Missionary Society in Whitefield's Tabernacle, Moorsfield, London, May 9th, 1855, and published at the request of the Directors. It was pronounced, at the time, one of the most marked discourses recently preached in London; "thoroughly digested and severely elaborated, in an unusual degree luminous and powerful, a torrent of exposition and argumentation, blended with touching appeal." One of Dr. McFarlane's hearers was so wrought upon, that he placed five hundred pounds, or two thousand five hundred dollars, on the plate, when the collection was made. When published, it was thrown into the form of a treatise, without the appearance of a sermon. A few unimportant alterations have here been made, principally with a view to give it its original shape.

ALTAR-GOLD; OR, CHRIST WORTHY TO RECEIVE RICHES. "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive riches."-REV., v. 12. THE Church of God has the highest of all destinies. Through her instrumentality the whole world is to be brought back to holiness. To fulfill this destiny that Church has to carry the gospel to the utmost ends

of the earth. She has to do this out of her own resources. To establish and maintain the indispensable agencies she must needs have at revenue, and that revenue she can collect only from within herself. Has her revenue hitherto been equal to her work or to her divine commission? It certainly has not. In this respect she is, and always has been, far behind. Till she be greatly improved here, her destiny remains unfulfilled. The truth is, a revival in Christian liberality must take place. Worldly-mindedness in the Church must be crucified; the spirit of prayer must be more copiously poured out; her communion must be purer, her faith made more vigorous and lofty, and her finances must be greatly augmented. Without under-estimating the high importance of the others, we would lay emphasis on the last-our conviction is, that the pecuniary resources of the Church must be increased in order to the successful issue of her missionary enterprise. Some master-mind must arise and deliver her out of her financial difficulties, some mighty principle must be evolved to subdue her people into a uniform and munificent system of sacrificing unto God their "riches," otherwise that enterprise must prove a failure. Money is known to be the sinews of war-it is not less the sinews of missions. True, the latter is a divine cause, but its divine Author has ruled that it shall be maintained and extended by means of the pecuniary contributions of his people. Have we then such a mind, and is there such a principle at work? Yes; we have this mind in the recorded opinions of angels and saints, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive-riches ;" and we have such a principle at work in the consciences of those on earth who harmonize with the judgment expressed by the witnesses in heaven. It is to the elucidation of this subject that we now proceed. We take the above stanza from the song of heaven literally. A splendid theme, no doubt, opens up to us in the worthiness of the Lamb to receive the riches of all intellectual, moral, and spiritual adoration and service; but, though somewhat reluctantly, we pass by this view of the subject to the less interesting, it may be, but not less useful and practical, portion of it. Our object is, to baptize the riches of men with the spirit of the gospel. If we succeed, even in an humble degree, we may multiply the number of "cheerful givers," diminish the necessity (which is often felt to be painful) of speaking so much about money in connection with Christian objects, and fix attention upon principles, the operation of which alone can supply what is needful, especially for carrying onward the great missionary cause.

I. CHRIST HAS NEED OF THE FAVORS OF MEN.

Jesus Christ has a cause in this world. The idea is not necessarily Christian. It has been known from the dawn of prophecy; it was re-echoed among the shades of Horeb; the battles of Israel inscribed it