will he forsake his fallen, his unhappy child? Will He do less than a mother does for hers? Oh, no. He will never turn away his face; He will seek his child; He will call it; He will suffer, He will give his heart's blood to win it again, to reconcile it to himself. If God in holy worlds, lives as the giver of bliss, on earth he must live as the Reconciler. This hymn of anguish and home-sickness, which before the memory of man has risen from the earth, this ardent cry, Lord come,' is from eternity to eternity answered by Here, my child.'"

Again,

"Even on this earth God wills that man shall partake of the fullness of this life, but what before all does Christianity say? God is Love. He will therefore never cease to desire the delivery of every man; here, there, in eternity, he will labor for it. God is the only principle ever the same, ever active. O certainly the time will come, when the Son, the eternal word, shall have subdued all to the Father."

Of course I can only glance at this subject, but speak or think lightly of the current literature as we may—one thing is certain, it has mighty power-it is, if true, the full utterance of the thought and feeling, of the philosophy and life of the age. It tells us what men now are and what they are to become hereafter, for the present is the father of the future. I hail the religious tendencies of the literature of the age, therefore, with a kind of rapture. They not only express what has been done in favor of truth in times past, but they clearly foretoken what we may expect in time yet to come. This mighty engine was once employed in an opposite direction; hereafter it will be

5

truer to its mission, and be one means in the hand of the Savior of furthering his truth, and blessing the world. But I have dwelt too long already on these respective considerations. It is not alone the heads and hearts of our opposers and the world at large that are combining with us, my brethren; it is not the literature of the day, and all the genial influences of taste and poetry and piety, but my brethren, if we will look upward,we shall see that the mountains are full of horses and chariots of fire round about us.

I can not but think that the spirits of just men made perfect, that shining band, who have passed the trials and dangers of this life, and are now gathered into the rest of heaven, I cannot but think that they take an interest in our cause, and look down upon our poor labors, and rejoice in our successes. With them the passions and prejudices of this world are over, and they now see in universal humanity an object of deepest love, and the strongest hope. They have come to see as they are seen, and know even as they are also known They have carried their hearts and sympathies into the presence of God; and they who ceased not to labor and pray for all, when here on earth, surely desire nothing less now they are perfected in heaven.

And look, my brethren, at the angels of God, who stand nearer the eternal throne. Are they not or allies? Do they not sympathize with us—

they who rejoice more over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance? Shall not their joy be made full? They see not as poor misguided mortals; they know the dignity and worth of one human soul, even when darkened and defiled by sin, and they will not rest in fullness of joy till they behold the great work accomplished, and a world restored.

But turn your eye still higher. What means that bloody cross on calvary; what mean that crown of thorns, and that pierced and streaming side? Behold, O, my soul, thy Saviour, thine elder brother, the Son of the living God! He dies in ignominy, and yet he is without sin. For whom does he thus die? Thanks be to God he dies for the whole world, for you, my hearers, and for me, and for all-the meanest slave, the chief of sinners, the most undutiful and ungrateful wretch; he died for all: and for all that he might bring them to God. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth," said he, "will draw all men unto me." He has been lifted up: shall he fulfil his prophecy? He died for our sins and he rose again for our justification; and now he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom; and there he must reign, there is a necessity that he should reign, till he hath subdued all things unto himself, and God be all in all. Christ, the blessed Savior, is our ally. He labored, and suffered, and died, and lives for

ever more, and reigns in heaven to effect what we believe and preach! Shall he fail? Christian souls answer me: shall he in whom ye trust and rejoice, fail, and lose one for whom he died?

You have but one answer. If he fails, heaven fails, God fails, for in this great work of human redemption, they are one. Christ is the Father's minister. Then is God also, the infinite God, our ally; and all good spiritual powers are engaged in behalf of our cause. The eternal and changeless Father, who is love, and who will have all men to be saved-the ever blessed Son who gave himself a ransom for all-the holy angels that rejoice in the redemption of sinners, the spirits of just men made perfect in heaven, the hearts and the heads of all good men on earth, the spirit of the age, the tendencies of the public mind in its thousand manifestations, all conspire to aid us in our holy work, and encourage us amidst our toils and sufferings. "Fear not," then, my brother, “fear not, for they that be with us, are more than they that be with them."

6

ORIGIN OF SIN.

Let not the reader be alarmed. I have no design of losing either him or myself. I shall not launch out into a pathless and untried ocean, but endeavor to steer my little bark slowly and safely along within sight of land, and by perpetually watching the chart and throwing the lead, to avoid the rocks and shoals on which so many goodly ships have struck and gone to pieces in times past.

One thing I shall boldly take for granted, viz. that there is sin in the world, be its origin what it may, and even though it had no origin at all. There is sin here, and I charitably hope that no one will dispute the point with me, or even ask for proof, since with the good Jeremy Taylor every one must "confess that to be, which he feels and groans under, and by which all the world is made miserable."

But how sin happened to be here, or whence it came, is a curious question, and one not without the deepest moral interest. It is one, too, that has engaged the attention, more or less, of all think