3. But there is another step. When the father saw him afar off and noticed his circumstances, and felt a compassion for his condition, he ran to meet him. He did not wait till he heard the full confession; he saw that he was wretched, and he knew that a sense of that wretchedness had induced him to return, as he was poor, and miserable, and destitute, and naked; and with the strength which excited sympathy lent to limbs perhaps partly paralyzed with age, he ran to meet his returning son; and then

4. "He fell on his neck and kissed him." There is something inexpressibly sacred and touching in a scene like this. It will answer for imagination to dwell on; it will not answer for pen to describe. Description wants life to exhibit the characteristics of such a manifestation of affection. It was when the son, the long-estranged prodigal, felt the pressure of the paternal arms, and received on his neck the kiss, and felt on his bosom the warm tears as they flowed down his father's care-worn cheeks, that he uttered the first words of his determination when he took the resolution to return-" And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.'

5. And then we find, in the fifth place, that his father hardly seemed to listen to his self-reproaches. He had returned; it was enough. He was deeply wretched; he had no excuse to make; he humbled himself to the confession; it was enough. And then, as the last step in this history of tenderness and love, he bestowed on the prodigal the marks of a restoration to his favour-"But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on

him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."

This is

Brethren, let not this be misunderstood. only the beautiful drapery which our Lord has seen fit to hang round this most exquisitely touching and instructive portion of the parable; and the one object of it all is just to illustrate, by the most touching emblem gathered out of the instincts of parental affection, the marvellous love of God towards the repentant and returning sinner. Separate, (as any judicious reader of the narrative may do,) separate the mere illustrations from the sober truth, which lies not hid, but dressed within them, and you come at the most consoling position which the Scripture establishes; the favourable regard which the God of all grace and mercy bestows on the man who, truly humbled by a sense of sin, sees the wretchedness of his condition as a sinner, makes up his mind to abandon every thing but the solemn duty of return, and carries into effect that resolution, and receives from a father's love the assurances of pardon. On such an individual God puts the best and most costly robe ever made, even the unspotted robe of the Redeemer's righteousness. He becomes complete in him. He is justified, and in his soul salvation has commenced, to be perfected in glory.

And now, brethren, I have left myself but little space for the concluding improvement of the subject. It is not necessary that I should say much. But I come to you from this parable to make a most withering and appalling appeal to every careless and

scorn.

unconcerned sinner in the house of God this morning. What are you doing? In your impenitence and carelessness and sin, who, who are you resisting? Look back to the tenderness of a Father's love. Your crime is against love. It is love that you despise; it is love that you reject; it is love that you trample under your feet. In all human legislation there are no laws which punish the crime of ingratitude; but well-marked ingratitude to a parent would receive the punishment of this world's reproach and There is not an individual in this house who would not shudder at the thought, that it were possible for him, or for her, to take the assassin's dagger and strike it to the heart of a father or mother. Nature shrinks back in horror from a crime like this. But to a parent's heart there is more of anguish in a thankless child, than in the pointed dagger, or the empoisoned bowl. But this, and all this, impenitent sinners, are you doing. Every year, every month, every week, every day, every hour, every moment, that you are impenitent and unconcerned, is a year, a month, a day, an hour, a moment of ingratitude to God. To God, I say, who hath dealt with you with more than a father's love, more than a father's compassion; for in the midst of your rebellion, your alienation, your sin, he hath sent his Son to die, to open up, through the blood of the cross, a way of access to himself. This hath God done for the lost and ruined race of men. And more! In the Gospel of his grace, he places that Son-that divine and eternal Son, evidently crucified before you every day; read in the Bible; preached in the pulpit. Every day he sends that Son to ask you, in tears, in agony, and blood, to repent and turn to God; to lay hold of the Gospel mercy, and save your souls alive.

Return, oh wanderer return,

And seek a father's melting heart;
His pitying eyes thy griefs discern,

His hand shall heal thine inward smart.

Return, oh wanderer return,

Thy Saviour bids thy spirit live;
Go to his bleeding feet and learn
How freely Jesus can forgive.

Now tell me, ye that slight it all, mercy, and grace, and glory; tenderness-compassion, and love amazing. Tell me, ye that slight it all-"When God riseth up, what will ye do? When he visiteth, what will ye answer him?"

SERMON XI.

THE GREAT WORK OF RELIGION.

NEHEMIAH vi. 3.

I am doing a great work, therefore I cannot come down.

THE great work which Nehemiah was performing was the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, which had been broken down by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and the restoration of the Jewish state from the exceedingly low condition in which it was after the return of the people from captivity. The antecedent history shows the desperate condition in which Jerusalem was left after it was sacked by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. The Lord "brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he