V.

[Preached October 20, 1850.]

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. - ZACCHEUS.

LUKE xix. 8.

"And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-fold."

THERE are persons to whom a religious life seems smooth and easy. Gifted by God constitutionally with a freedom from those inclinations which in other men are tyrannous and irresistible, endued with those aspirations which other men seem to lack,-it appears as if they were born saints.

There are others to whom it is all a trial, - a whole world of passions keep up strife within. The name of the Spirit which possesses them is Legion. It is hard fight from the cradle to the grave, up-hill work,

toil all the way; and at the last it seems as if they had only just kept their ground.

There are circumstances which seem as if intended as a very hot-bed for the culture of religious principle, in which the difficulty appears to be to escape being religious.

There are others in which religious life seems impossible. For the soul, tested by temptation, is like iron tried by weights. No iron bar is absolutely in

frangible. Its strength is tested by the weight which it will bear without breaking. No soul is absolutely impeccable. It seems as if all we can dare to ask, even of the holiest, is, how much temptation he can bear without giving way. There are societies amidst which some are forced to dwell daily, in which the very idea of Christian rest is negatived. There are occupations in which purity of heart can scarcely be conceived. There are temptations to which some are subjected in a long series, in which to have stood. upright would have demanded not a man's but an angel's strength.

Here are two cases: one in which temperament and circumstances are favorable to religion; another, in which both are adverse. If life were always the brighter side of these pictures, the need of Christian instruction and Christian casuistry, that is, the direc tion for conduct under various supposable cases,would be superseded. The end of the institution of a Church would be gone; for the Church exists for the purposes of mutual sympathy and mutual support. But the fact is, life is for the most part a path of varied trial. How to lead the life divine surrounded by temptations from within and from without, how to breathe freely the atmosphere of heaven, while the feet yet touch earth, how to lead the life of Christ, who shrunk from no scene of trying duty, and took the temptations of man's life as they came, or how even to lead the ordinary saintly life, winning experi ence from fall, and permanent strength out of moment. ary weakness, and victory out of defeat, this is the problem..

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The possibility of such a life is guaranteed by the

history of Zaccheus. Zaccheus was tempted much, and Zaccheus contrived to be a servant of Christ. It we wanted a motto to prefix to this story, we should append this: The successful pursuit of religion under difficulties.

These, then, are the two branches of our thoughts to-day:

I. The hindrances to a religious life.

II. The Christian triumph over difficulties.

1. The hindrances of Zaccheus were two-fold: partly circumstantial partly personal. Partly cir cumstantial, arising from his riches and his profession of a publican.

Now, the publican's profession exposed him to temptation in these three ways: First of all, in the way of opportunity. A publican was a gatherer of the Roman public imposts. Not, however, as now, when all is fixed, and the government pays the gath erer of the taxes. The Roman publican paid so much to the government for the privilege of collecting them; and then indemnified himself, and appropriated what overplus he could, from the taxes which he gathered. There was therefore, evidently, a temptation to over-charge, and a temptation to oppress. over-charge, because the only redress the payer of the taxes had was an appeal to law, in which his chance was small before a tribunal where the judge was a Roman, and the accuser an official of the Roman government. A temptation to oppress, because the threat of law was nearly certain to extort a bribe. Besides this, most of us must have remarked that a certain harshness of manner is contracted by those

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who have the rule over the poor. They come in contact with human souls only in the way of business. They have to do with their ignorance, their stupidity, their attempts to deceive; and hence the tenderesthearted men become impatient, and apparently unfeeling. Hard men, knowing that redress is difficult, become harder still, and exercise their authority with the insolence of office; so that, when to the insolence of office and the likelihood of impunity there was superadded the pecuniary advantage annexed to a tyrannical extortion, any one may understand how great the publican's temptation was.

Another temptation was presented: to live satisfied with a low morality. The standard of right and wrong is eternal in the heavens- unchangeably one and the same. But here on earth it is perpetually variable, it is one in one age or nation, another in another. Every profession has its conventional morality, current nowhere else. That which is permitted by the peculiar standard of truth acknowledged at the bar, is falsehood among plain men; that which would be reckoned in the army purity and tenderness, would be elsewhere licentiousness and cruelty. There is a parliamentary honor quite distinct from honor between man and man. Trade has its honesty; which, rightly named, is fraud. And in all these cases the temptation is to live content with the standard of a man's own profession or society; and this is the real difference between the worldly man and the religious man. He is the worldling who lives below that standard, or no higher; he is the servant of God who lives above his age. But you will perceive that amongst publicans a very little would count much; that which would be

laxity to a Jew, and shame to a Pharisee, might be reckoned very strict morality among the publicans.

Again; Zaccheus was tempted to that hardness in evil which comes from having no character to support. But the extent to which sin hardens depends partly on the estimate taken of it by society. The falsehood of Abraham, the guilt and violence of David, were very different in their effect on character in an age when truth, and purity, and gentleness, were scarcely recognized, from what they would be now. Then, Abraham and David had not so sinned against their conscience as a man would sin now in doing the same acts; because their consciences were less enlightened. A man might be a slave-trader in the Western hemi sphere, and in other respects a humane, upright, honorable man. In the last century, the holy Newton of Olney trafficked in slaves after becoming religious. A man who had dealings in this way in this country could not remain upright and honorable, even if it were conceivable that he began as such; because he would either conceal from the world his share in the traffic, and so, doing it secretly, would become a hypocrite; or else he must cover his wickedness by effrontery, doing it in defiance of public shame, and so getting seared in conscience. Because, in the one case, the sin, remaining sin, yet countenanced by soci ety, does not degrade the man, nor injure his con science, even to the same extent to which it would ruin the other, whose conscience must become seared by defiance of public shame. It is scarcely possible to unite together the idea of an executioner of public justice and a humble, holy man. And yet, assuredly, not from anything that there is unlawful in the office: