mind, as they call it, must go on. Whatever evils there may be in our excited, feverish modern life, it is quite certain that we know through it more than our forefathers knew. The workman knows more of foreign politics than most statesmen knew two centu ries ago. The child is versed in theological questions, which only occupied master minds once. But the question is, whether, like the Divine Child in the Tem ple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom; and whether, understanding more of the mysteries of life, we are feeling more of its sacred law; and whether, having left behind the priests, and the scribes, and the doctors, and the fathers, we are about our Father's business, and becoming wise to God.

III. Growth in grace, "the grace of God was upon Him." And this in three points:

1. The exchange of an earthly for a heavenly home. 2. Of an earthly for a heavenly parent.

3. The reconciliation to domestic duties.

First step: Exchange of an earthly for a heavenly home.

Jesus was in the Temple for the first time. That which was dull routine to others, through dead habit, was full of vivid impression, fresh life, and God, to Him. "My Father's business"-"My Father's house." How different the meaning of these expres sions now from what it had been before! Before, all was limited to the cottage of the carpenter; now, it extended to the temple. He had felt the sanctities. of a new home. In after-life the phrase which He had learned by earthly experience obtained a Divine

significance. "In my Father's house are many man sions."

Our first life is spontaneous and instinctive. Our second life is reflective. There is a moment when the life spontaneous passes into the life reflective. We live at first by instinct; then we look in, feel our selves, ask what we are, and whence we came, and whither we are bound. In an awful new world of mystery, and destinies, and duties, we feel God, and know that our true home is our Father's house, which has many mansions.

Those are fearful, solitary moments, in which the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger inter meddleth not with its joys. Father-mother-cannot share these; and to share is to intrude. The soul first meets God alone. So with Jacob when he saw the dream-ladder; so with Samuel when the Voice called him; so with Christ. So, with every son of man, God visits the soul in secrecy, in silence, and in soli tariness. And the danger and duty of a teacher is two-fold. 1st, to avoid hastening that feeling-hurry. ing that crisis-moment, which some call conversion. 2d, to avoid crushing it. I have said that first religion is a kind of instinct; and if a child does not exhibit strong religious sensibilities, -if he seem "heedless, untouched by awe or serious thought,"— still it is wiser not to interfere. He may be still at home with God; he may be worshipping at home; as has been said, with not less truth than beauty, he may be

Lying in Abraham's bosom all the year,

And worship at the Temple's inner shrine,"

God being with him when he knew it not. Very mys terious, and beautiful, and wonderful, is God's com

muning with the unconscious soul before reflection comes. The second caution is not to quench the feeling. Joseph and the Virgin chid the Child for His absence: "Why hast thou dealt so with us?" They could not understand His altered ways, His neglect of apparent duties, His indifference to usual pursuits. They mourned over the change. And this reminds us of the way in which Affection's voice itself ministers to ruin. When God comes to the heart, and His pres ence is shown by thoughtfulness, and seriousness, and distaste to common business, and loneliness, and solitary musings, and a certain tone of melancholy, straightway we set ourselves to expostulate, to rebuke, to cheer, to prescribe amusement and gayeties, as the cure for seriousness which seems out of place. Some of us have seen that tried; and, more fearful still, seen it succeed. And we have seen the spirit of frivol ity and thoughtlessness, which had been banished for a time, come back again, with seven spirits of evil more mighty than himself, and the last state of that person worse than the first. And we have watched the still small voice of God in the soul silenced. And we have seen the spirit of the world get its victim back again, and incipient Goodness dried up like morning dew upon his heart. And they that loved him did it-his parents, his teachers. They quenched the smoking flax, and turned out the lamp of God lighted in the soul.

The last step was reconciliation to domestic uties. He went down to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. The first step in spirituality is to get a distaste for common duties. There is a time when creeds, ceremonies, services, are distasteful; when the conven

tional arrangements of society are intolerable burdens; and when, aspiring with a sense of vague longing after a goodness which shall be immeasurable, a duty which shall transcend mere law, a something which we cannot put in words, all restraints of rule and habit gall the spirit. But the last and highest step in spirituality is made in feeling these common duties again divine and holy. This is the true liberty of Christ, when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not in shrinking from our distasteful occupations, but in fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin. And this is the blessed second childhood of Christian life. All the several stages towards it seem to be shadowed forth with accurate truthfulness in the narrative of the Messiah's infancy. First, the quiet, unpretending, unconscious obedience and innocence of home. Then, the crisis of inquiry; new, strange thoughts, entrance upon a new world, hopeless seeking of truth from those who cannot teach it, hearing many teachers, and questioning all; thence bewilderment and bitterness, loss of relish for former duties; and small consolation. to a man in knowing that he is further off from heaven than when he was a boy. And then, lastly, the true reconciliation and atonement of our souls to God- -a second spring-tide of life, a second Faith deeper than that of childhood, not instinctive, but conscious trust, childlike love come back again, childlike wonder, childlike implicitness of obedience, only deeper than childhood ever knew. When life has got a new mean. ing; when "old things are passed away, and all things are become new;" when earth has become irradiate with the feeling of our Father's business and our Father's Home.

--

XVI.

[Preached January 9, 1853.]

CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF SIN

LUKE xix. 10. "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

THESE words occur in the history which tells of the recovery of Zaccheus from a life of worldliness to the life of God. Zaccheus was a publican; and the publicans were outcasts among the Jews, because, having accepted the office, under the Roman government, of collecting the taxes imposed by Rome upon their brethren, they were regarded as traitors to the cause of Israel. Reckoned a degraded class, they became degraded. It is hard for any man to live above the moral standard acknowledged by his own class; and the moral standard of the publican was as low as pos sible. The first step downwards is to sink in the esti mation of others, the next, and fatal step, is to sink in a man's own estimation. The value of character is, that it pledges men to be what they are taken for. It is a fearful thing to have no character to support ---nothing to fall back upon, nothing to keep a man up to himself. Now, the publicans had no character.

Into the house of one of these outcasts the Son of Man had entered. It was quite certain that such an

20

(229)