world are irreversible, are these things prepared for obedient love: An inspiration as true, as real, and as certain, as that which ever prophet or apostle' reached, is yours, if you will.

And if obedience were entire and love were perfect. then would the Revelation of the Spirit to the soul of man be perfect too. There would be trust expelling care, and enabling a man to repose; there would be

love which could cast out fear; there would be a sympathy with the mighty All of God. Selfishness would pass, Isolation would be felt no longer-the tide of the universal and eternal Life would come with mighty pulsations throbbing through the soul. To such a man it would not matter where he was, nor what to live or die would be alike. If he lived, he would live unto the Lord; if he died, he would die to the Lord. The bed of down, surrounded by friends, or the martyr's stake, girt round with curses,—what matter which? Stephen, dragged, hurried, driven, felt the glory of God streaming on his face: when the shades of faintness were gathering round his eyes, and the world was fading away into indistinctness," the things prepared" were given him. His spirit saw what" Eye had never seen." The later martyr bathes his fingers in the flames, and while the flesh shrivels and the bones are cindered, says, in unfeigned sincerity, that he is lying on a bed of roses. It would matter little what he was,-the ruler of a kingdom, or a tailor grimed with the smoke and dust of a workshop. To a soul filled with God, the difference between these two is inappreciable: as if, from a distant star, you were to look down upon a palace and a hovel, both

dwindled into distance, and were to smile at the thought of calling one large and the other small.

No matter to such a man what he saw or what he heard; for every sight would be resplendent with beauty, and every sound would echo harmony: things common would become transfigured, as when the ecstatic state of the inward soul reflected a radiant cloud from the frame of Christ. The human would become Divine,-life, even the meanest, noble. In the hue of every violet there would be a glimpse of Divine affection, and a dream of Heaven. The forest would blaze with Deity, as it did to the eye of Moses. The creations of genius would breathe less of earth and 'more of Heaven. Human love itself would burn with a clearer and intenser flame, rising from the altar of self-sacrifice.

These are "the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." Compared with these, what are loveliness, the eloquent utterances of man,— the conceptions of the heart of Genius? What are they all to the serene stillness of a spirit lost in love: the full, deep rapture of a soul into which the Spirit of God is pouring itself in a mighty tide of Revelation?

11.

[Preached June 6, 1849.]

PARABLE OF THE SOWER.

CONFIRMATION LECTURE.

MATT xiii. 1-10. "The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the seaside. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth : and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

BEFORE the reception of the Lord's Supper on Sunday next, I have been anxious to address you, my young friends, once more, in order to carry on the thoughts, and, if possible, deepen the impressions of Tuesday last. During the last few weeks, you have been subjected to much that is exciting; and in proportion to the advantage is the danger of that excitement. A great part of the value of the rite of Con firmation consists in its being a season of excite ment or impression. The value of excitement is, that

it breaks up the old mechanical life, which has become routine. It stirs the stagnancy of our existence, and causes the stream of life to flow more fresh and clear. The danger of excitement is the probability of reac tion. The heart, like the body and the mind, cannot be long exposed to extreme tension, without giving way afterwards. Strong impressions are succeeded by corresponding listlessness. Your work, to which you have so long looked forward, is done. The profession has been made; and now, left suddenly, as it were, with nothing before you, and apparently no answer to the question What are we to do now?-insensibly you will feel that all is over, and the void within your hearts will be inevitably filled, unless there be great vigilance, by a very different class of excitements. This danger will be incurred most by those precisely who felt most deeply the services of the past week. The parable I have selected dwells upon such a class of dangers.

No one who felt, or even thought, could view the scene of Tuesday last without emotion. Six or seven hundred young persons solemnly pledged themselves to renounce evil in themselves and in the world, and to become disciples of the Cross. The very color of their garments, typical of purity, seemed to suggest the hope and the expectation that the day might come when they shall be found clothed with that inward righteousness, of which their dress was but a symbol; when "they shall walk with Him in white, for they are worthy." As yet fresh in feeling, as yet untainted by open sin, who could see them without hoping

that?

My young friends, experience forces us to correct

that sanguine anticipation. Of the seven hundred who were earnest then, it were an appalling question to ask how many will have retained their earnestness six months hence, and how much of all that which seemed so real will be recognized as pure, true gold, at the last Great Day. Soon some will have lost their innocence; and some will have become frivolous and artificial; and the world will have got its cold, deadening hand on some. Who shall dare to guess in how many the best-raised hopes will be utterly disappointed?

Now, the question which presents itself is, How comes so much promise to end in failure? And to this the parable of the sower returns a reply.

Three causes are conceivable: It might be the will —or, if you venture so to call it, the fault of Him who gave the Truth. Or, it might be some inherent impotency in the Truth itself. Or, lastly, the fault might lie solely in the soil of the heart.

This parable assures us that the fault does not lie in God, the sower. God does not predestine men to fail. That is strikingly told in the history of Judas:"From a ministry and apostleship Judas fell, that he might go to his own place." The ministry and apostleship were that to which God had destined him. To work out that, was the destiny appointed to him, as truly as to any of the other apostles. He was called, elected, to that. But when he refused to execute that mission, the very circumstances which, by God's decree, were leading him to blessedness, hurried him to ruin. Circumstances prepared by Eternal Love became the destiny which conducted him to everlasting doom. He was a predestined man