African desert, who had lain down to die, roused him to faith in that Love which had so curiously arranged the minute fibres of a thing so small, to be seen once and but once by a human eye, and carried him, like Elijah of old, in the strength of that heavenly repast, a journey of forty days and forty nights to the sources of the Nile; yet who could have suspected divinity in a beetle, or theology in a moss?

II. The causes of the astonishment.

The reasons why he marvelled may be reduced under two heads.

1. The Centurion was a Gentile; therefore unlikely to know revealed truth.

2. A soldier, and therefore exposed to recklessness, and idleness, and sensuality, which are the temptations of that profession. But he turned his loss to glorious gain.

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The Saviour's comment, therefore, contained the advantage of disadvantages, and the disadvantages of advantages. The former," Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." The latter, "The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

There are spirits which are crushed by difficulties; others would gain strength from them. The greatest men have been those who have cut their way to success through difficulties. And such have been the greatest triumphs of art and science; such too of religion. Moses, Elijah, Abraham, the Baptist, the giants of both Testaments, were not men nurtured in the hothouse of

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religious advantages. Many a man would have done good if he had not a superabundance of the means of doing it. Many a spiritual giant is buried under mountains of gold.

Understand, therefore, the real amount of advantage which there is in religious privileges. Necessary, especially for the feeble, as crutches are necessary; but, like crutches, they often enfeeble the strong. For every advantage which facilitates performance and supersedes toil, a corresponding price is paid in loss. Civilization gives us telescopes and microscopes; but it takes away the unerring acuteness with which the savage reads the track of man and beast upon the ground at his feet; it gives us scientific surgery, and impairs the health which made surgery superfluous.

So, ask you where the place of religious might is? Not the place of religious privileges, not where prayers are daily, and sacraments monthly, not where sermons are so abundant as to pall upon the pampered taste; but on the hill-side with the Cove-: nanter; in the wilderness with John the Baptist; in our own dependencies where the liturgy is rarely heard, and Christian friends meet at the end of months; there, amidst manifold disadvantages, when the soul is thrown upon itself, a few kindred spirits, and God, grow up those heroes of faith, like the Centurion, whose firm conviction wins admiration even from the Son of God Himself.

Lastly, See how this incident testifies to the perfect Humanity of Christ. The Saviour "marvelled; " that wonder was no fictitious semblance of admiration. It was real genuine wonder. He had not expected to find such faith, The Son of God increased in wisdom

as well as stature. He knew more at thirty than at twenty. There were things He knew at twenty which He had not known before. In the last year of His life, He went to the fig-tree expecting to find fruit, and was disappointed. In all matters of Eternal truth- principles, which are not measured by more or less trueHis knowledge was absolute; but it would seem that in matters of earthly fact, which are modified by time and space, His knowledge was like ours, more or less dependent upon experience.

Now, we forget this,--we are shocked at the thought of the partial ignorance of Christ, as if it were irrev erence to think it; we shrink from believing that He really felt the force of temptation, or that the Forsakenness on the Cross and the momentary doubt have parallels in our human life. In other words, we make that Divine Life a mere mimic representation of griefs that were not real, and surprises that were feigned, and sorrows that were theatrical.

But thus we lose the Saviour. For it is well to know that He was Divine; still, if we lose that truth, we should still have a God in heaven. But if there has been on this earth no real, perfect human life, no Love that never cooled, no Faith that never failed, which may shine as a loadstar across the darkness of our experience, a Light to light amidst all convictions of our own meanness and all suspicions of others' littleness, — why, we may have a Religion, but we have not a Christianity. For, if we lose Him as a Brother, we cannot feel Him as a Saviour.

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XI.

[Preached July 27, 1851.]

THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING.

GAL. vi. 1, 2. “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."

It would be a blessed thing for our Christian society if we could contemplate sin from the same point of view from which Christ and His apostles saw it. But in this matter society is ever oscillating between two extremes - undue laxity and undue severity.

In one age of the Church, the days of Donatism, for instance,men refuse the grace of repentance to those who have erred; holding that baptismal privileges once forfeited cannot be got back-that for a single distinct lapse there is no restoration.

In another age, the Church, having found out its error, and discovered the danger of setting up an impossible standard, begins to confer periodical absolutions and plenary indulgences, until sin, easily forgiven, is as easily committed.

And so too with societies and legislatures. In one period puritanism is dominant, and morals severe.

There are no small faults. The statute-book is defiled with the red mark of blood, set opposite innumerable misdemeanors. In an age still earlier, the destruction of a wild animal is punished like the murder of a man. Then, in another period, we have such a medley of sentiments and sickliness that we have lost all our bearings, and cannot tell what is vice and what is goodness. Charity and toleration degenerate into that feeble dreaminess which refuses to be roused by stern views of life.

This contrast, too, may exist in the same age, nay, in the same individual. One man gifted with talent, or privileged by rank, outrages all decency: the world smiles, calls it eccentricity, forgives, and is very merciful and tolerant. Then, some one, unshielded by these advantages, indorsed neither by wealth nor birth, sins, not to one-tenth, nor one tenthousandth part of the same extent; society is seized with a virtuous indignation-rises up in wrath — asks what is to become of the morals of the community if these things are committed; and protects its proprietors by a rigorous exclusion of the offender, cutting off the bridge behind him against his return forever.

Now, the Divine Character of the New Testament, is shown in nothing more signally than in the stable ground from which it views this matter, in comparison with the shifting and uncertain standing-point from whence the world sees it. It says, never retract ing nor bating, "The wages of sin is death." It speaks sternly, with no weak sentiment, "Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee." But, then it accepts every excuse, admits every palliation;