MY HAME. O! I ha'e lo'ed the heather hills, Doon through the sleepin' leaves, to watch My cantie hame! its roof o' strae, Aneath yon thorn I see Yon cosie bush that couthie keeps My wife an' bairnies three. There's green girse roun' my cottage sma', An' by it rins a stream, Whilk ever sings a bonnie sang To glad my cantie hame. Whan delvin' in the sheugh at e'en, Its curlin' reek I see, I ken the precious things at hame I ken my restin' chair is set, Whar' comes the warmest gleam— I ken there 're langin' hearts in thee, My ain wee cantie hame. O! can I do but luve it well, The Sabbath's wander in the wuds, An' by the saut-sea faem The warst o' hearts might learn to lo'e My ain wee cantie hame. The blessin's o' a hame-bless'd heart Be warm upon it a' On wife an' bairns may love an' peace Like sunbeams joyous fa'! Blithe thochts are rinnin' through my heart, O! thochts I canna' name Sae glad are they-while thinkin o' My ain wee cantie hame. THE UPRIGHT MAN. A SERMON BY REV. ANDREW P. PEABODY. PSALM XV. 1, 2. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. How perfect this description of character! How does it fill full with deep and glorious meaning the simple phrase, an upright man! He, that walketh uprightly,—whose hands work no deceit, whose lips utter no guile. He renders to all their rightful dues, not only in mere money and chattels, but in fair report and honest fame. He keeps every social obligation inviolate. This is a high praise, though it implies nothing more than honesty, which is a virtue of negations; for in a selfish and lucre-loving world, one who is with the world, and of it, finds many temptations to swerve from strict honesty.-But the Psalmist's upright man does more. His integrity is an active principle. He is actively just. He worketh righteousness. He is so enamoured with that law of justice, which is the perfection of love, the foundation of God's throne, the harmony of the universe, that he makes every righteous cause his own, lends his voice and arm wherever he can remedy wrong, and becomes God's co-worker in breaking every yoke, and subduing into equity all the jarring elements of man's estate. But this is not all. His virtue is not external, not a godlike habit; but a principle. He speaketh the truth in his heart. He is faithful to his light, true to his convictions of duty, honest to the verdict of his conscience and the voice of his God, taking his seat fast by the oracles of Heaven's will, and making that will his sole starting point in every career of life. The upright man, in this broad significancy, would be a theme for volumes, rather than for a sermon. Yet it may not be unprofitable to view these elements of character in their mutual bearing, as blending to constitute human perfection. 1. He that walketh uprightly.—I apprehend that the limits of common honesty are sadly narrowed down in the esteem and conduct of many, who would claim to be regarded as upright men. They deem all honest, that the law allows,-that only dishonest, which the law forbids. The legislature furnish their standard of right. How many there are, who feel that what cannot be legally enforced is not morally binding! How many, who shake off honest dues, as they would new-shorn locks from their shoulders, as soon as the law discharges them, who imagine that no record can be entered against them in the book of eternal justice, which could not be filed with an earthly court! Custom too is another, an unwritten law, which is prone to invade on the province of honesty. Are there not maxims of trade, practices in business, modes of obtaining advantage, of suppressing a fair and equal knowledge of the facts in a case, ways of making bargains and contracts not strictly mutual, which are upheld by the common consent of high-minded, yea, of Christian men, yet for which they can offer no adequate argument or apology; but can only say, "Such is the universal practice,"-" It has never been called unfair?" Thus is custom made to interpose its broad shield between conscience and many an act on which conscience would frown, were it brought to her light. The truly upright man will not take it for granted, that common practice is necessarily right. But he will decide each individual question as freely and impartially, as if it were presented for the first time and to him alone. Nor are the demands of honesty discharged, when all contracts are fulfilled to the letter without undue advantage taken of law or custom. There are many of what are commonly called the duties of charity, which a man need not be generous, but only just, in order to discharge. Unforeseen circumstances often impose new obligations on a contracting party. Terms, which seemed fair when a contract was made, may become crushingly heavy before it is executed; and, though conscience seldom troubles the man who thus to his own vast profit becomes another's ruin, it hardly requires the science of a babe in Christ, to know how equitably the gospel standard of uprightness would bind a man in such a case to share and lighten his brother's unforeseen burden. Then too the visitations of Providence, by sickness and death, are continually creating circumstances which claim, not by law or custom, but in equity as among brethren, the modifying of contracts, the suspending of demands, the conferring of unstipulated indulgences and gratuities. Honesty also concerns itself with that, which is more precious than money-with character. The upright man knows neither scorn, nor malice, nor prejudice. He holds his neighbour's fair fame dear as his own, and would no more readily become a slanderer or a talebearer than he would have the snakes of the fabled Medusa hissing about his head. In the heat of party dissension he refuses to judge his opponents by wholesale, and to deal one measure of denunciation and abuse among all. He forgets not the man in the partisan. He frankly owns the gifts of mind and heart, even when exerted in the cause which has not his sympathy. He can no more tolerate misstatements or slanders forged by those with whom he feels and acts, than if they were forged in the opposite camp. He lets no political or religious shibboleth stand in the way of his neighbourly and brotherly sympathy, respect, intercourse and kind offices. 2. The upright man worketh righteousness.-He does not confine himself to the narrow sphere of his home, his private interests and daily business. In a certain sense, "his field is the world;" that is, he surveys his condition from an elevated point of view. He regards himself as a member of the great brotherhood, holding certain public and general relations, and bound by sacred obligations, that extend to the outermost verge of the social circle, or, at least, that cease only at that point, where his vision fails, and his arm and voice grow powerless. He looks so far as his horizon reaches; and how full is the scene of wrong-doing and wrong-suffering! What a concert fills the air, from every clime, of clanking chains, and lashes, and groans, and smothered sighs! The cry of the oppressed goes up, not only from the slave marts and plantations of the South. It blends with ocean's anthem. It starts from many a poor debtor's cell, and from the iron grates of many a prison-house, from the madman's cage and the moping idiot's corner. It ascends from the scene of many an outcast orphan's bondage, where the child of tender years is bound down to hard work and coarse fare and stripes, in mansions of wealth and plenty; and perhaps with the voice of her wailing rises mock incense from the household altar to insult the face of Heaven. The time was, when the human race might have been divided between the preying and the preyed upon, and hardly a remainder left. Glory to Jesus! those days have past, many a strong rod has been broken, and the oppressor and the oppressed now rejoice together as the Lord's free men. But these two great classes are great still. Nor can the upright man be heedless of the cries and groans of his fellows. He labours, heart and hand, to right all wrong and to break every yoke. Wherever he can make himself heard or felt in a righteous cause, his integrity ceases to be a mantle stiff in its frigid folds, and becomes a consuming fire of holy zeal. The upright man is a philanthropist. Integrity is not the cold, negative virtue, the iceberg, that half of mankind suppose it to be; but warm, sunlike, glowing. It is an impulsive principle. It leads to high and godlike effort and self-sacrifice. And many a flinty heart, that here thought itself upright because it never refused to pay a debt, will find itself at the bar of final judgement stripped of its self-conceit, and held guilty of unnumbered kindnesses neglected, and wrongs that lay unremedied in its daily walk. But this working of righteousness is not enough. Indeed in the machinery of good-doing there is often a sacrifice of integrity. Men band together in the cause of righteousness, merge in the common will their individual sense of right and duty, and follow the multitude in opposition to their own convictions. And to this danger is the principle of association, when carried to excess, always liable. This principle has its foundation in integrity; but undermines integrity when it grows too strong. The principle is in itself just and noble; for there are many yokes to be lifted which a single hand can never lift, many Augean stables to be purged which it would take a moral Hercules to cleanse alone. Nor do I think that we, Liberal Christians, are especially called upon to tremble for the excesses and dangers of this principle of association. We are already too much afraid of it. We need to have it increased and cherished among us. In the good that we do and the influence that we exert, we are too much units and isolated. Hand ought to join hand, heart beat responsive to heart. Nor need we fear lest we feel and act too much in unison, so long as we are faithful to the yet remaining part of the upright man's character. 3. He speaketh the truth in his heart.-This is the perfection of integrity-the climax of human worth. These are the men, whom their race need; and "the Father seeketh such to worship Him.” The truly upright man is not a man of expediency or policy. He gives not up his conscience to the keeping of others. He does not place himself in the breeze of popular feeling, and present himself to be blown about like a senseless vane. He does not go from man to man, from assembly to assembly, crying, "Men and brethren, what shall I do?" He brings low his ear to the oracles of truth. Silent and still he hearkens at her gates. He shuts out the cry of the mul |