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Only the highest source of Inspiration was open to him-the simple thought of God; and to appreciate this so that it might stand in the place of all other supports, an elevation of mind was necessary of which we can but faintly conceive. His successors, on the contrary, were aided by all those human affections which found an all-animating object in him, and the devoted love which he awakened was their efficient motive to do and endure.

It may be asked whether those who were active in the first establishment of his religion, were not moved by those great moral principles which he taught. Undoubtedly they were. But then it was these principles, not merely, nor chiefly, as they were presented in words to their understandings, but as they were far more divinely expressed in his character to their hearts. Truth, not abstractly, but as it filled and transfigured his whole being-this it was that kindled in them a noble zeal, "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." What words could convey to them such a sentiment of love as was expressed in his Cross!

Or, again, it may be intimated that it was the miracles he wrought, that operated so powerfully in convincing and urging onward his followers. It is true his works of power did much; they filled an important and indispensable place in producing that state of feeling in his disciples, requisite to qualify them to carry on what he had begun. But then the main power of his miracles lies not in their mere power, but in their relation to his character, which they help far more strikingly than anything else to glorify,

What a depth of tenderness is laid open, how touching his meekness, what a new lustre is added to all the virtues he exemplified, when we consider them as the virtues of one, endowed with more than regal gifts; with powers exceeding all that Fortune or Genius has ever bestowed on man! Look at the case whichever way you will, the result is the same. It was by the force of his character that the apostles were swayed.

And so it has been and must be always. No cause, religious or political, good or bad, has ever gained a foot-hold in the world, except by the impulse of a leading mind, the energy of some prominent character, some one individual who has been to its adherents the embodiment of the object at which they have aimed. Individuals of this description have so often and so mournfully abused their influence to selfish purposes, they have been so ready to take advantage of the idolatrous attachment of their fellow-men, that it has failed to be seen how deeply this mode of influence is founded in the nature of man. Thus the maxim has gone forth-"principles, not men," a sound maxim but only in a qualified sense. The truth is, principles at best are but imperfectly set forth in a verbal form. Language is an artificial sign and an inadequate one. It may meet and satisfy the understanding and answer important purposes, but it reaches the great springs of human action only indirectly and by aid of association. The conduct, the life of a human being is the true, natural, divine symbol whereby great truths are made to kindle our strongest affections. So that in the very nature of things, men, living men

are required to express in their lives to other men, the great purposes with reference to which they are to be moved.

I make these remarks to show that the stamp of divinity is as visible upon the mode in which Christianity has been communicated to man as upon its substance. The great truths, the paternal providence of God and another life, have been acknowledged to be great and important, worthy of God to teach. But the manner in which they have been revealed has not been recognized, as equally worthy of the Deity. "Why," it has often been asked, "why were not these truths written out upon the firmament, so that all men might read without the possibility of mistake; or proclaimed, as by an archangel's trump, so that the whole world might hear?" Alas! there is much written from of old in unfading characters all over the sky, the earth, and the sea. There are myriads of voices sounding on from eternity to eternity through all the heights and depths of the universe, but where is the seeing eye, the hearing ear? Such methods of revelation as I now refer to, are mere human propositions. The mode actually adopted in the Christian dispensation harmonizes perfectly with the deepest principles of human nature, and displays the same wisdom by which that nature was fashioned. has been addressed through man. One has been raised up to communicate the life of truth through his own life, to point men not into space but into their own souls, there to read the will, and behold the countenance, and feel the spirit of God. In his spiritual features beams the glory of God. The cha

Man

racter of Christ is the rock of Christian faith, the high tower which cannot be hid by the thickest clouds which steam up from the ignorance and corruption of earth, and which assures us that the city of God is there, the dwelling-place of unchanging truth.

As it was from the character of its Founder that Christianity received its first impulse, so by the same force has it been sustained under the crushing weight of the corruptions by which its brightness has been darkened and its beauty deformed, and from the enormity of these corruptions we may form some idea of the force by which they have been resisted. This has been its shield amidst the deep wounds which it has received in the house of its friends. The common impression is, that it owes the influence it has retained, amidst the errors of its adherents, to its great moral principles. True. But, to repeat what I have said, these principles, in an abstract, verbal form, separated from the life of him by whom they were promulgated, lose nearly all their peculiar power. A moral system of almost equal excellence might be gathered from the records of ancient wisdom. Gibbon has remarked in one of his notes that he finds the great social law of Christian love stated in the plainest terms by a writer who flourished ages before Christ. Take from Christianity the original exposition of truth which it presents in its Founder, suppose it to have been first taught by one whose life gave no significance to his words, and it is evident at once how much it must lose. On the contrary, we might erase from the Christian records every general precept, yet so long as the acts and sufferings of Jesus were remembered,

THE SOUL OF HIS RELIGION.

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they would retain an all-commanding influence. The superiority of actions to words has passed into a proverb. But where is it so strikingly shown as in the religion of Jesus Christ? His precepts recommend themselves to our reason; but the application we allow them is narrow or comprehensive according as we appreciate him. We understand them no farther than we understand him. When men, outraged by its corruptions, have been disposed to abjure Christianity altogether, the pure and generous character of its author, dimly discerned indeed, but yet seen in something of its truth, has commanded their respect and prevented them from rejecting a religion promulgated by lips so pure and eloquent. The greatest sceptics have confessed that the character of Christ is too great and too natural not to be a reality.

When we turn from the past to the present and the future, and inquire by what means the improvement of mankind individually and collectively is to be most effectually promoted, we find in the character of Christ untold resources of wealth and power. "Political reform, pressingly enough wanted, can indeed root out the weeds; but it leaves the ground empty, ready either for noble fruits or new worse tares! And how else is a moral reform to be looked for but in this way, that more and more good men are, by a bountiful Providence, sent hither to disseminate goodness; literally to sow it, as in seeds shaken abroad by the living tree? For such in all ages and places is the nature of a good man; he is ever a mystic, creative centre of goodness; his influence, if we consider it, is not to be measured; for his works do not die, but being of eternity, are eternal; and in