shoes from his feet. The cross is a venerable spot; I love to linger around it, not merely that I may read my title to everlasting life, but that I may study the greatness of God. I use the term advisedly. God never appears to be so truly great, so intensely holy, as when, from the pure energy of principle, He gives Himself, in the person of His Son, to die, rather than that his character should be impugned. Who dares prevaricate with moral distinctions, and talk of death as a greater evil than dishonour, when God, the mighty Maker, died rather than that truth or justice should be compromised? Who, at the foot of Calvary, can pronounce sin to be a slight matter? Here, then, lies the most impressive sanction of Revelation. Not content to promulgate the law with absolute certainty, to put under tribute the whole resources of the invisible world, to lay its hand upon eternity, and make heaven and hell its ministers; it rises yet higher, and seeks to impress us with a subduing sense of the sacredness of rightto make us feel how awful goodness is; it

reveals its inherent greatness unveils its ineffable glory. It does not describe it, but shows it, and we return from the cross with emotions similar to those of Moses, when the name of the Lord was proclaimed, and the goodness of the Lord passed before him in the cleft of the rock. It is the scheme of redemption which crowns the ethical teachings of the Bible. The lesson is sealed at the cross-there, and there only, do we shudder at sin for its own sake, and reverence right for itself.

3. But, impressive as the general truths of morality are rendered by the tragedy of redemption, that would be an inadequate view of the extent of its contributions, which stopped at this point. It goes beyond giving certainty and power to the doctrines of nature. It teaches lessons, and lessons of incalculable value, which philosophy could never have dreamed of It opens a new chapter in the book of Ethics, and invites us to speculations as refreshing by their novelty as they are invigorating by their truth.

It is not sufficiently recollected that the doctrines of the Scriptures in relation to the destiny of man, the nature of holiness, and the means of grace, are answers to the very questions which were earnestly and anxiously agitated in the schools of ancient wisdom, and which the sages of Greece and Rome proved themselves incompetent to solve. I am ashamed to add, that they are answers which multitudes, with the Bible in their hands, have failed to comprehend, and have consequently been left to grope, as if struck by judicial blindness, in a thicker darkness than ever enshrouded the gifted minds of paganism. There is a tenfold nearer approximation to the teachings of the Bible in Aristotle than there is in Paley-more affinity with the Gospel in Cicero than in the whole tribe of utilitarians.

1. First, in regard to happiness, which is universally conceded to be the chief good of man, the conceptions of the Scriptures are noble and exalted. The nearest approximation which has been made by unassisted rea

son to their doctrine, is in the philosophy of Aristotle. He failed to compass the whole truth, only because man, by wisdom, cannot find out God. He saw enough, however, to impress us with a sense of the greatness of his genius, and to make us feel that, even amid the ruins of the fall, there are yet traces of our ancient grandeur, and dim forebodings of our future glory. He has taught us enough to make us accept joyfully those fuller disclosures of the Bible which illuminate what in him and nature is dark, and "what is low raise and support.

I do not know that I can set the benefit of revelation in a clearer light than by sketching the doctrine of Aristotle, pointing out its defects, and contrasting the whole truth with the miserable sentiments which prevail, to the corruption of society and the degradation of the age in which we live. His fundamental notion is, that happiness consists in virtuous. energies that it is not mere pleasure-not the gratification which results from the possession of an object congruous to our desires.

That is good only in a very subordinate sense, which simply ministers to enjoyment. The chief good must be something pursued exclusively for its own sake, and never for the sake of anything else; it can never be used as an instrument; it must be perfect and selfsufficient. What, then, is the highest good of man? To answer this question, says Aristotle, we must understand the proper business of man, as man. As there is a work which pertains to the musician, the statuary, the artist, which constitues the good or end of his profession, so there must be some work which belongs to man, not as an individual, not as found in such and such circumstances and relations, but belongs to him absolutely as man. Now, what is this? It must be something which springs from the peculiarities of his nature, and which he cannot share with the lower orders of being. It cannot, therefore, be life, for plants have that; neither can it be the pleasures of sensitive existence, for brutes have them. It must be sought in the life of a being possessed of