wailings audible; as if Heaven had lifted her portals, and disclosed to mortal vision her crowns and thrones, and whatever else goes to constitute her glory. I remember to have heard one of the most intelligent men in Scotland, and yet not one who sympathized with Dr. Chalmers in his religious views and feelings, remark, that he had heard from him strains of eloquence, especially on one occasion on the floor of the General Assembly, which not only greatly exceeded anything that he had ever heard from any other person, but he fully believed equalled the highest efforts of Demosthenes himself.

What has been said of the mental and moral qualities of this great man, may farther explain to us the fact that he was so eminently a philanthropist. There was not a department of human want or woe that escaped his wakeful and discerning eye; nor one which his circumstances allowed him to reach, in which he was not an active and efficient laborer. He sympathised with the slave under the wrongs which he suffered, and lent his eloquent voice and eloquent pen for his redemption. He remembered the perishing heathen, and was the life of every project for sending them the gospel, that was started within his reach. He considered especially the cause of the poor, in relation not only to their own intellectual and moral education, but to the common benefit of the race; and to this the energies of his great mind were especially directed. I do not undertake to pronounce upon the soundness of all the views he may have held, or the expediency of all the measures he may have urged, in connexion with this general subject; but that he labored in this cause as if he were acting under the influence of a ruling passion)—that in general he labored with great wisdom as well as great energy, and that his labors tell and will tell most benignly through many generations, both upon his country and upon his race, I may assert anywhere without the fear of contradiction. It required a heart full of love to God and man, like his, to dictate the high purpose of giving so much of his life to the improvement of the humbler classes; and it required the vast comprehension, the indomitable energy, the untiring perseverance, the seraphic eloquence that he possessed, to contrive and put into operation that system of Christian economics which has already immortalized him as the benefactor of the poor.

It were to be expected, moreover, that a mind like his should lend itself vigorously and cordially to the cause of religious freedom; and I bless God that he was not suffered to die, till the honor of having achieved a glorious triumph in this cause, was awarded to him. I say not this in the spirit of party crimination, as if there were not in that memorable conflict great and good men who saw with other eyes and acted another part, and yet were honest in doing

We are not to forget the power of education, the power of habit, over the judgment and even the conscience. Chalmers himself,

during the greater part of his life, was a very champion in the cause of ecclesiastical establishments; and I believe he held to the theory, in some form or other, to the last; and we scarcely marvel at it when we remember that he was nursed in the bosom of an establishment; that his earliest religious associations were identified with it; that it opened to him his field of labor, and supplied him, to a great extent, with his means of usefulness. If you reproach him for his adherence to what you consider a false system, you forget that he was a man, or rather you virtually assume to be more than a man yourself. But though he had always defended the union of church and state up to a certain point, believing as he did that this was most conducive to the perpetuation and progress of true religion, yet when he became satisfied that the state was assuming spiritual dominion-was interfering with the liberty wherewith Christ makes his disciples free, he instantly took the attitude of stern resistance. He reasoned, he expostulated, he predicted results, he poured his honest and glowing eloquence into the ear of those who stood nearest the throne; but when all proved unavailing, he bowed to the dictates of sovereign conscience, and went out, weeping and yet rejoicing, the captain of a great host of the Lord's freemen. Oh, that was a day memorable in the annals of religious liberty-a day that will bear witness to all coming generations of the might and the majesty of Christian principle; and rely on it, it will be chronicled with the greater glory, because it will associate itself for ever with his venerable name.

If there has been a man in modern times of whom it may be said emphatically that his field was the world, that man is Dr. Chalmers. He wrought with mighty power upon the destinies, not merely of a nation, but of his race. Scotland was indeed his immediate theatre of action; but such is the relation that Scotland, as a fountain of intellectual and moral renovation, bears to the world, that every effort directed especially to her improvement, vibrates in a thousand nameless influences to the ends of the earth But he acted not only indirectly, but directly upon other countries than his own. Wherever his writings have circulated, (and they are household words wherever the English language is spoken) they have a powerful though insensible agency in moulding and elevating human character.

If I were to attempt an estimate of the influence of this wonderful man, as it has been and is hereafter to be exerted upon the world, I should speak first, of what he has done for the cause of a pure Christianity. I should ask you to estimate, if you could, the privilege of being able in a conflict with the enemies of our holy religion, to point to one of such rare endowments and such superlative excellence, and to say that he accounted it his highest glory to be an humble learner in the school of Christ. I should next refer to that noble vindication of the claim of Christianity to

a divine origin, in the prosecution of which he first attained to an experience of its life-giving energy, and in the study of which, misgiving and terror, and finally conviction, have not unfrequently overtaken the boldest skepticism. I should speak then of the wonderful charm with which his eloquence hath invested evangelical truth, without diminishing aught of its power; of the just proportions in which he has brought out the various parts of the Christian system, so that each part sustains its legitimate relation to every other, and the whole is rendered the most attractive and the most effective. I should undertake to show that to him more than any other man belongs the honor of having established a goodly fellowship between Science and Christianity; for it was his astronomical discourses that gave the first great impulse on this subject to the popular mind; and that was only the beginning of a bright series of efforts which he directed to the same object. I should dwell, moreover, upon the acknowledged fact that he has set forth the Christian religion, not only as an eminently spiritual and practical, but an eminently intellectual thing; and that those who will have it that its doctrines are the appropriate food of weak minds, may find in every part of his writings a rebuke that should not only awe them into silence, but cover them with confusion.

But it would be an inadequate view of the extent of his influence which should include that only which he has done for the cause of evangelical truth: to do justice to such a theme, it would be necessary to trace out the practical workings of his great mind in the general progress of human society; more particularly to ascertain the results of the plans which he projected, of the agencies which he originated, with a view to the elevation of the lower classes. Especially would it be necessary to illustrate the importance of that last and greatest movement of his life, in its bearings on the universal reign of religious freedom, and the ultimate regeneration of the world. I look over the nations now, and the multitude are subjected to a debasing and withering thraldom. Even where liberty of conscience is in some sense recognized, there are still almost everywhere trammels which the dignity of the rational man requires should be shaken off. I mark the heavings of human society, in some instances even the tottering of thrones, which proclaim in no equivocal manner that it shall not always be so. Wait till the history of what is now in progress shall be written, and you will find the banners of an unshackled freedom waving over all the nations; and I am no prophet if it does not then appear that Scotland had a mighty agency in this work, and that some of her noblest efforts were put forth in the person of the illustrious man whose virtues we commemorate.

If Chalmers had any contemporary with whom he might be fittingly compared, it was Robert Hall. But while in some respects

they were strikingly alike, in others they were no less strikingly dissimilar. Both possessed transcendant intellectual gifts; both were fine examples of simplicity and humility; both were constituted with a glowing and generous enthusiasm; both were the idols of their country, and the admiration of the world. But admitting that they had the same degree of intellectual capacity, Chalmers had the more glowing imagination, Hall the more exquisite taste. Chalmers kept you entranced by the endlessly diversified hues which his mind shed upon a single truth; Hall carried you forward from one field of thought to another, with a graceful facility joined to an irresistible energy, which perhaps scarcely any other man ever possessed. Hall's style may be studied as a model to the end of time; whereas Chalmers' style, radiant though it be with beauty and instinct with power, could never serve as a medium for any other thoughts than his own. Hall's life was a perpetual conflict with bodily pain; Chalmers was blessed with a fine constitution, and rarely suffered from disease. As a consequence of this Hall lived chiefly in his study, and only occasionally looked out upon the world; while Chalmers was always on the arena of public action, and moved visibly in every great and good project that invoked his aid. They were not only mutual friends, but each was an admirer of the other's genius; each rejoiced in the other's light; and it is a delightful thought that they now have met again at the close of life's wearisome pilgrimage, in a communion of glorious thought and hallowed feeling, which shall be commensurate with their own immortality. If the extinction of this great light hath caused an unusual gloom to pervade even this distant country, what think you, my friends, of the sorrow which has been diffused through the circles of his more immediate influence; over the country which is honored to call him her son? What say you especially of the tide of grief that must have set in upon that branch of the church which owes not only its rapid growth but even its distinct existence, in a great measure, to his labors and sacrifices? Nor is this the first time that the Free church has had to go into mourning because one of her pillars has been stricken away. The accomplished Welsh, with whom the hopes of her prosperity were in no small degree associated, was cut off, almost whilst she was breathing her earliest thanksgivings to God for his gracious interpositions. And then there was the illustrious Abercrombie,-the Christian philosopher of the age, distinguished alike for the greatness of his mind, the purity of his heart, the benificent activity of his life, and that beautiful modesty that constitutes the finest finish of an exalted character, he too was taken,-and taken so suddenly that his own. children supposed he was yet among them in his accustomed vigor, even after he was in Heaven. Christian brethren, though the ocean separates you from us, and ye hear not these expressions of

our condolence, we share in the sorrows of your bereavement; we bespeak for you the presence of the heavenly Comforter. Venerable Scotland, mourning Scotland, we tender you our heartfelt sympathy; we honor your illustrious dead; but because we belong to the world, we claim that your Abercrombie and your Chalmers, like the light of the morning, or any other of Heaven's universal gifts, are ours also..

SERMON CCCCLVIII.

BY REV. EDWIN F. HATFIELD,

PASTOR OF THE SEVENTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW YORK.

THE SPIRIT AND LIFE OF THE MINISTRY. An Address delivered before the graduating Class of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, June 29th, 1847, in behalf of the Board of Directors.

To raise up, by the blessing of God, a ministry distinguished for learning, energy, and entire consecration to the service of the Redeemer in winning souls, the founders of this Institution cheerfully devoted their time, their thoughts, and their property. The wants of a perishing world affected their hearts, and they resolved to arise and build. They saw the harvest perishing for lack of laborers, or by reason of the lamentable inefficiency of those who had been employed to reap it. And they resolved to make an effort to furnish to the world such a ministry as the world needs.

Our solicitude, dear brethren, in respect to yourselves, ceases not with the dissolution of your immediate connexion with the Seminary. We shall follow you wherever you go, and shall never cease to feel a lively interest in all your future history. If it may please the Great Head of the Church to count you faithful and put you into the ministry, we expect you to make full proof of the ministry.

It forms no part of our intention, on this occasion, to instruct you in the several, or in any of the details of the work of interpreting the sacred oracles, of the composition and delivery of sermons, or of the application of the lessons of ecclesiastical history to the circumstances of the present age. To these details you have long been devoted, under the guidance of skilful instructors. We have the utmost confidence, both in the diligence and ability