its numerous denominations, and presented to view in a sectarian aspect; but the Church composed of all who sincerely love this Sacred Word, and have experienced in their hearts, its sanctifying influence-the invisible Church of God, whose names are written in heaven.

Do you ask where this Church is to be found? We reply, wherever the genial influences of this Word have been felt, infusing life into the dead soul of man, changing its enmity to love, winning its affections over to God, and converting the soul to him. Those who are reconciled to him by the precious blood of that Savior in whom they trust, are his Church.

Tell us not of the exclusive claims which men have set up. Tell us not of the different phases and aspects in which this church is presented to the world, and that one only can be true; for we have the sure testimony of the blessed God, that all who love him in sincerity, united by faith to his Son, shall enter into his rest. Their names are written in heaven; they are his church on earth in whatever Christian association they may be found.

The Word of God contained in the sacred volume, may be differently bound and gilt, according to the fancy of those who possess it; but it contains the same blessed Word, and conveys the same precious truth to the soul: So the Church of Christ exists on earth in different forms, and in different countries, and in different denominations, but it is one and the same Church, because all who belong to it love the same Savior, and strive for the advancement of the same blessed cause.

Our Christian responsibilities lie within the circle of our influence, and we are to do all in our power as members of the Church of Christ, to promote the dissemination of his sacred truth. We are ever to keep this object steadily in view, and to feel, that we are bound not to live unto ourselves, but unto Christ.

3. We may learn for our encouragement the certainty of the universal spread and triumph of the divine Word.

We are assured that it will not return void, and that the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea; and were we disposed to doubt on this subject, there are innumerable testimonies which confirm and establish it.

There are obstacles, it is true, to the spread of the gospel which are yet to be removed, and deficiencies to be supplied. Christian charity needs to be enlarged, and Christian effort put forth with more energy, and in a more humble spirit of dependence and of faith. But, so sure as God is true, these deficiencies will be provided for, and these obstacles overcome. The work is the work of God, and it will certainly be accomplished. It will move forward, not in the wild majesty of the tornado, nor in the fury of a tempest; but the silent and gentle influences of the

Word shall gradually pervade the mass of human mind, as the rain and dew the thirsty earth.

The time is coming, when all who oppose themselves to the progress of this word shall fall before it. The kings and rulers of the earth who tremble for their thrones if this word should prevail, are to be changed in their policy or deprived of their power. The proud and mighty who will not yield themselves to its supremacy, shall be broken without the hand; formality is to give place to the spirit of religion, and all who love God will devote their energies to propagate His truth. It will go forth conquering and to conquer, till all its enemies shall be subdued, and the whole earth shall come under its life-giving influence.

Go

Lift up your eyes, O downcast disciple, and view the evidences of the progress of this blessed cause. Go stand on the plains of India, and hear those idolaters read in their own native tongue of the Savior of men; hear them speak of the waning power of Bramah and of Vishnoo, and of the rising glories of the kingdom of the Redeemer. Go to benighted Africa, and see the untamed passions of the Hottentot subdued, and the bloody warrior sitting, like a little child, at the feet of the missionary of the cross. to the Islands of the Pacific, and behold a nation born to God in a day, the polluted savage changed into a man of prayer, and those dark spots of ignorance and superstition, becoming the abode of civilization, religion and happiness. Go wherever this word has exerted its appropriate influence, and you will see the moral deserts of the world blooming like the rose, barbarous and savage customs giving way before it, ignorance dispelled, and superstition and idolatry abandoned; you will hear the voice of prayer in place of idolatrous shouts over human victims offered in sacrifice, and the sweet songs of Zion ascending from voices hitherto unused to sacred melody. O what changes are transpiring in the world under the influences of the truth!

We hail the day, the glorious day, which is now dawning! The night is past, and the bright tints of the morning now deck the eastern sky. It is time to awake out of sleep. Too long have we already slumbered in unbelief and sin. Fathers and brethren of our beloved Church, awake. Ye who have enlisted in the sacred cause of your Redeemer, awake! awake! Behold the banner of the cross is unfurled! It floats in the breeze! The martial trumpet sounds, for the day is come, and the Lord himself musters his hosts to the battle.

Let the cry be, onward! Press on! press on, ye who have enrolled yourselves as the soldiers of the cross. Press on to victory! Shout, ye ransomed of the Lord, for great will be the day of your triumph!

But, remember, that it is not with carnal weapons that you are to begin, or end the strife. Put up thy sword within the sheath; for

they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual.

Go forth, then, my brethren, and exemplify this'Word of Life in the dark world around you. Teach it to your children, communicate it through the various channels of influence which Christian benevolence opens to you; publish it from the pulpit; send it forth, and let its influence silently pervade the world, and haste to the accomplishment of the great object for which it is designed—the salvation and happiness of guilty and ruined man. "For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be, that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. "Even so blessed Jesus, let thy kingdom come, and let the whole earth be filled with thy glory

NATIONAL PROSPERITY.-A THANKSGIVING SERMON. He hath not dealt so with any nation.-PSALM 147: 20.

Ir is obvious that this sentence is elliptical, and needs the interpolation of the word other, both to make it conformable to the present idiom of our language, and to express the meaning of the author. "He hath not dealt so with any other nation."

The goodness of God to the people of Israel, His distinguishing mercies to the nation which He had chosen for Himself, is a theme to which the mind of the Psalmist seems ever to revert, let the subject which he had undertaken to celebrate be what it may.

For instance, when he would set forth the wonders and the glories of creation; when he speaks, in all the glowing language of the most exalted poetry, of the works of God,-whether seen in the "heavens" which His hands had made,-the "moon and the stars" which He had ordained-or in the "great sea," wherein are all manner of living things; or in the fields and forests with which the earth is covered and adorned, with all their varied productions of flowers, and grass, and trees; or in the air with all its happy inhabitants;-he returns again and again to his beloved theme, the goodness of God to His "chosen nation," to His "Zion," to His "Jerusalem," as manifested in those spiritual blessings which constituted their noblest inheritance.

In some instances, his mind, after descanting on the works of Creation and Providence, pours itself forth in praise and adoration for God's distinguishing favors to His people, in the closing verses of a psalm. Sometimes he mingles both together, and passes from one subject to the other, as if the contemplation of God's goodness and glory in the works of Creation and Providence led him directly to the contemplation of those displayed in the religious

ravens

economy which He gave to His people, and the gracious revelation of His will which is identified with that economy. Of this the psalm from which the text is taken is a remarkable instance. "Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God; who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, to the young which cry. He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion. For He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; He hath blessed thy children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. He sendeth forth His commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth His ice like morcels: who can stand before His cold? He sendeth out His word, and melteth them: He causeth His wind to blow, and the waters to flow. He sheweth His word unto Jacob, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for His judgments they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord."

But it is when the Psalmist undertakes to recount the dealings of God with the Jews as a nation, and gives us those beautiful epitomes of their history which are contained in some of his sweet lyrical compositions, which are perfect models of this sort of writing, that we meet most frequently with those outburstings of a grateful heart, filled with holy joy and gratitude in the retrospective survey of God's goodness, temporal and spiritual, to the people over whom he was called in his providence to reign. How he delights to celebrate God's goodness to them as a people from the first! How often he reverts to His wonders in Egypt, in the Red Sea, in the Wilderness, and during the period of their becoming planted in the land promised of old to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But great as was His providential goodness to them as a nation, it was as nothing in comparison with His spiritual blessings, the chiefest of which was the fact that He had made them the depositaries of His "word," His "statutes," His "testimonies," His "judgments," His "ordinances," His "precepts." His soul seems as if it could not find words adequate to express its admiration of that glorious Revelation which God had made of His will and character to the people of Israel, and which had not then been imparted to other nations.

And well might the Psalmist extol the goodness of Jehovah to the nation to which he belonged, and over which he was made a ruler. Never had nation such a wonderful history! They were God's chosen race; He watched over them from their infancy as