tudes have no sort of curiosity to see what is true. There are subordinate ends which are lawful, but they must always be kept in subserviency to the love of truth for itself. What an influence it would exert upon you, upon me, upon all who are engaged in intellectual pursuits, if they were pervaded in the whole soul with this pure and sacred love of knowledge! What student could indulge in indolence, or turn to his lessons as a weary task, or immerse himself in habits which dim the understanding, if he felt in any just proportion to the real state of the case, the transcendent excellence of truth, or the loathsome deformity of error. Let us rise, my brethren, to the dignity of this high argument. You have minds that were made to know-you are constructed with a reference to truth, and you are called upon to purge and unscale your sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance. The streams of science are flowing at your feet, and the food which angels eat, is offered to your palate. Let it never be said that you have neglected these golden oppor

tunities, and turned from the temple of truth to worship at the shrine of ignorance, error, and shame. Resolve in the strength of God this day, that like Isis in search of the mangled body of Osiris, you will go up and down, gathering limb by limb, the scattered frag ments of truth, as your circumstances shall enable you to find them.

This love of truth which I have been endeavouring to recommend, will be of the very last importance to you, to guard you against the deceits of the world. Man walketh in a vain show. Untutored by experience, the young, particularly, are slow to suspect, that the prospects of good, of pleasure, opulence, and power, which stretch in rich luxuriance before them, are an empty pageant. Unskilled in the treachery of the heart and the wiles of the tempter, they can hardly be persuaded that the gilded colours, in which imagination adorns the future, are only a splendid drapery under which are concealed disappointment, sorrow, and vexation. They have yet to learn the emptiness of pleasure, the agonies

of power, and the vanity of wealth. Impetuous in their passions, ardent in their temper, and ignorant of life, they are prone to fix their affections upon some of those beggarly elements which will crumble into ashes at the touch of experience. The prince of darkness, intent upon their ruin, plies his fatal arts of enchantment to lull them into a sleep of false security, to exclude religion from their thoughts, and to conduct them by deceitful promises of good, by lies congenial with his nature, to the shades of death. This, my young friends, is your position, and it is one of immense peril. The world, the flesh, and hell, all conspire by glozing falsehood, to seduce you to perdition. A covering is spread upon the grave and the pit, and the ways of sin are adorned with all that can please the eye, fascinate the ear, or enchant the heart. Your security against these dangers is conviction of the truth. The Word of God which is pre-eminently the truth, and in which a truth-loving heart will lead you to rest, dissipates the spell, reveals the snare, and deliv

ers from the plot. It paints life in its true colours, tears the mask from the face of guilt, disrobes the world of its gorgeous drapery, and points to Him who is emphatically the way, the truth, and the life. All the rays of moral truth ultimately centre in the cross of the Redeemer; and we never reach the summit of wisdom until we attain that life which is alike the knowledge of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ. Every one, says the Saviour, that is of the truth, heareth my voice. None perish but those who love darkness rather than light. A deceived heart turns them aside.

The Love of Truth.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true-think on these things."-PHILIPPIANS, iv. 8.

DISC. III.]

In my last discourse, I endeav

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oured to demonstrate that the love of truth, as such, was a duty, from the constitution of the human mind; the aptitude of truth to enlarge and expand it; the intimate connection betwixt the culture of our moral and intellectual powers, and the impossibility of vindicating the obligation of specific forms, without recognizing the obligation of truth in general. I was led to show that we are responsible for our opinions, in so far as we are responsible for the motives and influences under which we form them; that the operations of the understanding have a moral character, inasmuch as the impulse of curiosity, like all our other springs of action, is subject to the