of Christians in large cities manifold and enduring.—1. Christians in large cities tempted to overlook the guilt of sin. Effect produced on the mind by familiarity. Medical student. An undertaker. A young soldier. Paris on the Sabbath day. Responsibility to God for the way money is spent. Splendid houses, fine dresses, and expensive "style" of some professed Christians. Early depravity.-2. Temptation to engage in worldly amusements. Their number and variety. Gratify the love of strong excitement.-3. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to neglect the religion of the heart. Good impressions transitory and evanescent. Public lectures and meetings. Habits of business. Conversations on experimental religion infrequent. Reading. Absorption of time. Superficial Christians.-4. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to be uncharitable towards one another. Everything tasked to the utmost. A ship, in the wharf and in a storm; her commander. Churches. Individual Christians. Character always in full action.-5. Christians in great cities tempted to be jealous of one another. Lament of an aged tree. Isolated character. Christians but partly sanctified. Dislike of being unnoticed. Slight hold of individuals upon society. Endeavours made to attract attention. Consciousness of the approbation of God. Ought the gospel to remove the artificial distinctions of society? The gospel does not promise temporal benefits. A wealthy Christian not entitled to the respect of his fellow-disciples on account of his riches. Judas. Wrong method of building churches. Self-appointed building committees. "Leading men." Magnificent churches, deeply in debt, not the best instruments of honoring God. Vitality of the gospel, in spite of all temptations. How charity may be increased. How Christians may maintain their ground....

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LECTURE III.-DUTIES PECULIAR TO CHRISTIANS IN GREAT CITIES. "Tɔ do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."-HEB. xiii, 16.

Cæsar's household. Noah. Abraham.-1. Christians, in the large city should remember they are continually surrounded by temptations. Responsibility and duty come with knowledge. Fascination. Eve. Voluntary exposure. Peter and Judas. Final reward proportioned to desert.-2. Christians in great cities should feel that they are bound to act from principle, not from impulse, fashion, or popularity. Wrong standard of morality. A duellist. Public opinion. Popularity and influence. Impulse and principle contrasted. Familiarity with the Bible. Works of practical theology. Fervent prayer.3. Duty of Christians to set their faces against extravagance. Who are safe models? How to find out the value of money. Natural love of dress. Taste. When a Christian female is wrong.-4. Christians in great cities bound to become attached to the cause of Christ. The soul formed for strong attachments. No local attachments in large cities. How attachment to the cause of Christ may

be acquired.-5. Duty of Christians in great cities to feel a high responsibility. Talents. Opportunities for getting and doing good. Belt drawn around ignorance and crime. Conformity to the world. Watchfulness. Prayer..

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LECTURE IV.--DANGERS PECULIAR TO WORLDLY MEN ENGAGED IN BUSINESS IN GREAT CITIES.

Beware lest any man spoil you-after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."-COL. ii. 8.

Use of the term "worldly man." IIis situation exposes him to forget the interests of his soul.-1. Success in business in the great city requires close attention and watchfulness. The counting-room of a man of business. Strength of intellect. Character of some professions. Godliness profitable for this life.-2. The object of the worldly man tends to shut God out from his thoughts. A fashionable watering-place. A nation in a state of warfare.-3. The sympathies of all around endanger the soul of the worldly man. Necessity of appearing to be men of business, as well as of being so.-4. Dangers attend the man of the world, in his business, before and after the question of his success is settled. Incessant toil exhausts the mental energy, and unfits for divine worship. Relaxation. Animalism. Loftiness and pride. Where the gospel has the most visible power.-5. Danger from the money-spirit of the age. The world moves by impulses. Cromwell's time. The Crusades. The Reformation. Waterloo. The master-spirit of this age is the desire for money. Why sought. "Style." Debt and perplexity. The proper and only safe state. Dishonesty. Rash_speculations. -6. Temptation to undervalue truth. The salesman. What a lie is. Reverses of fortune. Mortification. Drunkennesa 54

LECTURE V.-DANGERS PECULIAR TO YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES.

"The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way."-PROV. xiv. 8. The importance of character. Character all that a man needs for success in this life. Milton. Foundations of character must be laid in carly life. To be valuable, must be of slow growth. Self-control. Marshal Turenne. The only safe foundation of character. Danger of handling money not our own.-1. Young men in great cities are tempted to be vain. Castle-building. Dress. Effects of experience. -2. Young men in great cities are tempted to waste their time. The great object of life. Foolish company. Light or corrupt reading. Amusements.-3. Temptation to throw off parental restraint. Desire of independence. The family relation. Benedict Arnold.-4. Temptation to violate the holy Sabbath. An American sailor. Dr. Johnson's rules. An apothecary's apprentice. Sir Matthew Hale. The moral influenee of the Sabbath..

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LECTURE VI.-DANGERS PECULIAR TO YOUNG MEN IN GREAT

CITIES.

Wherewithal shall a young man clearse his way? By taking need toerets according to thy word."-PSALM CXIX. 9.

Designed for the unpolluted. Footsteps of God visible everywhere but in the great city. Man and his works alone seen there.-1. Young men in great cities tempted to gamble. Abundance and variety of the means. Nature of the feeling drawn out by this passion.2. Theatrical amusements. Origin of the theatre. Waste of time. Expense. Evil influence on the mind. The theatre cannot be reformed. The Bible a book of philosophy. Vicious character found at the theatre. Rousseau. The aged Liberius. Licentiousness. -3. Temptation to satisfy the conscience by weak and vain excuses for sin. Youth. Conduct of others, Inconvenience to attend to religion at present. Want of leisure. Too much required. Love of pleasure. Religion gloomy. Loss of friends. Scorn and ridicule. Trials and difficulties. Comparison with others. Differences and imperfections among Christians. Hypocrites in the church, Possibility of bringing disgrace on the cause of Christ, Disbelief in hell. Determination to have their own way. Conclusion ........50

"And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities."-MATT. xi. 1.

WHEN the great Author of the Christian religion was about to establish his kingdom on earth, he showed divine wisdom in selecting instruments by which to do it. He commissioned illiterate men, incapable of forming plans and impositions, that the world might see that the spiritual temples which they reared were the work of God; and, lest this ignorance should lead them into great and fatal mistakes, he took care to guard this point. This was done in two ways; first, by the light of his own example; and secondly, by sending the Spirit of God to guide them "into all truth." Here the two things met; ignorance, to show that they could not devise and execute the. plan of themselves, and the superintending power of God, to keep them from making great mistakes. Hence, when we see the example of Christ, and also that of the apostles, as they. steadily pursued the object, pointing out a particular course of duty, we know that it must be a very important duty.

The ministry of Christ was very much spent upon large citie and towns. The whole book of John is taken up in describing what Christ did and taught at the great national feasts at Jerusalem. Chorazin, Capernaum, and the cities of Samaria and Judea, were the fields of his labours. When he sent out his disciples to announce his approach, he sent them into the cities whither he himself would come: and when warning the

2

THE APOSTLES PREACHED CHIEFLY IN CITIES.

disciples that they would meet with persecutions, he tells them, when thus persecuted in one city, instead of hiding in the country, to flee to another city. And when he gave that great commission, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," he tells them to begin at Jerusalem, the city in which the scattered were gathered from all parts of the earth.

In tracing the labours of the apostles, you will notice that the great cities were the points of attack, and into these they hastened to carry the gospel, even at the risk of life. The first onset upon a world lying in wickedness was at Jerusalem. The first church was gathered there; but there the apostles did not stop. When persecuted and scattered, you do not see them creeping round in hiding places, and in dens and caves of the earth, but going to Samaria, or some other great city, and there preaching Christ and him crucified; and there was great joy in every such city.

So important did God deem it that the gospel should be preached at Rome, the mistress of the earth, that he suffered Paul to be chained there two full years, that he might preach the gospel in Rome also; and to that church the noblest letter ever penned was addressed.

Ephesus contained the great temple of Diana, one of the wonders of the world; and there the Apostle goes and preaches the gospel from house to house, for three years; and there the converted magicians burned their books, to the value of nearly thirty thousand dollars; and to them also was an inspired letter sent. Corinth, polluted to a byword even among the heathen, early received the gospel from the mouths of the apostles. And at Antioch, the third city of the world, ten miles in circumference, Paul and his companion laboured a whole year, and gathered much people. So we might go to Philippi, to Iconium, to the seven cities in which were planted the seven churches of Asia, and to which the special care of Christ addressed as many distinct admonitions, and to many other great cities, and we shall find that it was usual for the apostles, when they went out on a missionary excursion, to go directly to the great cities; and that in them were great and powerful revivals.

There must have been some universal and strong reasons why the apostles did so; and whatever these reasons might have been, they undoubtedly felt that it was of the first importance that the gospel should be preached early, and planted deeply and firmly in great cities.

The example of the prophets, indeed, is to the same point; for when you find them uttering their messages under the very shadow of the throne, it was not, as all will allow, because this