is the lowly reverence of the heart before God. I desire you, then, to know the proper place and connection of these things. They have reference only to our own feelings or imperfections. God neither demands nor wants them. With God it is neither sinful not to care for architecture, nor for painting, nor for music. He demands only, what all may bring to him, however they may be ignorant of architecture, or of painting, or of music, the contrite, tender, and believing heart. And to think or to teach that these adjuncts be necessary to acceptable worship; to think or to teach that God may be more or less propitiated by them; that God is more or less interested in them; that God can be won more by song than by speech, or can be better pleased that prayer ascends from one building than another; to think or to teach that God inhabits any temple made with hands, or of that temple any particular portion; to think that God can possibly be pleased by gold, or silver, or precious gems wrought into the fabric of a church, or loading what, with too much levity, is called an altar; to think or teach that God can look with anything but pity on the puerility which busies itself with vestments, and trappings, and tapestries, and flowers, and symbols, and processions, and internal arrangements of the house of worship. To think or to teach these things is to have a zeal like unto that which the Jews had, and which Jesus rebuked-one purely of ignorance; is to have a faith in this respect imperfect, as one not satisfied with God's teaching and with the measures he prescribes. It is not to understand, or else not to be content with, the teaching of the Bible. It is to be offended with the mild, the simple, gentle, humble Jesus, and the utter simplicity in which he invites whatever heart may love him to come and speak with him, and learn of him, and receive of him whatever need this time of trial may require, and even to be one with him. Blessed indeed is he who shall not thus be offended in Christ; blessed indeed is he who knows that wherever he is, Christ is on his right hand and on his left, ready to read the unuttered wish of the heart,—ready, if for our good, to grant it.—ELLIOT'S 'Sermons.'

Enacting.

As no man (at least with decency, convenience and comfort) can live in the world without being obliged to divers other inen for their help in providing accommodations for him, so justice and

ingenuity, corroborated by Divine sanctions, do require of him, that in commutation, he, one way or other, should undertake some pains, redounding to the benefit of others.

So hath the great Author of Order distributed the ranks and offices of men, in order to mutual benefit and comfort; that one man should plough, another thrash, another grind, another labour at the forge, another knit or weave, another sail, another trade, another supervise all these, labouring to keep them all in order and peace; that one should work with his hands and feet, another with his head and tongue; all conspiring to one common endthe welfare of the whole, and the supply of what is useful to each particular member, every man so reciprocally obliging and being obliged, the prince being obliged to the husbandman for his bread, to the weaver for his clothes, to the mason for his palace, to the smith for his sword; those being all obliged to him for his vigilant care in protecting them, for their security in pursuing the work, and enjoying the fruit of their industry.

So every man hath a calling and proper business, whereto that industry is required, I need not much to prove, the thing itself in reason and experience being so clearly evident; for what business can be well despatched, what success can be expected to any undertaking, in what calling can any man thrive without industry? What business is there that will go on of itself, or proceed to any good issue, if we do not carefully look to it, steadily hold it in its course, constantly push and drive it forward? It is true, as in nature, so in all affairs, "Nihil movet, non motum," nothing moveth without being moved.

Our own interest should move us to be industrious in our calling, that we may obtain the good effects of being so in a comfortable and creditable subsistence, that we may not suffer the damages and wants, the disappointments and disgraces ensuing on sloth. But the chief motive should be from piety and conscience, for that it is a duty which we owe to God; for God having placed us in our station, he having apportioned to us our task, we being in transaction of our business his servants, we do owe to him that necessary property of good servants, without which fidelity cannot subsist; for how can he be looked on as a faithful servant, who doth not effectually perform the work charged on him, or diligently execute the orders of his master?

St. Paul doth enjoin servants that they should in all things obey their masters, with conscientious regard to God, as therein performing service to God, and expecting recompense from him: and of princes he saith, that they, in dispensation of justice, enacting laws, imposing taxes, and all political administrations, are the ministers of God, attending constantly upon this very thing; and if these extremes, the highest and lowest of all

vocations, are services of God, if the highest upon that score be tied to so much diligence, then surely all middle places, upon the same account of conscience toward God, do exact no less.

If he that hath one talent, and he that hath ten, must both improve them for God's interest; then he that hath two, or three, or more, is obliged to do the same duty proportionably.-BARROW'S 'Sermon on Industry in our Particular Calling.'

INDUSTRY.

NATURE expects mankind should share
The duties of the public care.

Who's born for sloth? To some we find
The ploughshare's annual toil assigned :
Some at the sounding anvil glow;
Some the swift-sliding shuttle throw;
Some, studious of the wind and tide,
From pole to pole our commerce guide;
Some (taught by Industry) impart
With hands and feet the works of art;
While some, of genius more refined,
With head and tongue assist mankind.
Each aiming at one common end,
Proves to the whole a needful friend.
Thus, born each other's useful aid,
By turns are obligations paid.

The monarch, when his table's spread,
Is to the clown obliged for bread;
And when in all his glory drest,
Owes to the loom his royal vest.
Do not the mason's toil and care
Protect him from the inclement air!
Does not the cutler's art supply
The ornament that guards his thigh!
All these, in duty to the throne,
Their common obligations own.
"Tis he (his own and people's cause)
Protects their properties and laws.
Thus they their honest toil employ,
And with content the fruits enjoy.
In every rank, or great or small,
"Tis industry supports us all.

GAY.

No human evil has originated from God. We may fix this truth in our memory as an intellectual postulate. It is equally certain that no natural evil affected man until his own wilful and unnecessary production of moral evil began. This introduced a direful anomaly into human life. If its first occurrence had stood alone, and had been instantaneously regretted, and no resembling sequel had followed, the single transgression would have been a transient misfortune, and man, duly sensible of his error, and resolved not to repeat it, might, by his Creator's compassion and kind forgiveness, have still become a good and happy being.

But instead of the offence recurring no more, it was wilfully repeated by a more flagrant act, and has been followed by an unceasing commission of transgressions, in defiance and disregard of all the laws and commands which the Deity has delivered to mankind for their benefit and improvement. It was impossible for such wrong conduct to take place without social misery and evil following from it, wherever it prevailed. Painful disciplines and correcting agencies were then needed, and were made occasionally to result from some of the departments of nature, as their application was required in order to counteract the mischiefs which man was producing; to lessen his powers of inflicting them; to check their progress or continuance; to confine and abate their evil consequences; and to admonish and dissuade him from committing them, or to disappoint his hopes of profiting by them.

The natural evils which now occur are in this manner a portion of the Divine government of man, which his own persevering perversities have made necessary, while the moral evils he thus produces shall continue.

But nature's inflictions will last no longer than these moral mischiefs are perpetrated. They were no part of the original creation, and will not survive the reason and the necessity of their addition to it.

We perceive this fact in the first state of man in his Eden Paradise. That displayed, sensibly to him then, as it now does historically to ourselves, how happy his Creator desired to make him-but on that condition without which no human happiness can be permanent-the condition that he should be taught and governed by his God. The Creator meant to give him in due

succession, as he has since done, the rules and counsels by which every one must regulate his human life, in order to live with comfort to himself, and in friendship, peace, and safety to others. Submission and steady adherence to these would alone prevent moral evils from coming into the human world. Once arising, these produce and multiply each other; and, as we see in many places abroad, even unparadise the finest habitable regions of our globe. In a thousand instances within our cognizance, we may perceive that man will not suffer God to make him happy. He will pursue his own self-chosen paths of crime, disturbance, and misery, amid the kindest provisions in nature to make his life a blessing. He prefers his own ignorance, errors, and egotism with all their evil consequences, rather than receive and submit to the revelations and guidance of his Creator. Thus he throws away the talisman which would ensure to him the felicities he sighs for.

It is not, therefore, the Creator who has originated evil. It was no part of His system of creation, and never would have appeared in the human world if His legislation and guidance had been accepted and conformed to by mankind. The evils which they have been always persisting to perpetuate or cause, He controls, or modifies, or so applies as to make them remedy or extinguish each other as much as is possible amid such a multitude of human beings, so different and so diverging in thoughts, wills, and wishes from each other. If man would be acquiescing and obedient to His laws and government, and therefore to the revelations which disclose them to us, all moral evils would cease to occur, and no natural afflictions would be allowed to operate after their departure. This is the view we ought to take of the established economy and course of nature under which we are born and live.-TURNER'S Sacred History.'

THE good and evils which befal us here are not so truly to be estimated by themselves as by their effects and consequents. For the Divine Providence which runs through all things hath disposed and connected them into such a series and order, that there is no single event or accident (but what is purely miraculous) but depends upon the whole system, and hath innumerable causes antecedent to it, and innumerable consequents attending it; and what the consequences will be, whether good or bad, singly and apart by itself, yet in conjunction with all those con