love thy neighbour as thyself. A neighbour is pressed for money, and a profit is realized out of his necessities, which must not be mentioned out of doors. All this, and much like it, is of course confidential, and is never spoken of elsewhere. Here it seems to terminate and be for ever forgotten. But does it terminate here? Alas, the poison is already at work, corrupting the principles of all those young men. The lesson has been learned by all to whom it has been taught, and the practice commencing where the teacher left it, soon grows into habitual dishonesty. You may trace these men into subsequent life. One becomes wealthy by practices which brand him as a sharper. Another loses all character by a shamefully dishonest failure. One flees his country as a defaulter, and another is convicted of forgery. It is fortunate for the chief if these lessons are not practised on himself, and his account of stock, at the end of the year, does not discover discrepancies hard to be accounted for. Was not this man the keeper of the souls of the young men in his employ? When, and where, and by whom were these seeds planted?

But look at the history of every day of our lives, We are always talking, and men are always hearing us. We are always acting, and men are always seeing us. Every word that we speak, and every act that we perform, is contributing something to form the character of the men around us. They are made either better or worse by their intercourse with us, and we cannot prevent it. The effect which we produce on them they will reproduce in their intercourse with others. Thus the fountain of moral influence which we open will flow on, growing deeper and broader even unto the end. In the broad daylight of the judgment morning, all this complicated network will be completely disentangled, and the part which each man has borne in forming the character of his neighbour will be traced back distinctly to its author.

Here let us pause for a moment, to observe the light which is thus thrown upon the sinfulness of sin. It would seem, from all that we know, that moral evil is in its nature infectious, and by necessity reproduces itself for ever. That a single sin must mar our own moral nature, and create a tendency to sin, which, unless corrected, must for ever gain strength, can be easily shown. That it must from our social nature produce the same effect upon others, is also evident. Thus it is that the sin of our first parents is the cause of all the sin and misery that have cursed our race to the present day. Every one of our own sins partakes of the same character. What must then be the desert of the sins of a lifetime? What mortal man can measure, much less make reparation for, the mischief which he has wrought in the universe of God? Surely, by the deeds of the law can no flesh be justified. Well for us is it, that our help is laid upon One mighty to The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin: for he hath magnified the law, and made it honourable. This is the only and allsufficient hope for a sinner.

save.

The bearing of the subject is yet more impressive on those who

profess to be the disciples of Jesus Christ. Let us look at it briefly in this relation.

It is manifest that the children of God are continued on earth, for the express purpose of being keepers of their fellow-men. They were such under the old dispensation. He expected his chosen people to testify for him, and exemplify the superiority of the true religion over every form of idolatry. He looked for the fulfilment of the obligations which they had assumed, when they separated themselves from the heathen, and became his people. Surely, said he, they are my people; children that will not lie, therefore he was their Saviour. When they did not fulfil their obligations, but suffered the lamp of piety to go out in their temple, so that they had shed no light upon the surrounding darkness, but through them his name was blasphemed among the Gentiles, he swept them away from the land which they had polluted, and blotted them out of the catalogue of nations.

The teachings of the New Testament are yet more explicit, frequently repeated, and set before us with every variety of illustration. Our Lord represents the world as going to decay, and his disciples as the salt by which it is preserved from decomposition. The world is a mass of unleavened meal; Christ's disciples are the leaven by which it is excited to universal fermentation. The world is a dark room; they are the lamp by which it is to be lightened. The world is shrouded in starless midnight; they are the city set upon a hill, by which the far off traveller discovers his direction and reaches his home in safety. The meaning of all this cannot be misunderstood. We are here taught that our title to discipleship must rest on something more than mere quiescence, having our religion to ourselves, and doing no harm with it. If this be all our piety, we are salt that has lost its saltness, good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot. We are lamps hidden under a bushel, which are just as good as no lamps at all. Christ teaches us that his disciples must be something better than a mere negation; they must exert a real and positive agency on the world around them. The salt must diffuse its saltness. The city on the hill must scatter light on those near and those afar off. It is by thus doing that we give evidence of our discipleship, and if we do it not, he will say unto us, I never knew you. Christ imposes upon all his disciples the duty of being in this sense the keepers of their fellow men.

The reasonableness of all this is self-evident. In order that the world should be converted unto Christ, it is necessary that every man should be convinced of the truth of his doctrines, and the authority of his mission. An abundant proof of this may be logically made out, on the principles of historical evidence. But this evidence can reach not one in ten thousand of the human family, and among those whom it reaches, prejudice will cavil where the understanding can make no reply. Christ intended the conversion of sinners to be the standing miracle by which it should be proved that he is the messenger from the Father. When men, by belief in him, are transformed from sin,

to holiness; when the lascivious become chaste, the passionate meek, the selfish self-denying, the covetous liberal, the proud humble; when men are seen trampling upon the idols to which they lately bowed down in subjection, here is a moral victory which nothing earthly can account for. The power which conquers the world must be derived from something the world knows not of. Men may reply to an argument, but there is no reply to a life changed from sin to holiness. It is a fact which every man can observe, which every man comprehend, and which can be accounted for by nothing but the power of the Spirit from on high; and that Spirit acting only through the words of Christ, teaches that Jesus is the Messiah sent of God.

can

Nor is this all. The Spirit is sent to convert men in answer to the prayers of the children of God. They are the medium through whom the Spirit is imparted to men. God converts the world through the instrumentality of his own children. But their prayers are in vain, and their efforts are a dumb show, unless they proceed from a holy and loving soul. God has thus made the progress of his cause on earth, the salvation of a world perishing in sin, to depend on the holy and consistent lives of the disciples of his Son. For this reason again he declares that each one of us is the keeper of his brother.

Not only are we taught our responsibility in this matter; the most solemn judgments are denounced against those who neglect to fulfil it, or who, by their example or precept, lead others into sin. This is what our Lord means by offending, or being a cause of offence or stumbling to others. He declares that it were better for us that a millstone were hanged about our necks, and we be cast into the sea, than to be guilty of this sin. Nay, he urges us to cut off a right hand, or pluck out a right eye, rather than do it. In other words, he teaches us that we must suffer any privation, lose any advantage, or deprive ourselves of any pleasure, rather than by our conduct or example be the means of ruining the souls of our fellow-men. In a word, we are forbidden to do or to leave undone anything by which the salvation of our brethren may be endangered. The apostle Paul carried out this precept to the letter. He knew, as well as we, that meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse, yet said he, if meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world standeth. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, is offended, or is made weak. It is in this spirit that the Master holds us to be the keepers of our brethren.

And now suppose a professed disciple of Christ to commit any of the sins of which I have before spoken. He does more than lead men into sin; he stupefies their consciences, and teaches them to do evil without remonstrance from within. Looking upon him as a practical exponent of the law of God, they flatter themselves that what he does is not forbidden, and they may therefore do it with impunity. Suppose a Christian parent to be thoughtless about his word; in fits of passion

VOI. VIII.

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to give way to violence of manner and rashness in utterance; suppos him to labour more for wealth and position than for Christ and his salvation; suppose him to allow successful wickedness to pass unrebuked, and unpopular piety to be made a matter of ridicule, his children will of course follow his example. But this is not all. They will naturally conclude, either that he is no Christian, or that all this is consistent with Christianity; that there is in it nothing morally distinctive, and that in fact it is all a pretence. Another disciple is a merchant, attentive upon all the ordinances of religion, sound in the faith, and ready upon all proper occasions to exhort men to repentance. But follow him to his place of business, and you may find him grasping with an overreaching eagerness for gain, forgetful of truth in his representations, selfish and unfeeling towards those in his power, and capable of littleness, nay of meanness, in financial negotiations. That the young men around him will imitate his example, there can be hardly a doubt. But more than this: they will learn to associate the most solemn truths of religion, and the most devout profession of piety, with selfishness and trickery. The gospel itself becomes to them an offence, and to awaken them to repentance becomes almost hopeless. Who has hardened their hearts and stupefied their consciences? Was not this man the keeper of the souls of his brethren, and how has he kept them?

Suppose a disciple of Christ does none of this, but contents himself with doing nothing for his Master. His most intimate friends declare with truth that he never warned them of their danger or pointed them to Christ; while they know that he believes them to be, at every moment, in danger of eternal death. He converses with the freedom of a friend on every other subject, but never utters a word about personal religion. They would gladly receive his advice and listen to his warnings, but on this subject his lips are closed in unbroken silence. They ask, Can he believe the religion which he professes? If we believed him to be in so imminent a danger, we could not let him go unwarned. Thus his very silence hardens the hearts of men. They arrive at the conclusion that there is, after all, no great danger to be apprehended from a life of irreligion, and they go on in impenitence to eternal death.

Again, the word of God teaches us that if any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Hence, when a man professes to believe in Christ, nothing is so marked as the entire change of his moral affections. The pleasures, the amusements, the ambitions, the gains of the world have lost their charms, and he turns from them with aversion, for they were ruining his soul. His affections are placed on things above, and thence he derives a happiness of which he had before no conception. Happiness was before only a shadow, now he has found the substance. His soul, wearied in the chase of that which satisfieth not, has now found rest in the bosom of God.

But what if this disciple at any time forgets all this, and mingles as before with the world? He enters into its amusements, and drinks as

deeply as ever of the cup of its pleasures. The meeting for prayer is deserted for the ball-room, the theatre, the opera, and the card-table. In fact, in all but his profession, so far as man can see, he is just the same person that he was before. Men put these two things together. They say, Here is a man who has tried both sources of happiness, and we have tried but one. After a deliberate trial of both, he comes back to that which we have always chosen. From an adequate knowledge of both, he determines that the world is the better portion. After all this talk about religion, he evidently believes that there is nothing in it. Is not this a natural and reasonable conclusion? And who is responsible for the production of this result? Who furnished the facts from which this conclusion is drawn? When God shall ask, Where is Abel thy brother? will not thy brother's blood cry out against thee from the ground?

And now, if all this be so, what remains to be done? Does it not become us to form a more definite conception of the character, and estimate more truly the responsibility, of a disciple of Christ? Shall we not humbly repent of the carelessness of our lives and the worldliness of our motives? Shall we not once more lay upon our shoulders the forsaken cross, deny ourselves, and follow in the footsteps of Christ? Shall we not, as Christ did, make the salvation of souls the object in reality for which we live. There is much land to be possessed, and we are well able to possess it? Let us thrust in the sickle and reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

The encouragements to Christian effort were never so great since the apostolic age as they are at this moment. The field is the world, and it is all white to the harvest. At home we may labour under the protection of law, and abroad the heathen are waiting for the gospel. Encouraged and refreshed by what we have seen, let us enter with tenfold earnestness upon the work of the Lord, and give him no rest until the sun of the day of Pentecost again rises upon the earth. Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in duc season shall we reap if we faint not.

The Benefactions of Little Christel.*

I.

GOING home from the house of God,

The flower at her foot, and the sun over head,
Little Christel so thoughtfully trod,

Pondering what the preacher had said.

*I suppose the story of Good Little Christel, which I have seen in English prose, and which I have here done into verse (with such alterations that its old friends will hardly know it again !) is of German origin.