all this; but he is not happy, he is not satis

The enterprising mechanic, with ideas less lofty than the other, says, “When I am settled in life, have a little home of my own, with a loving wife and dutiful children; when my business is good, and work is plenty and well paid; when I have a little laid up in the bank for a rainy day, — then I will bid farewell to all anxiety, and enjoy life as well as if I was worth a million." But he reaches all that, yet he is not happy, and is not willing to rest there. His mind is as ill at ease as ever.

Another has some other prospective good at which he aims, towards which he directs all his efforts, and which enlists all his energies, When he gets that, he expects to be contented. He knows nothing beyond that, -no higher good, no mountain-peak of glory, no summit of ambition rising back of the object for which he strives to-day. But in time he secures that, and finds the same demon of unrest impelling him, the same cravings for a higher pinnacle, the same eagerness for an object still distant.

"Amidst our plenty, something still
For horses, houses, pictures, painting,
To thee, to me, to him, is wanting.
That cruel something, unpossest,
Corrodes and lessens all the rest:
That something, if we could obtain,
Would soon create a future pain."

Men make no mistake when they suppose they need something to make them happy. Their aching hearts do not deceive them when they crave some unattained good, some bliss that can meet the higher wants, and satisfy the soul. They only mistake in the methods they take to meet these wants, and secure the desired good. The objects at which they are aiming never can do for them what they expect. They will surely be disappointed in the end, and die with the soul unfilled, its dreary waste still unsatisfied. It has been so, we know, with men in all ages of the world, and in every land beneath the sun. Only a few have ever reached the summit of contentment, or been supremely blest.

Assuming, then, as a point needing no confession on your part, and no argument to

establish it on mine, that all unconverted men and women feel the great need of a soul, and are sensible of the insufficiency of human nature, we wish to show how the want can be met, the soul satisfied, and the sinner made supremely happy. It is an old story, old as the cross. It has been told in every land, and repeated in every dialect for eighteen hundred years. It has been recited by poets and philosophers, by learned and eloquent men, and by the poor, ignorant, untutored children of the forest. It has been enunciated in royal proclamations, blazoned on the banners of imperial armies, shouted from the lips of expiring martyrs, and echoed by the most lofty and the most lowly of men. It has been preached in cathedrals, whispered in royal palaces, and sung in deep, lonely prisons. Yet the great world, with its eyes all bleared by sin, its ears all stopped with the music of earth, its heart petrified with fear, does not understand it. Men now are as little inclined to find peace in the right way as they were eighteen centuries ago. They are as eager now to draw from broken

cisterns as they were in the days of the prophets; and there is as much unrest, though rest has come; as much discontent, though content has walked the earth in god-like guise, - as there ever was before. Ah! that is the way of man's poor heart.

The history of the world, the experience of mankind, the declarations of God, all assure us that there can be found one only source of rest, one only place of peace and contentment. What is that source of rest? Who can tell? When Nicodemus wanted rest; when his heart fluttered and ached; when a pent-up storm raged in his soul, making shipwreck of every hope that had found a harbor. there, — what did he do? Make broad his phylactery? Lengthen out his prayers, or put into them a more burning rhetoric? Double his gifts to the Hebrew Church, or go oftener to the Sanhedrim and sit among

the rulers of the land? Oh, no! He found rest one day — no, one night—in a humble house in an obscure street in Jerusalem, while conversing with the Son of God. so it has become true in all ages, that there

And

is rest for none who do not seek it in that same lowly street, at the feet of that same illustrious personage. Whatever the ills of a man's life, whatever the sorrows of his heart, whatever burden he may bear, or whatever grief may consume him, he can find rest nowhere else. All the voices of the past, as they come sounding back from Bethlehem's plains and Judæa's hillsides; every testimony wrought into the great life deposition from men who have sought rest, and found it not, who have pursued content, and been deluded and deceived; as well as from those who have entered the vestibule of eternity, and laid their cold, dead hands upon a blessed, meek, and living cross, and been forever satisfied, all these voices shout to us, as we wander and perish, "Go to Jesus." The inspired word in which saints have found perfection, and martyrs have gathered consolation, which has been a fountain of life, love, and wisdom to prophets, priests, and kings, utters one single sound, "Go to Jesus." The angels, as they flit about on their missions of mercy, as they watch the surging, seething