quently occur. It is an inconsiderable and a very ordinary event. I will not suppose any thing extraordinary. I have known such boys to become eminent ministers, who turned many to righteousness. I suppose this one to be no extraordinary genius-that he becomes an honest, working man, and an exemplary Christian. He becomes the head of a family, whom he trains up in the fear of God, and his children follow in his footsteps, and so on from generation to generation through the future. What do you think of the teacher who sought out the dirty boy and laid the foundation of all this well-doing? of these happy, pious families? of this succession of pious members in the Church? of these happy deaths, and this glorious accession to heaven's redeemed inhabitants? What does God think of such an act? How does it rank in his estimation? What a work is this for a common Christian to perform! How worth living for, ay, and dying for! Every teacher of you may confidently hope to do as much. Many have, no doubt, done much more, as the great day will reveal. Who will faint in such a field? Rather let every young man and woman be ambitious to win these laurels. Where else can they lay out their talent so well? In what other field can they sow with so good a hope of reaping a harvest? For, lo, "the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; which, indeed, is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."

XII.

CHRISTIANS EXAMPLES TO THE WORLD.

Do all things without murmurings and disputings that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.-PHIL., ii., 14-16.

The

THE most important duties of religion are the most frequently inculcated, and on that account trite. To impress them on even pious people becomes a matter of peculiar difficulty. When we read of them in the Bible, it is often, from their familiarity, difficult to fix the attention upon them. It is well, when we may, to discuss this class of Christian obligations in connection with the high reasons on which they depend and the vital principles from which they spring. subject of this discourse offers us its instruction under this special advantage. The faithful performance of Christian duty and the diligent cultivation of piety are enjoined by a reference to the Christian's proper office and function. Christians are lights, or, rather, luminaries-light-givers. They are patterns for others, "holding forth the word of life." On this account they are exhorted to fidelity and to the highest achievements of piety. Such, as I understand it, is the 1soning of the text.

I. In other parts of the Bible Christians are denominated, as they are here, the light of the world; and they are called upon to let their light shine: "Ye are the light of the world. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candle-stick, that it may give light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see

your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heav en."* The language of our text, under the same figure, conveys a different lesson. It affirms that Christians do shine as lights of the world. They are its actual sources of illumination. They impart to the immortal souls around them such impressions as they get, and are likely to get, of religion and its duties. The mass of men do not go to the highest sources of information in forming their opinions on any subject. Many are not qualified for such investigations. Many more are too idle, or too busy with their own affairs, to give the requisite attention to any subject not forced upon them by their daily pursuits. They judge of other things on the reports of those no better qualified than themselves to form opinions, but who have, from some cause, been led to take an interest in them. In this way men form their opinions on the most important subjects. They choose their party in politics, not by any careful investigation of principles, but by their accidental associations-by the conduct and character of those with whom they happen to be acquainted or connected. A tyrant, or an oppressor, or a fop, in the guise of a public officer, or at the head of an industrial establishment, naturally repels from his party and opinions those who are in a posi tion to be unfavorably affected by his disagreeable peculiarities, while the opposite virtues will prove more effectual thần strong arguments and popular harangues in the work of convincing opponents and gaining adherents. It is under these silent influences, acting upon them spontaneously and freely, as sunbeams fall upon the eye, that men form their opinions of the character of individuals, of benevolent and literary institutions, of professions and classes. It is no reflection upon the intelligence or independence of men that they receive their impressions and form their opinions thus passively. They are but obeying the law of their being. They can not but be so acted upon by the men and the facts that surround * Matth., V., 14-16.

them. They have not time, any more than inclination, to investigate for themselves each subject upon which they do and must form an opinion. All that I have affirmed of the power of influence in a lower sphere is specially and eminently true in regard to its agency in molding religious opinions. Without previous study or careful investigation, we find ourselves in possession of a religious creed by or before the dawn of manhood. Those who have never learned the catechism, nor enjoyed religious instruction in the Sundayschool, or in the church, or at home, do nevertheless find themselves indoctrinated, to a certain extent, in religious things. They have their fixed ideas in regard to what the Gospel is, and to what it requires. They have a certain standard, high or low, of Christian morality, and of practical and experimental piety—a standard, too, which is likely to remain with them, with modifications less or more considerable, through life. Multitudes have obtained the first principles of religion, they know not how, without effort or design on their part. They have caught them from the living Christianity around them. They have received them passively: They have been reflected upon them by their religious friends and neighbors. Just as they have formed their notions of the colors, and complexions, and forms of the material world in the light of the sun, which these objects have reflected upon the eyes of the beholder, so have they formed their ideas of the Gospel by the manifestations of its spirit by professed Christians. As the most symmetrical and beautiful forms, seen in a bad light, impress upon the eye a distorted image, so, when professed Christians, the appointed representatives of the Gospel-the lights of the world-Christ's luminaries for this dark sphere, shine dimly, or darkly, or not at all, are the religious sentiments of unconverted men degraded, distorted, or enfeebled, till they are no longer worthy of God or fit for man-till they are too gross to purify, and too weak and false to convert the soul. The world will believe, not

what the pulpit teaches, but what the Church lives. Its way to Christ and heaven is dark or luminous, just in proportion as the Church gives forth a clear or a doubtful light.

The following clause, "holding forth the word of life," changes the figure, but inculcates the same lesson. Our preaching announces the theory of the Gospel, but the practical piety of the Church must supply the illustrations and proofs of our doctrine. We can announce the principle, but yours it is to demonstrate it—to exemplify it, to show its practicability, its real application, its worth. Men are wont to bestow but little honor upon a mere theory. They want to know what it is worth in practice, and by that standard they estimate its value. We do not trouble ourselves to study the abstruse principles of art or science, but are eager to know its uses, and are ready to bestow our meed of admiration upon the philosopher who shows us the applications and utility of his discovery or his principles. We admire the genius and skill of the architect, but not till he can point out to us the goodly proportions, and graceful ornaments, and convenient apartments of some noble structure which exemplify his recondite theories. Few, comparatively, can be judges of the erudition and sagacity of a physician until they have been well tested by his practice, but all are ready to honor the medicine that has proved its efficacy by curing dangerous and inveterate diseases. I may leave these familiar illustrations to be applied by my hearers to the subject under discussion. I will only observe, in passing on to the farther elucidation of the text, that religion can not reasonably object to being judged by its fruits as they appear in its disciples. It is a complaint often, but unjustly made by us, that the world forms its estimate of Christianity by the imperfect lives of its professors, and not from the Bible, the unpolluted fountain of holy doctrine. It is sufficient to answer, that, constituted as men are, they can not but form their opinions of any theory claiming to be true and useful,