DISCOURSE XXXVI. HENRY MELVILL, B.D. THE "golden-mouthed Melvill," as he has often been called, was born at Pendennis Castle, Cornwall, on the 14th of September, 1798; so that he has now wellnigh reached the "three-score" of human life. His father, Philip Melvill, was a captain in the army, and lieutenant-governor of Pendennis Castle-a very pious man, whose memoirs have had a wide circulation. "The prayers and instructions of a righteous father and mother," as he states, were the means of his conversion. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, and took the degree of Second Wrangler in 1821. In the year 1824, he was ordained as Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cambridge. From the year 1829 to 1843, he was minister of Camder. Chapel, Camberwell. He was then made Principal of the East India College, and in 1846 appointed, by the Duke of Wellington, Chaplain to the Tower of London. In 1853 he was made one of the Queen's Chaplains, and in 1856 appointed, by Lord Palmerston, Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, London. The personal appearance of Mr. Melvill is described as not remarkably striking. His features are easily detected from the accompanying portrait, recently taken, and forwarded at our request by the distinguished preacher himself. His face is small and thin, forehead high, and topped with abundant hair; eyes keen and small, and in color light blue, complexion of a darkish hue, and countenance expressive of vivacity and high intelligence. The voice of the preacher is said to be not peculiar for strength or compass, but for its capacity of ever-varying nodulations—now like the sobbing of winds among the boughs of the trees--now like the trembling in tonations surging along the air; and now like the swell of the trumpet, rolling, subduing, melting, appalling. There is much earnestness of manner in his preaching, but his gesticulation is sparing, and seldom or never violent. Mr. Melvill's sermons are always prepared with the utmost care. Shutting the door of his study, and refusing to be seen, except at particular hours; compelled to preach but one sermon, where most ministers preach three; seldom visiting his people, except in cases of sickness, he has no lack of opportunity to indulge a fastidious taste in the patient elaboration of his discourses. It is said that he always writes them twice, and often thrice; after which, they are copied off neatly by another hand, when they are prepared to be read from the pulpit. Discourses thus prepared, could not but possess rare excellences. As sermons, they are defective, we should say, in simplicity and directness of style, especially in close and pungent appeals to the conscience. But, as specimens of beauty and finish in composition, they are not often excelled. The preacher's eloquence seems oo artificial, and his matter is often too speculative and abstruse; but his phrase ology is figurative and richly ornate; his analogies exceedingly happy; his arrangement (though not sufficiently marked) natural and easy; his sentences are nicely balanced, and his periods smoothly rounded; and yet, with all their polish, force is not sacrificed; and what is better than all, the scriptural or evangelical element is not wanting. Mr. Melvill's pleasure has been consulted in the choice of a discourse; and in our opinion he has never written one that is abler than that here given. He is the author of several volumes of sermons, which have had a wide circulation. THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER OF HUMAN ACTIONS. "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."-Gal., vi. 7. You may be all aware, that what is termed the argument from anal ogy, has been carried out to great length by thinking men, and that much of the strongest witness for Christianity has been won on this field of investigation. It is altogether a most curious and profitable inquiry, which sets itself to the tracing out resemblances between natural and spiritual things, and which thus proposes to establish, at the least, a probability that creation and Christianity have one and the same author. And we think that we shall not overstep the limits of truth, if we declare that nature wears the appearance of having actually been designed for the illustration of the Bible. We believe that he who, with a devout mind, searches most diligently into the beauties and mysteries of the material world, will find himself met constantly by exhibitions, which seem to him the pages of Scripture written in the stars, and the forests, and the waters of this creation. There is such a sameness of dealing, characteristic of the natural and the spiritual, that the Bible may be read in the outspread of the landscape, and the operations of agriculture ; while, conversely, the laws obeyed by this earth and its productions, may be traced as pervading the appointments of revelation. It were beside our purpose to go at length into demonstration of this coincidence. But you may all perceive, assuming its existence, that the furnished argument is clear and convincing. If there run the same principle through natural and spiritual things, through the book of nature and the Bible, we vindicate the same authorship to both, and prove, with an almost geometric precision, that the God of creation is also the God of Christianity. I look on the natural firmament, with its glorious inlay of stars, and it is unto me as the breastplate of the great High-Priest, “ardent with gems oracular," from which, as from the Urim and Thummim on Aaron's ephod, come messages full of divinity. And when I turn to the page of Scripture, and perceive the nicest resemblance between the characters in which this page is written, and those which glitter before me on the crowded concave, I feel that, in trusting myself to the decla rations of the Bible, I cling to him who speaks to me from every point, and by every splendor of the visible universe-whose voice is in the marchings of the planets, and the rushing of whose melodies is in the wings of the daylight. But though we go not into the general inquiry, we take one great principle, the principle of a resurrection, and we affirm, in illustration of what has been advanced, that it runs alike through God's natural and spiritual dealings. Just as God hath appointed that man's body, after moldering away, shall come forth quickened and renewed, so has he ordained that the seed, after corrupting in the ground, shall yield a harvest of the like kind with itself. It is, moreover, God's ordinary course to allow an apparent destruction, as preparatory, or introductory to, complete success or renovation. He does not permit the springing up, until there has been, on human calculation, a thorough withering away. So that the maxim might be shown to hold universally good: "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." (1 Cor., xv. 36.) We may observe yet further, that, as with the husbandman, if he sow the corn, he shall reap the corn, and if he sow the weed, he shall reap the weed; thus with myself as with a responsible agent, if I sow the corruptible, I shall reap the corruptible; and if I sow the imperishable, I shall reap the imperishable. The seed reproduces itself. This is the fact, in reference to spiritual things, on which we would fasten your attention: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Now we are all, to a certain extent, familiar with this principle; for it is forced on our notice by every-day occurrences. We observe that a dissolute and reckless youth is ordinarily followed by a premature and miserable old age. We see that honesty and industry win commonly comfort and respect; and that, on the contrary, levity and a want of carefulness produce pauperism and disrepute. And yet further, unless we go over to the ranks of infidelity, we can not question that a course of disobedience to God is earning man's eternal destruction; while, through submission to the revealed will of his master, there is secured admittance into a glorious heritage. We are thus aware that there runs through the Creator's dealings with our race the principle of an identity, or sameness, between the things which man sows and those which he reaps. But we think it possible that we may have contented ourselves with too superficial a view of this principle; and that, through not searching into what may be termed its philosophy, we allow much that is important to elude observation. The seed sown in the earth goes on, as it were, by a sort of natural process, and without direct interference from God, to yield seed of the same description with itself. And we wish it well observed, whether there be not in spiritual things an analogy the most perfect to what thus takes place in natural. We think that, upon a careful examination, you will find ground-work of belief that the simile holds good in every possible respect; |