V. By conversion man is ennobled.

Infidelity regards man as little better than an animated statue, living clay, a superior animal. She sees no jewel of immortality flashing in this earthly casket. According to her, our future being is a brilliant but baseless dream of the present; death, an everlasting sleep; and that dark, low, loathsome grave our eternal sepulcher.

Vice, again, looks on man as an animal formed for the indulgence of brutal appetites. She sees no divinity in his intellect, nor pure feelings, nor lofty aspirations worthy of cultivation for the coming state. Her foul finger never points him to the skies. She leaves powers and feelings which might have been trained to heaven to trail upon the ground; to be soiled and trodden in the mire, or to entwine themselves around the basest objects. In virtuous shame, in modesty, purity, integrity, gentleness, natural affection, she blights with her poisonous breath whatever vestiges of beauty have survived the Fall; and when she has done her perfect work, she leaves man a wreck; a wretch, an object of loathing, not only to God and angels, but-lowest and deepest of all degradation an object of contempt and loathing to himself.

While infidelity regards man as a mere animal, to be dissolved at death into ashes and air, and vice changes man into a brute or devil, Mammon enslaves him. She makes him a serf, and condemns him to be a gold-digger for life in the mines. She puts her collar on his neck, and locks it; and bending his neck to the soil, and bathing his brow in sweat, she says, Toil, toil, toil; as if this creature, originally made in the image of God, this dethroned and exiled monarch, to save whom the Son of God descended from the skies, and bled on Calvary, were a living machine, constructed of sinew, bone, and muscle, and made for no higher end than to work to live, and live to work.

Contrast with these the benign aspect in which the gospel looks on man. Religion descends from heaven to break our chains. She alone raises me from degradation, and bids me lift my drooping head, and look up to heaven. to heaven. Yes; it is that very gospel which by some is supposed to present such dark, degrading, gloomy views of man and his destiny, which lifts me from the dust and the dunghill to set me among princes—on a level with angels-in a sense above them. To say nothing of the divine nobility grace imparts to a soul which is stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred and venerable does even this body appear in the eye of piety! No longer a form of animated dust; no longer the subject of passions shared in common with the brutes; no longer the drudge and slave of Mammon, the once "vile body" rises into a temple of the Holy Ghost. Vile in one sense it may be; yet what, although it be covered with sores? what, although it be clothed in rags? what, although, in unseemly decrepitude, it want its fair proportions? that poor, pale, sickly, shattered form is the casket of a precious jewel. This mean and crumbling tabernacle lodges a guest

nobler than palaces may boast of; angels hover around its walls; the Spirit of God dwells within it. What an incentive to holiness, to purity of life and conduct, lies in the fact that the body of a saint is the temple of God!—a truer, nobler temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his prayers, and Jesus consecrated by his presence. In Popish cathe dral, where the light streamed through painted window, and the organ pealed along lofty aisles, and candles gleamed on golden cups and silver crosses, and incense floated in fragrant clouds, we have seen the blinded worshiper uncover his head, drop reverently on his knees, and raise his awe-struck eye on the imposing spectacle; we have seen him kiss the marble floor, and knew that sooner would he be smitten dead upon that floor than be guilty of defiling it. How does this devotee rebuke us! We wonder at his superstition; how may he wonder at our profanity! Can we look on the lowly veneration he expresses for an edifice which has been erected by some dead man's genius, which holds but some image of a deified Virgin, or bones of a canonized saint, and which proudly as it raises its cathedral towers-time shall one day cast to the ground, and bury in the dust; can we, I say, look on that, and, if sensible to rebuke, not feel reproved by the spectacle? In how much more respect, in how much holier veneration should we hold this body? The shrine of immortality, and a temple dedicated to the Son of God, it is consecrated by the presence of the Spirit—a living temple, over whose porch the eye of piety reads what the finger of inspiration has written

"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

DISCOURSE XLV.

ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D.

THIS distinguished missionary to India was born at Kirkmichael, in Perthshire, Scotland, in the year 1806. After concluding a full academic course at the University of St. Andrews, under the instructions of Dr. Chalmers, with whom he was a favorite student, and others of less note, he was licensed to preach the gospel, and immediately ordained and sent forth as the first missionary of the Church of Scotland to the heathen. He reached Calcutta in the fall of 1830, and set about the work committed to his charge. From the first, the instruction of youth has occupied much of his attention; and he may be considered as having reached a point of perfection in this line of effort which has never been surpassed. In the year 1850 there were over one thousand pupils attending the various classes in the Institution which he founded.

Dr. Duff has twice, at least, revisited Scotland; first in 1835-spending there, to regain his health, some four years—and again a year or two ago, for a like purpose at which time he made a visit to the United States. Wherever he went, here or abroad, he received the most marked respect, as a man of God, and a self-forgetful and successful missionary. His many powerful appeals on behalf of the heathen will not soon be forgotten. Previous to his departure from his native land, a public meeting was held in the Free High Church in Edinburg, where a multitude of his friends crowded to hear his farewell address. Dr. Tweedie, Convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the Free Church, presided; Dr. Candlish opened the proceedings with prayer; after which Dr. Duff delivered, for the space of two hours, one of his overwhelming appeals on behalf of the missionary enterprise. The conclusion of his speech was a farewell to Scotland and a welcome to India, which, being uttered in his peculiarly powerful and winning style, drew tears from the eyes of almost every person in the great throng of those who listened. He said:

'And now this, my home-work, being for the present finished, while exigences of a peculiar kind appear to call me back again to the Indian field, I cheerfully obey the summons; and despite its manifold ties and attractions, I now feel as if, in fullness of heart, I can say, Farewell to Scotland-to Scotland! honored by ancient memories and associations of undying glory and renown! Scotland, on whose soil were fought some of the mightiest battles for civil and religious liberty! Scotland, chou country and home of the bravest among undaunted Reformers! Scotland, thou chosen abode and last resting-places of the ashes of most heroic and daring martyrs ?—yet, farewell, Scotland! Farewell to all that is in thee, and welcome,

India! Welcome, India, with thy benighted, perishing millions! because, in the vision of faith, I see the renovating process that is to elevate them from the lowest depths of debasement and shame to the noblest heights of celestial glory. Welcome, ye majestic hills, the loftiest on this our globe; for though cold be your summits, and clothed with the drapery of eternal winter, in the vision of faith I can go beyond and behold the mountain of the Lord's house established on the top of the mountains, with the innumerable multitudes of India's adoring worshipers joyously thronging toward it. Welcome, too, ye mighty, stupendous fabrics of a dark lowering idolatry; because, in the vision of faith, I can see in your certain downfall, and in the beauteous temples of Christianity reared over your ruins, one of the mightiest monuments to the triumph and glory of our adored Immanuel. Welcome, too, thou majestic Ganges, in whose waters, through every age, such countless multitudes have been engulfed in the vain hope of obtaining thereby a sure passport to immortality, because, in the vision of faith, I behold the myriads of thy deluded votaries forsaking thy turbid though sacred waters, and learning to wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb. Welcome-if the Lord so wills it-welcome, sooner or later, a quiet resting-place on thy sunny banks, amid the Hindoo people, for whose deliverance from the tyrannic sway of the foulest and cruelest idolatries on earth, I have groaned and travailed in soul agony. "Fare ye well, then! And in view of that bright and glorious eternity, welcome, thrice welcome, thou resurrection morn; when the graves of every clime and every age, from the time of righteous Abel down to the period of the last trumpet sound, will give up their dead; and the ransomed myriads of the Lord ascending on high, shall enter the mansions of glory-the palaces of light-in Immanuel's land; and there, together, in indissoluble and blissful harmony, celebrate the jubilee of a once-groaning, but, then, renovated universe! Farewell! Farewell!"

Dr. Duff is a man of commanding talents, and a large and catholic spirit; and is possessed of remarkable oratorical powers, for either the pulpit or the platform. He is about six feet high, but of slight structure; his face and accent are thoroughly Scotch; his complexion habitually flushed, even to redness, with what appears a determination of blood to the head. His hair is combed back, and when he is excited in a speech, it seems to stand erect; while, trembling like a paralytic, he pours out a torrent of impassioned eloquence such as it is impossible to resist. His gestures at such a time become exceedingly awkward; he distorts his shoulders and his countenance, and "fists his forehead and twitches his pantaloons," and approaches an almost terrible vividness of feeling. Doubtless it is to his earnestness, his evident piety and sincerity, and his excitable temperament, that something of his power over an audience is due; but, aside from all this, there is thought and argument; and it is generally uttered in a manner combining the various qualities of true eloquence.

The following is his most celebrated discourse, and altogether worthy of his reputation. It is copied from an Edinburg edition. and has never before been printed in this country.

MISSIONS THE CHIEF END OF THE CHURCH.

"God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us. "That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.". PSALM lxvii. 1, 2.

THE royal Psalmist, in the spirit of inspiration, personating the Church of the redeemed in every age, and more especially under its last and most perfect dispensation, here offers up a sublime prayer for its inward prosperity and outward universal extension. All is in the order of nature and of grace. Knowing full well that he who has not obtained mercy from the Lord, can not be a fit bearer of it to others; that he who has obtained no blessings himself, can dispense none; that he who enjoys no light, can communicate none; he, first of all, with marked and beautiful propriety, begins with the supplication of personal and individual blessings "God be merciful unto us," forgiving and pardoning all our sin: "and bless us," conferring every gift and every grace really needful for time and eternity: "and lift up the light of thy countenance upon us," cheering us with the smile of reconciliation and love, and causing the Sun of Righteousness to arise on our darkened souls with healing in his beams.

But does the Psalmist stop here? Does he for a moment intend that he and his fellow-worshipers, as representatives of the visible Church of the living God, should absorb all the mercy, all the blessing, and all the light of Jehovah's countenance? Oh, no! Having thus fervently prayed for angelical blessings to descend upon himself, and every member of the Church, he immediately superadds, in the true evangelistic or missionary spirit, "That thy way," or, as it is given in our metrical version, "That so thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.”

How significant the connection here established, the obtainment and the distribution of evangelical favors-"God be merciful to us, and bless us!" Why? Only that we ourselves may be pardoned and sanctified, and thereby attain to true happiness? No. There is another grand end in view, to the accomplishment of which, our being blessed is but a means. “God be merciful unto us, and bless us, that so thy way may be known on earth"-that thus-that in this way-that by our instru mentality-that by our being blessed, and having the light of thy countenance shining upon us-" thy way"-thy way of justification through the atoning righteousness of the Redeemer-thy way of sanctification by his Holy Spirit-"may be made known on earth, and thy saving health among all nations.”

And then, seized with true prophetic fire, at the grandeur of the divine design in reference to "all nations," and hurried away by the