which God hath put first; to reckon that least which God hath pronounced greatest, what can we expect but that he shall be provoked, in sore displeasure, to deprive us of the precious deposit of misappro priated grace, and inscribe "Ichabod" on all our towers, bulwarks and palaces? And if he do, then, like beings smitten with judicial blind. ness, we may hold hundreds of meetings, deliver thousands of speeches, and publish tens of thousands of tracts, and pamphlets, and volumes, in defense of our chartered rights and birth-right liberties; and all this we may hail as religious zeal, and applaud as patriotic spirit. But if such prodigious activities be designed solely, or even chiefly, to concertrate all hearts, affections, and energies, on the limited interests of our own land; if such prodigious activities recognize and aim at no higher terminating object than the simple maintenance and extension of our home institutions, and that, too, for the exclusive benefit of our own people, while, in contempt of the counsels of the Eternal, the hundreds of millions of a guilty world are coolly abandoned to perish, oh! how can all this appear in the sight of heaven as any thing better than a And how can such national outburst of monopolizing selfishness? criminal disregard of the divine ordinance, as respects the evangelization of a lost world, fail, sooner or later, to draw down upon us the most dreadful visitation of retributive vengeance? Thus it was with the Jews of old. Twice, after the creation and the flood, was the true religion universal; and if, subsequently, it was contracted in its sphere, and shut up within the narrow bounds of a favored locality, it was out of mercy and loving-kindness to man. It was, that it might not be wholly swept away and lost in the swelling tide of an apostacy, which threatened to rise and overwhelm all the kindreds of the nations. But, in the eternal decree, it was ordained: and by the mouth of prophets who spoke in successive ages, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, it was clearly foretold that, in the fullness of time, the true religion should once more become universal-that out of Jerusalem the law should go forth to the ends of the earth. The inhabitants of Jerusalem, however, resolved that beyond the bounds of Judea, their own beloved home, it should not go-and thus dared the Omnipotent to hostile collision. And never, never did any people put forth efforts, of a nature so absolutely volcanic, in defense of their heaven-ordained institutions. But it was all in order that they might wholly monopolize the advantages of these to themselves. Calamitous monopoly! Insane opposition! Preservation of the types and shadows for their own Preservation of the exclusive benefit, was the Jewish watchword. substance in new, expanded, and remodeled forms for the benefit of the world," was the divine watchword. Who could for a moment doubt which must, in the end, prevail? Surely the people that could presume to contend, in unequal strife, with the full thunder of Jehovah's power, And seized they must have been more than ordinarily infatuated! 66 verily were with a judicial infatuation, out of which they were not, and would not, be awakened till the tempest of divine wrath burst upon them with exterminating violence! And thus, assuredly, will it be with us, if we do not arise and speedily resolve to discharge all those high catholic and evangelistic functions that devolve upon us, as a Protestant Church, and Protestant nation. Or, shall we blindly and perversely determine, alike to scorn the counsels of heaven, and brave the warnings of Providence? Then let us only try the fatal, the disastrous experiment!-let us try, if we will, and overlook wholly, or in great measure, Heaven's irrevocable law, and our own plighted obligations to save a lost world-let us try, if we will, and maintain the warfare in defense of our home institutions, altogether or chiefly, for our own benefit and that of our children—and as sure as Jehovah's purposes are unchangeable, our doom is sealed. By unparalleled exertions we may arrest, for a season, the day of national calamity. We may retard, but shall not be able finally to arrest, the progress of national disorganization and decay. The chariot-wheels of destruction may be made to drag more heavily as they roll along the fatal declivity. But nothing, nothing shall effectually prevent the ultimate awful plunge of all our institutions-social, civil, and religious -into the troubled waters, where they shall be dashed to pieces, amid rocks and quicksands, in a hurricane of anarchy! To avert a catastrophe so fell and so terrible, O, let us all imbibe into our inmost souls, the Church's heaven-inspired prayer: "Lord bless and pity us, shine on us with thy face." In order to prove the sincerity wherewith the prayer is uttered, let us put forth the mightiest exertions in the endeavor to repair all the ancient channels, and open up hundreds of new ones, through which the blessing may be expected to descend in refreshing streams into every congregation, every household, and every heart in our own land. But, O, let us not, in blind, narrow-minded, and anti-Christian selfishness, forget the final cause and chief end for the furtherance of which, the blessing must be mainly sought by us, and for the accomplishment of which, it must be mainly conferred, if conferred at all by a gracious God-as emphatically taught us in the ever-memorable words of his own Holy Spirit-"That so thy way may be known upon earth, and thy saving health among all nations." And let not our efforts in attempting to realize the glorious end for which the evangelical mercies and favors are avowedly sought and bestowed, be either feeble or disproportionate-lest, by deficient or contradictory practices, our prayers should prove so many idle mockeries of our God; and our petitions, so many provocations to the High and Holy One, to withdraw from us altogether those privileges which we already enjoy—if we enjoy them only with the selfish and dishonest intention of enriching ourselves by defrauding the world! Come, and let us, with united heart and soul, adopt as our own, the fervid language of one who drank deep at the fount of inspirationone, whose presence once gladdened these shores and tended to chase the darkness from heathen lands-one, who is now of the happy number of glorified spirits that cease not to chant their hallelujahs before th throne. And, while we appropriate his glowing words, as the vehicle of our own irrepressible longings-0, let our hands be ever ready to give prompt effect to the utterance of the heart, when we sing "Waft, waft, ye winds, his story; And you, ye waters, roll; It spreads from pole to pole; DISCOURSE XLVI. JOHN CAIRD, M.A. THIS Scottish divine, born at Greenock, and ordained in 1845, was but little known in the United States until the somewhat recent publication of his famous sermon-" Religion in Common Life"--preached before the Queen of England, and printed by her "command." Its reprint here has gained for the author quite a reputation. In Scotland he has for years occupied an eminent position. It was upon the death of the eloquent Bennie, in 1846, which threw such a gloom over the Scottish metropolis, that John Caird, then a “mere boy," preaching at Newton-on-Ayr, was invited to take the charge of Lady Yester's, which the above death had vacated. From the first his ministrations were highly acceptable and popular, almost as much so as those of a Candlish, or Guthrie, or even a Chalmers, in former days. It is said that his congregations in Edinburg, besides being very large, were remarkable for intelligence and piety, and that the sermons which they heard evinced far more than ordinary grasp of mind and comprehensiveness of view, and a thorough insight both into the book of Nature and the book of Inspiration. The precarious state of his health, however, led him to desire a country place of more quiet; and in the earlier part of 1849 he accepted the pastorate of the parish of Errol, where he has since remained. The language of Mr. Caird's discourses is flowing, rich, and sparkling, often rising to the higher styles of eloquence. One has styled him the child of feeling, of poesy, of passion; who can not move in paths which ordinary minds have traveled, but makes a way for himself, "soaring on eagles' wings, with a graceful and majestic flight." The sale of his "Religion in Common Life" has been immense in Great Britain, yielding its author, it is said, between five and six thousand dollars, which are to be applied to the endowment of a Female's Industrial School in Errol. This prodigious circulation of the discourse is doubtless attributable, in part, to the circumstances under which it was preached; but of itself it possesses rare merit; and it speaks well for the good judgment of the amiable Queen that she directed it to be printed. It is no secret that the Queen and Prince, after hearing it, read it in manuscript, and expressed themselves no less impressed by the soundness of its views, than they had been in listening to it by its extraordinary eloquence. The subject is a most important one, and it is discussed with fidelity, thoroughness, and an evangelical spirit, and with an unusual force and beauty of diction. The remark is true that Mr. Caird has far more honor from the able, manly, and faithful manner in which he discharged his duty, than from the accident of having had such a duty to discharge. RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE. "Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit, serving the Lorl."-ROMANS, xii. 11. To combine business with religion, to keep up a spirit of serious piety amid the stir and distraction of a busy and active life-this is one of the most difficult parts of a Christian's trial in this world. It is comparatively easy to be religious in the church-to collect our thoughts, and compose our feelings, and enter, with an appearance of propriety and decorum, into the offices of religious worship, amid the quietude of the Sabbath, and within the still and sacred precincts of the house of prayer. But to be religious in the world-to be pious, and holy, and earnest-minded in the counting-room, the manufactory, the marketplace, the field, the farm-to carry out our good and solemn thoughts and feelings into the throng and thoroughfare of daily life-this is the great difficulty of our Christian calling. No man not lost to all moral influence can help feeling his worldly passions calmed, and some measure of seriousness stealing over his mind, when engaged in the performance of the more awful and sacred rites of religion; but the atmosphere of the domestic circle, the exchange, the street, the city's throng, amid coarse work and cankering cares and toils, is a very different atmosphere from that of a communion-table. Passing from the one to the other has often seemed as if the sudden transition from a tropical to a polar climate-from balmy warmth and sunshine to murky mist and freezing cold. And it appears sometimes as difficult to maintain the strength and steadfastness of religious principle and feeling, when we go forth from the church into the world, as it would be to preserve an exotic alive in the open air in winter, or to keep the lamp that burns steadily within doors from being blown out if you take it abroad unsheltered from the wind. So great, so all but insuperable, has this difficulty ever appeared to men, that it is but few who set themselves honestly and resolutely to the effort to overcome it. The great majority, by various shifts or expedients, evade the hard task of being good and holy, at once in the church and in the world. In ancient times, for instance, it was, as we all know, the not uncommon expedient among devout persons-men deeply impressed with the thought of an eternal world, and the necessity of preparing for it, but distracted by the effort to attend to the duties of religion amid the business and temptations of secular life-to fly the world altogether, and, abandoning society and all social claims, to betake themselves to some hermit solitude, some quiet and cloistered retreat, where, as they fondly deemed, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," their work would become worship, and life be uninterruptedly devoted to the cultivatior of religion in the soul. In our own day the more common device, where religion and the world conflict, is not that of the |