fervid language of one who drank deep at the fount of inspiration— one, 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 the throne. And, while we appropriate his glowing words, as the vehicle of our own irrepressible longings-O, 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 Lord."-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 cultivation of religion in the soul. In our own day the more common device, where religion and the world conflict, is not that of the superstitious recluse, but one even much less safe and venial. Keen for this world, yet not willing to lose all hold on the next-eager for the advantages of time, yet not prepared to abandon all religion and stand by the consequences, there is a very numerous class who attempt to compromise the matter-to treat religion and the world like two creditors whose claims can not both be liquidated-by compounding with each for a share-though in this case a most disproportionate share-of their time and thought. "Every thing in its own place!" is the tacit reflection of such men. "Prayers, sermons, holy reading"-they will scarcely venture to add, “God”—“are for Sundays; but week-days are for the sober business, the real, practical affairs of life. Enough if we give the Sunday to our religious duties; we can not be always praying and reading the Bible. Well enough for clergymen and good persons who have nothing else to do, to attend to religion through the week: but for us, we have other and more practical matters to mind." And so the result is, that religion is made altogether a Sunday thing-a robe too fine for common wear, but taken out solemnly on state occasions, and solemnly put past when the state occasion is over. Like an idler in a crowded thoroughfare, religion is jostled aside in the daily throng of life, as if it had no business there. Like a needful, yet disagreeable medicine, men will be content to take it now and then for their souls' health; but they can not, and will not, make it their daily fare-the substantial and staple nutriment of their life and being. Now, you will observe that the idea of religion which is set forth in the text, as elsewhere in Scripture, is quite different from any of these notions. The text speaks as if the most diligent attention to our worldly business were not by any means incompatible with spirituality of mind and serious devotion to the service of God. It seems to imply that religion is not so much a duty, as a something that has to do with all duties-not a tax to be paid periodically and got rid of at other times, but a ceaseless, all-pervading, inexhaustible tribute to him, who is not only the object of religious worship, but the end of our very life and being. It suggests to us the idea that piety is not for Sundays only, but for all days; that spirituality of mind is not appropriate to one set of actions and an impertinence and intrusion with reference to others, but like the act of breathing, like the circulation of the blood, like the silent growth of the stature, a process that may be going on simultaneously with all our actions-when we are busiest as when we are idlest; in the church, in the world, in solitude, in society; in our grief and in our gladness; in our toil and in our rest; sleeping, waking; by day, by night-amid all the engagements and exigences of life. For you per ceive that in one breath-as duties not only not incompatible, but neces sarily and inseparably blended with each other-the text exhorts us to be at once "not slothful in business," and "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." I shall now attempt to prove and illustrate the idea thus suggested to us-the compatibility of Religion with the business of Common Life. We have, then, Scripture authority for asserting that it is not impossible to live a life of fervent piety amid the most engrossing pursuits and engagements of the world. We are to make good this conception of life-that the hardest-wrought man of trade, or commerce, or handicraft, who spends his days "mid dusky lane or wrangling marl," may yet be the most holy and spiritually-minded. We need not quit the world and abandon its busy pursuits in order to live near to God "We need not bid, for cloistered cell, It is true indeed that, if in no other way could we prepare for an eternal world than by retiring from the business and cares of this world, so momentous are the interests involved in religion, that no wise man should hesitate to submit to the sacrifice. Life here is but a span. Life hereafter is forever. A lifetime of solitude, hardship, penury, were all too slight a price to pay, if need be, for an eternity of bliss: and the results of our most incessant toil and application to the world's business, could they secure for us the highest prizes of earthly ambition, would be purchased at a tremendous cost, if they stole away from us the only time in which we could prepare to meet our God-if they left us at last rich, gay, honored, possessed of every thing the world holds dear, but to face an eternity undone. If, therefore, in no way could you combine business and religion, it would indeed be, not fanaticism, but most sober wisdom and prudence, to let the world's business come to a stand. It would be the duty of the mechanic, the man of business, the statesman, the scholar-men of every secular calling-without a moment's delay to leave vacant and silent the familiar scenes of their toils-to turn life into a perpetual Sabbath, and betake themselves, one and all, to an existence of ceaseless prayer, and unbroken contemplation, and devout care of the soul. But the very impossibility of such a sacrifice proves that no such sacrifice is demanded. He who rules the world is no arbitrary tyrant prescribing impracticable labors. In the material world there are no conflicting laws; and no more, we may rest assured, are there established in the moral world, any two laws, one or the other of which must needs be disobeyed. Now one thing is certain, that there is in the moral world a law of labor. Secular work, in all cases a duty, is, in most cases, a necessity. God might have made us independent of work. He might have nourished us like "the fowls of the air and the lilies of the |