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the productive capacity of the earth, but earnestly uses it, and as the physician applies himself with all his skill to cure disease by taking advantage of the curative and sanative powers of the human body-so ought every professing Christian honestly and earnestly to use those great, powerful, divine, spiritual agencies that God has established in His Church for the promotion of the divine glory, and the temporal and eternal wellbeing of mankind. And, indeed, not only has the Almighty instituted those laws in His spiritual kingdom upon earth for the most beneficent of purposes, but throughout every day and every age He wants to bless them. Although the whole universe of created beings and things is dependent upon His almighty arm, yet wherever, in lowly cottage or in vaulted cathedral, those spiritual laws are put in operation, there is the Divine Being present to give pardon to the sinful, comfort to the sorrowing, and grace and strength and joy to all, that their lives, notwithstanding cares, anxieties, sins, and disquietudes, may be all the more happy, and their deaths peaceful and triumphant. And, moreover, what a grandeur of freedom and beauty is there in this service of the house of God! What a spectacle for the hosts of heaven to witness! It is not necessary that all in a Christian assembly should be animated at all times with one thought as the service proceeds, any more than it is necessary that all the flowers of a garden should be of one fragrance or one hue, or all the instruments of music give forth one sound. On the contrary, it is the very glory and charm of this spiritual system, the liberty which it affords to each worshipper; allowing the unfettered spirit that ought not to

be trammelled with a profusion of symbols to soar away up to its God, in the way of its own eager wants, to tell to Him its sorrows, and to draw from Him its graces and inspirations; so that whilst in a Christian congregation, by the mind's power of concurrent thought, the child may be secretly breathing its prayers or hymns, and the mourner recounting his sorrows, and the penitent seeking pardon and peace, and the weary and unsatisfied seeking rest, and the whole hallowed assembly full of life and thought and love, yet at the same time this divine machinery may be so acting as to give a unity and impetus to the heart's cravings and the soul's utterances, each one breathing the pious exclamations, "It is good for me to be here!" "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” For next to the promotion of God's glory, the other great end which Christian ordinances serve is the benefit of mankind; and if they succeed in both these results-as succeed they must, wherever they are humbly and sincerely engaged in-then their objects will be gained. Like all things mundane, indeed, they must pass away,-religious places, persons, seasons, services, and other means of grace; and well will it be for Christians if to their souls they not only adumbrate to some extent the employments of heaven, but if they also fit them for that eternal world where no temple is seen, but where "THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY AND THE LAMB ARE THE TEMPLE OF IT."