They have hitherto however, in my judgment, been too confined in their topics. Political manœuvres and terrible accidents are not the only things capable of interesting the human mind. Able discussions on morals and political economy, would be found to attract quite as many readers, I believe, as the disgusting details of the watch house and the police.

I come in the last place, to speak of the highest influence that is brought to operate upon the moral nature of man, to purify, refine and exalt it, the inculcation of religious truth. Religion is the highest power known to man, the most commanding motive that can operate upon his conduct. The laws can take hold of but few of our actions, public opinion can only constrain us to govern our external conduct, our real characters it leaves untouched. The eye of man is on us only at intervals. God looketh always at the heart. To him there can be no disguise, and every attribute of his nature is an omnipotent motive to us to maintain the purity of the soul.

Accordingly Christianity, which is the true religion, has been the chief instrument

of modern civilization. The Christian church which has embodied a greater amount of true excellence than the race of man has elsewhere exhibited, has been the salt of the earth, the light of the world. It has been the rallying point of good principles, the spring and fountain of noble enterprizes for the welfare of the species.

The sabbath, considered as an institution either of piety or mercy, surpasses any thing that the wisdom of man has ever invented. Releasing the body from toil, and the soul from the slavery of material interests, it consecrates one day in seven to man's moral and spiritual well being. It redeems a portion of this short life to thought, to reading, to moral and spiritual culture. Proclaiming a truce to the absorbing cares and sordid passions of men, it invites them to hold communion together as fellow pilgrims of time, the heirs of immortality, the children of the skies.

The Christian ministry, a spiritual order,— and some spiritual order the wants of man have demonstrated to be necessary in the darkest days and regions of ignorance and idolatry as well as the brightest and most enlightened of a divinely authenticated faith,—

have been a body of men since their first institution of singular moral excellence and intellectual cultivation. It was their sacred brotherhood, which issuing forth from Judea in the reign of Tiberius, and bearing as their banner the consecrated cross, the symbol of that embassy of mercy which had been sealed on Calvary by the Saviour of the world, broke the iron despotism of the Cæsars, redeemed from bondage the millions of Roman slaves, and put an end to the bloody spectacles of the amphitheatre and the circus. It was they, who, during the ages of darkness and ignorance which succeeded the irruption of the Barbarians of the North, kept watch over the sacred embers of learning, religion and civilization, and were the first to catch and proclaim the glad sound, when the mountain tops began to be illuminated by a new and brighter intellectual day. For ages they governed the world, not by usurpation, but by the legitimate title of the wisest and the best, and the secular power was wrested from their grasp only when its natural depositaries became sufficiently enlightened to wield it for the benefit of their subjects.

Their influence, withdrawn from secular channels, is only the more powerful for being confined to spiritual concerns. Their weapons are drawn from the armory of God. Bearing the shield of faith, defended by the breastplate of righteousness, and wielding the sword of the spirit, they are still a noble army fighting the battles of mankind against their spiritual enemies, superstition and ignorance, error and sin. Their great commission has not yet run out, "Go preach the Gospel to every creature;" and still the promise attends their labors; "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." They inherit the sacred and perennial office of Prophet and Priest. They stand up as the interpreters of God, the ambassadors of Heaven, the comforters of sorrow, the instructers of ignorance, the intercessors for guilt. In the pulpit, which is the throne of their power, they speak with an authority which is conceded to no other mortal, for while they utter the message of their Master they feel themselves to be, those who listen recognize them as only the medium through which, as of old, the Spirit speaks to the churches.

The office of the ministry yearly becomes more and more laborious, more and more difficult to fill. To be a teacher, the Christian minister must keep in advance of his flock, a task continually demanding greater effort with the development of mind, and the general diffusion of knowledge. And by some it is apprehended that the world is shortly to pass by the ministry, and leave them and their sacred ministrations in the rear of the march of improvement. For my own part, I apprehend no such result. I should indeed, were their instructions based upon any thing else than the Bible. The truths therein revealed, like the stars in the firmament, are as far above us as they were above the generation to which they were first disclosed. Unlike to earthly lights they wax not dim with years, but become only the more glorious the more they are contemplated, and the more they are known. As the mechanism of the heavens seems more perfect and sublime the more it is subjected to the scrutiny of science, so the deeper our knowledge of society and the soul, the more profound will be our admiration for the teachings of the lowly Nazarene.

His character itself is