There is nothing moral in it. Goodness is essential to moral greatness-the greatness which belongs to God. Men cannot be truly great but in proportion as they are truly good. The best man is the greatest. True greatness consists in active piety and active benevolence. Sacrifice and suffering, and intense persevering effort, from motives of piety and benevolence, are necessary to the highest form of moral greatness. If these views be correct, philosophy has been misled. Her notion of greatness is exceedingly erroneous, her search after it having been limited to heathen antiquity, where it existed only in its least matured states, and presented itself in its most imperfect manifestations. The finest examples of greatness ever witnessed in our world, are to be found in the Scriptures. The blindness of philosophy to the moral greatness of the Jewish patriarchs and prophets, as there delineated, can be accounted for only from her hatred to the character of the God revealed in the Bible, and the resemblance of their character to it. In the books of the Old Testament alone, there is such an assemblage of names, distinguished by this divine attribute, as cannot be equalled from the entire mass of the heathen literature of all past times, united to that of those which are now passing over us. Neither modern nor ancient literature exhibits any character to be compared with Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Josiah, Jeremiah, Shadrach, Meshech, Abednego, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, or Mordecai. Nay, after this dignified selection has been made, a multitude of names remain of such splendour, that notwithstanding their inferiority to these, all the greatest lights of heathenism

are lost at once in the blaze of their brightness. It deserves especial remark, that all the illustrious persons here mentioned, with but two exceptions, were men distinguished by the spirit of peace. They were strangers to military pursuits. They earned their laurels by works of faith and labours of love-by piety and philanthropy.

Of ABEL, we know just enough to prove that he was truly great. He knew the Lord; he believed the divine testimony, he pleased his Creator; and he died for the truth. Next to him was ENOCH, one of the greatest and most honoured men that ever appeared in our world. "He walked with God." How significant the expres sion! How high the distinction! The deeds recorded of this celestial man required a courage far surpassing that which suffices to storm citadels, to wade in blood, and murder troops of armed men. He stood up boldly for God against the wicked, forewarning them of the Lord's advent "to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly, of all their ungodly deeds and hard speeches."-Behold the decision and elevation which eminent piety imparts to Christian character!

The moral stature of NOAH was equal to that of Enoch. He lived in the worst age of the antediluvian world, when violence filled the earth, and iniquity like a flood covered all lands. Amid the millions of an atheistical age, stood Noah, like a rock in the ocean, unmoved by the billows that raged around him-a pattern of piety, and a preacher of righteousness—an individual against a world! What courage! What fidelity! What glory! The position accorded with the character: both were sublime. What elevation and honour his were, when God said to him, "The end of all flesh is come before me; with thee will I establish my covenant!" How

awful was his station on the day when he laid the first plank of the ark! His deed was the fruit of faith in the knowledge which God had graciously imparted to him. Still more awful and sublime was his position while riding on the world of waters which had entombed the whole mass of contemporary nations! Nor was his position diminished in interest, although stripped of terror, when he stepped forth again upon the emerging earth, to lay the foundation of new empires. The edifice of Noah's greatness was founded in the belief of the Divine testimony, and its top stone was the spirit of cordial, uniform, universal obedience: "according to all that God commanded him, so did he."-Behold the decision and elevation which eminent piety imparts to Christian character!

We are next conducted to ABRAHAM, incomparably the greatest historical personage of the post-diluvian world, although literature and philosophy have considered him beneath their notice, and no Christian writer has yet attempted a full delineation of the moral portraiture of " the friend of God." The church of Christ has in every age been so occupied with the "Faith" of Abraham, that she has, perhaps, in some measure, overlooked the other elements of his marvellous character. Moral greatness reached its height in this parent and prototype of spiritual pilgrims. The position which he occupied was singular. He differed in all points from the great men of heathen nations. Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, possessed but little in common with Abraham. His greatness had in it nothing accidental, nothing adventitious, nothing political, nothing military, nothing literary; it was purely personal, and altogether moral. Separate the men just mentioned from matters

political and military, and what would remain to them? These lights of the ancient world would be at once shorn of their beams, and reduced to comparative obscurity. Take from heathen scholars their literature, and leave them only their characters, and what remains? The patriarch was a man of no country. He was a part of no system: like the moon, he walked alone in his brightness, reflecting the glory of the Lord. His greatness was emphatically that of the heart. He had no ambition to crush or rule his fellow-creatures; he dealt not in philosophical dogmata; he never indulged in the luxuries of literature. His delights were in God; his business was to please his Maker; doing or suffering his will was the only thing that occupied the mind of the man of Ur. He calmly moved throughout the whole of his life in direct opposition to the settled course of mankind. This devotion, in the midst of universal defection, is one of the most distinguishing points of his wonderful history. Amid a world of universal darkness, Abraham walked in light; in an age when, without exception, the whole human race were given to idolatry, he worshipped only the living God. Faith, which constitutes the chief element of moral greatness, existed and operated in him with the power and uniformity of nature's laws. It was his ruling principle. His life exemplified it continually. Infantile simplicity never credited the utterance of maternal lips with more implicit confidence than did Abraham the word of his God. All his recorded acts, with a solitary exception, were full of beauty and dignity. How full of manhood and self-respect was his demeanour towards the king of Sodom, after the rescue of his brother Lot!*

* Gen. xiv. 13-24.

But what shall be said of his sublime and beautiful deportment, when, before the Lord, he interceded for the guilty city! This scene, in moral grandeur, has never been equalled by any creature. What dignity, what pathos, break forth in his importunate pleadings! How pure, and soft, and heavenly, the spirit that breathes in his intercession! How infinitely unlike, and how infinitely superior, to all the fabled intercourse of gods and men! Then there is the journey to Mount Moriah, and the events which occurred there in connexion with the offering of his son. A world filled with such men would deserve to be the residence of angels. Mankind are morally great only as they resemble Abraham.-Behold the decision and elevation which eminent piety imparts to Christian character!

ISAAC was his father in miniature. A gentler spirit has seldom breathed the atmosphere of this lower world; and the position assigned him was well adapted to his temper. As compared with that of his father Abraham, and his son Jacob, it might be likened to an isthmus, a neck of land between two oceans, or a season of calm between two storms. His disposition was profoundly contemplative. He was much alone; and he delighted to be alone with God, in the midst of a wicked and tumultuous world. He was great through a spirit of self-annihilation, simplicity, and submissiveness. In the essential qualities of true moral greatness, he was second only to his father. How unparalleled and wonderful was the scene enacted by them on Mount Moriah! Notwithstanding the trying, the terrible nature of the duty there exacted, how implicit was the obedience of Isaac to Abraham, and of Abraham to God!

* Gen. xviii. 23-33.