He has so high and solemn a sense of his duty that he never suffers himself to be led away from the wants and conditions of the time and people. He enters into the heart and threads the mazy labyrinth of sin; he unveils the flimsy excuses by which men seek to hide their evil from themselves; he cuts without hesitation the knot of sophistry by which they justify wrong doing. He passes freely into the workshop, enters the silent chamber of the student, follows the man of pleasure to the park or the rout. They are taught to confess that he knows their feelings, their temptations, and that the better he knows them the stronger is his sympathy. He wins their confidence, attracts them to him; the heart closed against all dogmatic assertion opens freely to receive his lessons and counsel. Nor are these lessons the routine of religious instruction, they are fresh from his experience of life, his intercourse with men, his practised insight; and his counsels come from the warm heart of a brother. Whatever influence he had sprang from this. His rare genius, the high qualities and cultivation of his mind no doubt added to it; but they never could have given it. Other men may not possess his eloquence, originality, or any of those peculiar gifts which raise him above the common level: but all can be teachers as he was; and on this point, in spite of his faults, we know few models so admirable. Where there is a preacher like Mr. Robertson there is no charge of inefficiency against the pulpit; but not until preachers regard their calling as he did can the pulpit recover its true dignity, influence, and place.

We have spoken of the separation which is now drawn between what a man hears on the first day of the week and what he practises on the other six, and which, if allowed to get rooted in the popular mind, must produce the most mischievous effects. If the people are allowed to feel that the only remedy the Church can offer them for their sinstruck heart, their social disorders, the doubts and tyrannous lusts that possess them, is a barren summary of doctrine, or a discourse about the temple candlestick, or

Antichrist, or even Old Testament types, however excellent and suggestive, they will turn away from the Church in bitter despair. Sermons, such as these before us, prove that the remedy for this evil is in the Church's hands. She must have ministers who, like Mr Robertson, will make men feel that the truth for which they plead, the principles, the life they urge, are not for Sunday wear alone, that every day brings them to the test, and that there is no calling so common as that they will not answer it; who will lead them through this conviction to the solemn meaning of life, that it is all for God, every part of it to be consecrated to Him, that grave and holy thoughts may and should mix with the day's work and duty, not like intruders but as welcome guests. Ministers will not accomplish this till they rid the pulpit theology of its abstruseness, technicalities, awkwardness, and mocking unreality,-till they feel that every doctrine they teach is a living power, and can act on a man's conduct as well as on his brain, till they rise free above the dull atmosphere of conventionalities, declaring their message in the plain, simple, manly language that is suited to plain duties and pressing needs, till they conquer the fear that would lead them to keep back the truth when it runs counter to popular prejudice or clerical opinion. Of course they will find it a much more difficult thing than the traditional art of sermonizing. It involves personal sacrifice and personal trial. We can heartily sympathise with Mr Robertson when he describes, from the bitterness of his own experience, those "affectionate minds which tremble at the thought of being alone. They want not aid, nor even countenance: but only sympathy. And the trial comes to them, not in the shape of fierce struggle, but c chill and utter loneliness, when they are called upon to perform a duty on which the world looks coldly, or to embrace a truth which has not four.d lodgment yet in the breast of others." It is perfectly true that, as he says again, "If you are in doubt you cannot tell your doubts to religious people: no, not even to the minister of Christ-for they have no place

for doubts, not even in their largest win for the truth an entrance and a system. They ask what right have you home. Even when they understand and to doubt? They suspect your character. remember it, if it has not been specially They shake the head: and whisper it brought under their notice, they are apt about gravely that you read strange to imagine it is for their neighbours. books that you are verging on infidel- Frequent, strong, and fervent appeals ity." But it was through the discipline are necessary for them, and, far from and trust in God which such trials bring being hurtful to the rest, they would be that he was enabled to utter these noble an invaluable boon from a man of Mr and precious words,-" That mind alone Robertson's stamp. Besides, those who is free which, conscious ever of its own feeble- are steeled by habitual church-going, ness, feeling hourly its own liability to err, and accustomed to think without being turning thankfully to light from whatsoever convinced, escape unchallenged. Hardenside it may come, does yet refuse to give ed and depraved sinners are more likely to up that right with which God has invested be touched by a warm-hearted, ebullient it, or to abrogate its own responsibility, and Methodist, crying to them as individua. so humbly and even awfully resolves to have men, beseeching them to flee from the an opinion, a judgment, a decision of its wrath to come, picturing to them, i own." Nor is it likely that without this vivid language, on the one side, their training his wisdom would have been so guilt, the terror of the Lord, and the ingenial, his ardour so chastened, his judg-finite horrors with which his imagination ment so calm, sensible, and clear.

There is one defect prevailing through the volumes which we greatly regret. Making due allowance for the imperfect form in which the discourses are presented to us, there is yet a marked absence of direct personal appeal: the hortative element is wanting, breaks out momentarily on special occasions and then disappears. He did not preach as Baxter would have "a dying man to dying men." He is earnest to the heart's core; but by one solitary brief sentence he seldom puts a truth pointedly to his audience, seldom pleads, or as our forefathers expressed it, strives, with them; the fault is rather one of form-and in the Second Series it is not so prominent, the very beautiful sermon on "The Irreparable Past," which closes the volume, being a direct and most impressive appeal from beginning to end-but it is more important than might be supposed. An impersonal discourse is not likely to make a lasting impression, except on people of highly educated minds, who, receiving the general truth, make the particular application for themselves. There is another class in every congregation-in most it preponderates-of those whose personal feelings must be interested in order to Sermon xviii. Freedom by the Truth-p.

(306, First Series.)

peoples hell, and on the other, the tender pity, forbearance, and love of God, the sufferings and untold agony endured for them by Christ-they are more likely to be touched by this than by listening to a man who, with marvellous psychological skill, traces their sins up through every crooked winding of their lives to the fountain of their evil heart of unbelief.

The reason of this defect seems to lie in the predominance, in Mr Robertson, of the intellectual element over the devotional. He is not enough either of a Methodist or a Mystic. He impresses us with the absence of a deep spiritual conviction of sin as distinct from an intellectual. He does not seem to have had in his heart that fiery consciousness of it which David, Paul, Augustine, Luther, all the greatest spiritual heroes, had. He realizes it more vividly in mental and bodily forms than in the throes of the inward being. The devotional man regards it as a positive existence, an actual enemy: he is continually disposed to regard it as the negation of the good. It is true that as the Sermons in this series, succeeding the former in chronological order, manifest a steady growth in christian knowledge, so in the "Notes on Psalm li.," and "The Restoration of the Erring," there is a more profound

CHURCH UNION.

Sermon.

By the REV. JOHN ROBERTSON, M.A., Minister of Mains and Strathmartine.

"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him."-GENESIS i. 27.

Now, it is quite evident that upon precisely the same principle no idea could be conveyed to us of "justice," "truth," "mercy," "love," and the other attributes of God, unless it were that they are attributes also of our own nature. The names of these attributes would be meaningless words to us, unless it were that there is something in our own bosom to give them signification. Apart from the sentiments of "justice," "truth,"

I CONCEIVE, my friends, that the truth enunciated in this passage lies at the very foundation of all theology. It is because, and only because, we have been created in the image of God, that it is possible for us to attain to the knowledge of God. Were it not that there is something in us akin to the nature of God, there are no imaginable means by which any conception of His attributes and character could be conveyed to our minds. No revelation could have disclosed Him" mercy," "love," in our own nature, we to us but for the fact that there is that within us which resembles Him. We are capable of arriving at the knowledge of God simply and entirely because we have been formed after his likeness.

There is no possible method by which you could convey the idea of colour to a man born blind. You might attempt it with all your eloquence, but it would be in vain. No language you could possibly use, no illustrations you could possibly employ, would be sufficient to give him even the faintest conception of the meaning of such words as "yellow," or "blue," or "green." I have somewhere read of a blind man who used to say that he supposed the colour "scarlet" was like the sound of a trumpet. It is easy to conjecture by what association of ideas he was led to say so. He had heard probably that soldiers are dressed in scarlet, and he knew that the trumpet is a common instrument of martial music, and in this way he was led to connect the two things. It is plain, however, that he really had no conception of the colour. And he could have none. Having never seen a colour, the conception of a colour lay totally beyond his reach. He neither had it nor could it be conveyto him.

2-IX.

could have no idea of them as existing in God's nature. In fact we could have no idea of them at all. To speak of them to a being who had nothing resembling them in himself would be far more unintelligible than if a congregation of uneducated people in this country were to be addressed in Greek or Hebrew. The Greek or the Hebrew might be explained, but these words could not be explained in the entire absence from our own nature of the qualities they designate. If, by an effort of the imagination, you could conceive to yourselves an intelligent creature totally destitute of moral sentiments, to that creature all knowledge of the moral attributes of God would be necessarily and wholly impossible. To that creature God might perhaps be known as the Lord God Omniscient and Omnipotent, (for we have supposed him an intelligent creature,) but to that creature He could not be known as "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, abundant in goodness and truth."

The same thing might be illustrated in many ways. How is it, for example, that we are known to one another? How is it that you are known to me, so that, in preaching to you from this place, I can submit to you arguments and

B

motives not without some hope that they ❘ than the power of self-interest, and so they do not understand how there can be another power stirring in the soul of their beneficent neighbour. What a mystery Paul must have been to the rest of the Pharisees! When they saw him casting in his lot with the despised Galileans— giving himself to a life of suffering, when he might have led a life of ease and dignity-forsaking all the honours and pleasures of the world, and devoting himself to a course entailing so much privation and persecution and contumely as that which he adopted-what a puzzle he must have been to them! What an enig. ma! How utterly they must have felt at a loss to account for his conduct, being themselves so utterly devoid of the noble spirit by which he was moved!

will approve themselves to your minds and influence your life? You are known to me, and we are all known to one another, just as being partakers in the same nature,-just as resembling one another in the constitution of our being. But for this we could not understand one another in any degree whatever. I could not guess what would weigh with you, and you could not guess what would weigh with me. We should be each a mystery to all the rest. And just in like manner, were it not that we have been created in the image of God, God would be a mystery to us all-a hopeless mystery-not only an unknown God but an unknowable God-not only a Being whom we cannot thoroughly apprehend because He is greater than we are, but a Being of whom we could form no conception or idea whatever, because no similarity existed between Him and us.

Upon the ground of these principles, I conceive, as I have said, that the truth enunciated in the text lies at the very foundation of all theology, or, in other words, of all possible knowledge of God. Do not take up, however, a wrong impression of what is meant. Of course it is not meant that God is "altogether such an one as ourselves." That would be the worst of heresies, the most fearful of blasphemies. We were created in the image of God. But we are fallen. We need no other proof than conscience most

Or look at the subject from this other point of view. How often do we take up a false impression regarding one another, and misconstrue one another's motives, just because the likeness between us is not perfect! Take this case, for example: a man devotes himself to works of charity -he dedicates his substance to the feeding of the hungry, and the clothing of the naked-he dedicates his time to the visit-readily supplies, that there is much in us ing of the distressed he spends, and is spent, for the good of his fellow-creatures. How frequently is such a man altogether misinterpreted! His motives are misunderstood. All sorts of ill constructions are put upon his conduct. He is a popularity-hunter, or something else equally hollow. So say a thousand tongues; and so they say, just because they are the tongues of the selfish and the niggardly. Men who have but little of the spirit of love in their bosoms cannot comprehend the spirit of love in his bosom. They cannot appreciate him, just because they are so little like him. They do not know what other motive than the love of popularity, or the like, would make them rise up from their easy chairs, and put themselves to trouble for the benefit of their brethren. They do not feel within themselves another power, higher and holier

now which is unrighteous and evil. It would be frightful to suppose that this unrighteousness has any counterpart in God. In many respects (blessed be His name) His thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways. O, if He were as impatient of offences as we are, if He were as unforgiving, if He were as revengeful, how wretched our condition would be! It is our very hope and joy that God does not resemble us in every respect. The heathen supposed (in the darkness of their minds) that God was altogether such an one as themselves, and it was this which gave rise to their miserable, their frightful views of the Divine character, for miserable, frightful views they indeed were, even though decked out in the exquisite poetry of Greece and Rome. Monsters of lust and depravity, given to all nameless pollutions