the deep, and, favored by wind and tide, looks with lively hope for an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

But the principle I am discussing, considered as a test of character, and a rule by which to adjudicate our Christian claims, is worthy of enlargement. Living unto the Lord implies that we make the approbation of God our governing aim--that we study to please Him, and that, whatever we do, we do all to His glory.

Religion, to be saving, must be supreme: "My son, give me thy heart." "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." God claims the body and the spirit. He will not divide the empire, which is his by right, with invaders and usurpers. Unless, therefore, His approval is the predominant motive, we not only base our Christianity upon mistaken apprehensions of the Divine claims, but we repudiate the only principle which can subjugate the rebellious elements and passions of our fallen nature. Before conversion, we form attachments and allow indulgences wholly inconsistent with a life of devotion. To do well, we must first cease to do evil. The flesh, with its affections and lusts, must be crucified. Self-denial is the first law of discipleship. Who would submit to have the right hand cut off, the right eye plucked out-much less perform the operation upon himself---unless by the expulsive power of a new and holy affection, these enemies which encamped within his heart shall be routed and taken captive? There must be the ascendency of another and a higher principle than any which is merely human, to break down the dominion of appetite, and passion, and habit. Flesh and blood are sad counselors in the work of God. To consult them is to betray our spiritual interests. The multitude do evil-we must dare to be singular. But who will come out from the world-brave its scorn-defy its persecution-disdain its blandishments, and rebuke its ungodliness by declining its fellowship? None but those who feel that God's smile amply remunerates for the world's contempt, and that the testimony that we please Him outweighs all earthly treasure, and outshines all earthly glory.

To live for Christ, and to live for ourselves, is utterly impractica ble. The union is a moral impossibility. We love a good name; but they that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. We are rich; but the command is, "Sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come follow me." We love home and friends; but

Christ calls to absence, and labor, and sacrifice. Religion is popular -you embrace it: the Church is fashionable-you join it. The people shout Hosanna, and Jesus is escorted by a worshipping multitude; you say, “ Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." The Master replies: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." What will you do now? Go away sorrowful? or, having counted the cost, go on to build? "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve ;" or have you settled this question long ago in favor of duty and heaven? Are you living unto the Lord? You are making a fortune; is it that you may do more good? You are rising in the world, seeking title, and honor, and influence; is it that you may enlarge your sphere of usefulness? O brother, if the carnal affection grows along with the carnal interest, thy prosperity may destroy thee. Or if thou art seeking thy own pleasure, gratification, and advancement, thou hast fallen from grace. Even Christ pleased not himself. Paul obeyed the heavenly vision immediately, conferring not with flesh and blood. And every man who would fulfil the great purposes of his creation and redemption, must make God's approving judgment the motive of all his actions, and the goal of all his efforts. Oh, how the saints of the Bible luxuriated in this element of devotion! "One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life: to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." "I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." These exemplars illustrate our subject. They lived unto the Lord. In His favor was life. "A day in His courts was better than a thousand." The world's parade and pomp paled before the glory of the sanctuary. The festal charms, the music, and the mirth of the tents of wickedness, were despised, and the lowest place in the house of God preferred. They felt that they did not live at all except as they lived unto the Lord.

This is the spirit of the text. Life is not to be measured by days and months and years, but by a succession of services to Him that loved us, and gave himself for us. I have no doubt that when the last hour comes; that hour for which earth has no comfort and philosophy no hope-when the spirit, disenthralled from the seductions of time, the witchery of sense, shall stand face to face with the realities of an eternal state, then even life's most serious engagements

will all scem as vacancies, like the hours passed in sleep, and the pleasures of the world like the vagaries of sleep itself. Go, buy, sell, get, gain, build a name, rear houses, add field to field, project public improvements, locate railroads, plan empires: this is all labor and travail-vanity and vexation of spirit.

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This is to breathe, not to live-to work, not to enjoy. "All flesh is grass, and the glory of man as the flower of the grass;” « but he that doeth the will of God, liveth and abideth for ever." To love God, this is joy to know Christ, this is gain: to do good, this is life. Mortal man child of the dust! this vain life which we spend as a shadow is but the vestibule of being. Here we die while we live: the cradle rocks us to the tomb. We spend our strength for naught. Riches fledge and fly away. Honor is but a dew-drop, glittering in the morning ray, exhaled by the very beam that makes it shine. Love and friendship-the heart's blest affections-wounded, pine; or, bereaved, they dwell among the dead, like Mary weeping there. Oh! where is the bloom without the blight? the sun without the cloud? Lord Jesus, thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence, though dimly seen, is unutterable joy, and where thou art in glory visible, is heaven.

"Whether we die, we die unto the Lord." This is an important declaration," wholesome and full of comfort." "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." The death of a good man is of too much import to happen by chance. It is an important instrument in God's plans of mercy and judgment. The event is big with instruction. Not to lay it to heart when the righteous perish, is criminal insensibility-a wicked indifference to the dispensations of heaven. Such a death is a public calamity. It is not a sparrow falling to the ground, a flower fading in the field, "the sere and yellow leaf" afloat upon the autumnal gale, and then descending to the earth, where its mates of the forest lie hueless and dead. A light is quenched, and the darkness grows deeper. The world is bereaved of a conservative influence. The prayers he would have offered are lost; and if "the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much," how great the loss! The family loses a guide and guardian, the Church an example, the country a benefactor. He serves the country best who loves God most. He is not the patriot who fights the nation's battles, right or wrong; but he who leads a life of quietness and peace, all godliness and honesty. He is not the most im

portant man who projects your laws, marshals your parties, and loads in politics; but he who, by faith, and prayer, and power with God, averts the wrath our sins provoke. David did more for Judah when he bought Araunah's threshing-floor, built an altar, offered sacrifice, and stayed the pestilence, than when, with kingly authority, he despatched Joab to quell the rebellion of Absalom. The intercession. of Moses, when, with holy boldness, with daring confidence, he rushed between the offending Israelites and the Almighty, girded for battle and extermination, and prevailed for their salvation, wrought a greater wonder than when, obedient to his magic rod, the parted waters returned in vengeance upon Pharaoh's pursuing host. Elijah was the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof-the bulwark of the nation. The clouds of heaven hung their keys at his girdle, and the widow's meal and oil multiplied beneath His blessing. A good man! Oh, ye men of royal birth, ye sages, statesmen, heroes, ye glimmer faintly beside the saint shining in the image of God. His wisdom is divine, his lineage heavenly, and greater than he who taketh a city, for he hath conquered himself. I admire architecture, painting, sculpture, the wonders of the chisel and the pencil. I love nature in her mountain majesty, the rolling ocean and the woodland vales-all that is lovely and sublime; but God is witness I would go farther to see a good man, to hear him talk of Jesus, enter into his communion, feel the moral grandeur of his destiny, than to behold any achievement of art or scene of nature. These change and perish: he is immortal. He thinks, he feels, he loves. ple of the Holy Ghost, and his spirit is bathed in the glory of the Shekinah-the symbol of the presence and worship of God. The departure of such a man is a token of displeasure. It is the voice of Heaven in judgment. But, though the family is afflicted, the Church in mourning, and the nation smitten, he " dies unto the Lord" and "in the Lord." With him "it is well."

His body is the tem

Or the text may find its fulfilment in that God hides him from the evil to come. I knew a good man who, in dying, said, "My God is housing me from a storm;" and the declaration was prophetic. Soon evils that would have broken his heart and brought him in sorrow to the grave, came upon his family in overwhelming disaster. Dangersspiritual dangers-are coming; domestic calamities draw nigh; national troubles are fermenting; God sees the clouds gathering, the

elements brewing; and, while yet the cloud is as a man's hand, and the winds are murmuring afar off, He transfers his faithful servant to the repose of the blest. "In his hand are all my ways." Delightful thought! He directs my steps, hears my sighs, chooses my allotments, numbers the hairs of my head, is about my bed and my path, and knoweth how and when to deliver. "Whether we die, we die unto the Lord."

But it may be asked, Why, if the righteous are so dear to Christ. and so valuable to the world, are they doomed to death at all? Why does not religion, which saves us from a thousand other evils, release us from this law of mortality? In answer, I remark: The reasons are obvious on reflection. Exemption from death, as a reward of piety, would appeal so strongly to the love of life--the quickest, the most enduring instinct of our being-as to override the freedom of choice, and thus make rational, voluntary piety impossible. We should adopt it as a starving man would clutch offered bread, or the mau dying of thirst would seize the cup of cold water. And besides the violence done to our nature in making the propensities decide a question belonging-under the present economy and in the proper fitness and adaptation of things--to the intellect, the heart, the will, the incongruity would follow of proposing a carnal, earthly motive for a spiritOn such a plan, Christianity must approve what she now repudiates; and the holy considerations by which she now seeks to win us from error to wisdom, from earth to heaven, would all be neutralized and lost, and the world to come be doomed to borrow the forces of time to achieve its noblest victories.

The evil of sin cannot be shown but by its punishment. This conclusion is legitimate from what is revealed of the divine administration, and from what we know of the processes of conviction in the mind of man. God hates sin. It is a blot upon his dominions. But he has not left the world to learn the fact even from the awful denunciations of his word, but he has written it in the catastrophe of nations. The deluge, famine, pestilence, fire and brimstone from heaver, have been the messengers of his wrath and the instruments of retribution. And where, save in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus and the damnation of the guilty, will you look for a more impressive demonstration of God's Justice and his indignation against sin, than in the dying agonies of infant innocence, or the mortal convulsions of him who dies unto the Lord? It is written, "The body is dead because of sin," even when