station we lived on earth, but whether we served God truly in that station of life in which his providence hath placed us; whether we lived in the faith of Christ, and under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The king will not then venture to plead that the law of the land declared him exempted from the penalties due to evil government. Like the poorest of his subjects, he must look to God's pardon through Jesus Christ for sins more countless than the sands. The noble cannot rest for salvation on his high and generous bearing, nor the man of gentle birth and education on his courtesy and propriety, nor the respectable man on his respectability, nor the poor man on his honesty. All these, indeed, are signs, so far as they go, of a Christian spirit, but God will judge whether they be genuine or deceitful. He who searches the heart will look in all of us, for that humble Christian spirit, which while it strives to render an acceptable service, and is diligent to perform the duties of its station, still feels that in

all things it falls far short of God's holy law; and hopes for salvation only through the merits of its Saviour and Redeemer.

Let me now conclude in the words of a pious servant of God, in which the topics of our meditation are summed up. "The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among Princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them '.

1 1 Samuel ii. 7.

SERMON II.

ON MUTUAL DEPENDENCE AND NEED OF

CO-OPERATION.

1 CORINTHIANS xii. 12.

"As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body."

THIS is a favourite illustration of Saint Paul, borrowed from a more ancient writer, to describe the essential unity of the Christian Church. None indeed can be more aptly chosen, whether to represent the bond of union which links together the members of God's family here on earth, or the heavenly harmony of that spiritual body, of which Christ will be the head in his Father's kingdom.

C

There is something strangely out of keeping with this picture of Christian fellowship in the language which we too generally hear in the world around us. The favourite phrases of the day are, to boast of our freedom, and to glory in our independence; as if we were isolated and solitary beings, each having his own particular views and pursuits, linked together by no common ties of interest or charity. What a cold comfortless view of things is this! how contrary to the spirit of Christian charity, for each one to wrap himself up in the mantle of his fancied independence, and say to his brother, I have no need of thee! Where in the Bible do we find any language which can countenance this feeling? Nay, what argument of common sense would authorize us to assert that man is an independent being? In what consists our boasted independence? Are we independent of God? Do we not know that "in him we live and move and have our being?" Should we not all, but for our blessed Redeemer, be even now the victims of

Satan?

Could we without the aid of the Spirit do or even think any thing that is good? Are we independent of each other? No, it is a vain imagination. God never willed that man should be alone; He hath prepared better things for us. He hath so constituted this universe, that we should all be in ten thousand ways dependent on each other for comfort, support, and happiness-for life itself, nay even for more than life-for our very salvation. And we are not linked together like a chain. No! that is a bad similitude: it is not such an union that one link might be taken away from either end, and the chain receive no damage but in length. The Holy Scriptures compare our mutual dependence to the body and its members; strike off the head, and the body quivers and falls; cripple the hands or feet, and the whole body is disfigured; if one member suffer, all the others suffer with it. The disease of the extremities shoots its pains upward to the head and heart; and if the heart refuse to sympathize, and the head de