from beneath the wreck and rubbish by which they are covered, and rivet his thoughts on the past. In this stilly hour the ghosts of departed scenes of innocence and peace flit before him, and the voice of his heart-broken mother rings amid his heart's emptiness, and she "being dead yet speaketh" from her grave, with an emphasis and effect which she could not command while she sat beneath her own roof, and beside her own hearth. A reaction takes place in his conduct, and all by the instrumentality of the holy conversation and unblemished worth of her whose lips are closed in death, and who "being dead nevertheless speaketh" for her God, his truth, and his glory. Or we may vary the illustration, and adopt that of a departed minister of Jesus. His tongue was ever eloquent in the cause of piety and eternal things, and his life was the exact counterpart of his creed the echo of his preaching, the legible and the living illustration of all his sermons. Under such a ministry as this, many remained impregnable to the claims of eternity, "dead in trespasses and sins." When he has been gathered to his fathers, and the voice that sounded the trumpet of alarm and of battle has been hushed in the silence of the tomb, and the fingers that were taught by Jehovah to fight, and to wield the sword of the Spirit, are nerveless in death-O! often there comes from the pastor laid in the grave, a more persuasive and melting eloquence, than there came from the pastor standing in the pulpit; and from the herald of Jesus wrapped in his winding-sheet, a more successful sermon, than from the herald of Jesus robed in the emblems of his ministerial character. Deep often is the appeal that comes from his grave, and spirit-stirring and touching the discourse which he being dead yet speaketh." His example lingers behind him; the imperishable of his nature walks among his flock, visiting their homes, comforting the mourner, warning the careless, and teaching the ignorant, and continues to stand in the pulpit which the living man occupied, and "to reason of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment." This, my Christian brethren, is the fair side of the portrait; and were the influence left behind by the dead universally of this stamp and character, then would men be throughout their biography like visitant angels of mercy passing athwart our miserable world, distilling balm and scattering light among men's sons; or as transient gales from the spicy lands of the East, or glorious meteors arising in rapid succession amidst the moral darkness of the earth, imparting light and fearlessness to its many pilgrims, and this would be bettered by every successive generation, till it arose and expanded to its millennial blessedness and peace. But alas! if many of the dead yet speak for God, and for the eternal welfare of humanity, many, many also speak for Satan, and ply after, as before their death, the awful work of sealing souls in their slumber, and smoothing and adorning the paths that lead to eternal death. Just reverse the portraits we have drawn. Suppose that the mother we have alluded to was one that forgot, alike and altogether, the claims of her God, her soul, and her family; and, both by her example and her tuition, fostered the evil passions which are indigenous to our nature. the language in which she "being dead yet speaks?" What is the influence she leaves behind her? It is the same voice that comes from her home and her grave: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die:" and often and again will her evil maxims be quoted, and her wicked life appealed to, for incentives to sin, and encouragement in the works and ways of iniquity. She is dead, but the contagion of her character is alive. Her form is beneath the earth, but her voice is still heard to the extent of its sphere, and the spectre of her immorality stalks among those that were attached to her in life: and, just in proportion to the many amiabilities of her character, will be the depth and duration of the impression made by the vices of her character. Or we may pass to the higher platform, and quote the Christian minister. Let us suppose that his creed and his conduct were irreconcilable antagonists-that he preached like a seraph, and lived like a devil-that he preached so well that it was a pity he 2 Q What is ever left the pulpit, but lived so ill that dying influence which genius can exert it was a pity he ever entered it. O! how by reason of that great discovery of modestructive the sermons which he "being dern times-the printing-press. The disdead yet speaketh!" Every godless hearer he has left behind him will appeal to the doings of his deceased minister for a sort of license to his conduct, and in- | dulgence for his sins; and the unhappy man will destroy more after his death than during his life. Thus the departed sinner, as well as the departed saint, "being dead yet speaketh." Thus our sins as well as our virtues survive. Thus we exert a posthumous influence which adds either an impulse upon the advancing chariot of salvation, or throws stumbling-blocks and obstacles in its way. These last characters are like baleful comets that traverse our canopy for awhile, leaving behind them pestilence, and plague, and mildew; or, like the fell simooms of the desert, wafting moral death and desolation to every scene which they visit. It is for these reasons that we urge every one to read the lives of illustrious martyrs, and apostles, and saints, who "being dead yet speak," in behalf of all that is holy, and honest, and of good report; and it is for this reason especially that we would warn every man, and teach every man, to be very jealous of his life and his doings, not merely on account of the present generation, but of generations yet to come, over which his influence for good or for evil may extend. covery of printing is the finest illustration of my text; and well may we remark in passing, that many texts which to us appear yet weak or obscure, are waiting for greater advancement in human discoveries to be brought home to us in all their weight and their fulness. By means of printing, man may speak to all kindreds, and tribes, and people, and tongues, and make his voice be heard, with simultaneous power, beyond the Atlantic waves, and upon the shores of the Caspian sea, and amid the population of Europe. Nay, he may speak to accumulating generations after his death, with all the freshness and force of personal eloquence. Printing gives to man a sort of ubiquity and eternity of being: it enables him to outwit death, and enshrine himself amid a kind of earthly immortality. It enables him to speak while yet dead. His words that breathe, and thoughts that burn, are imbodied and embalmed; and with him thousands hold profitable or hurtful communion till time is no more. If, then, we are loudly called upon to be careful what we speak, and what we do, we are doubly warned to beware what we throw into the press, and invest with a power to endure, and a strength to pass every sea, and to visit every people. Every day as it dawns is adding to the powers, and resources, and expansibiliWe have hitherto spoken of the influ- ties of man: and, if every day does not ence for good or for evil which men leave also add a larger amount of moral and rebehind them in the immediate circles of ligious principle to regulate this growing their friends and acquaintance; but there power, then, in the end, will the huare other ways in which men may speak man race attain a giant's strength, but to many generations yet to come, as have an idiot's skill to use it. Our poliloudly as if they had a voice which could tical power is increased; our numerical, be heard from the rivers to the ends of the and therefore physical, power is inearth. I speak not of the lettered tomb-creased; our resources are immensely instone, which is the voice of many of the creased; our skill has enabled us, by dead speaking, after they are gone, to the steam navigation, to bid defiance to tide, pilgrim that is wending his way to Zion; and tempest, and time; and our improvenor of monuments erected to commemo- ments in printing are now so vastly mulrate illustrious worth; nor of legacies and tiplied, that we can give body and form bequests to the cause of religion, which to every word that falls from the lips of make the name of the donor to be men- man, and circulate the speech that was tioned with reverence and respect after addressed to a few auditors yesterday to he is gone but I speak of the almost un- the utmost ends of the globe. We there fore want much a commensurate increase | joy or sorrow to the denizens of eternity. of religious principle, and need more than Often and again will the great and the ever to be reminded how and what we are wise that are in glory, wish that their to do. Never was the text so true as it pens had been more employed, and their is in the nineteenth century; never did faculties put more to the stretch; and men "being dead yet speak" so exten- often will the lost in hell wish, that when sively, so long, and so loudly. they wrote, their right hand had forgotten its cunning, and the sun refused them his light, and the press cast out their works still-born, and consigned them to Lethean streams. If any earth-born joys are admitted as visitants amid the celestial choirs, the joy that springs from having written saving and sanctifying works, is the sweetest that reaches the hearts of the saved. And I can fancy a Baxter, a Newton, a Scott, a Rutherford, rejoice with exceeding joy when the angels that minister to them that are to be heirs of salvation, bring word that, in consequence of the "Awakening Call of the Unconverted," or "the Force of Truth," or the "Letters from the Prison of Aberdeen," some sinner has been aroused from his lethargy, and made a partaker of grace, and mercy, and peace. And if, as we believe, any poignant recollections from this side "the bourne whence no traveller returns," reach the memories of the lost, not the least bitter will be the remembrance of having written volumes which are circulated by every library, and sold by every vender, in which the foundations of morality are sapped, and the youth of our world poisoned throughout the whole range of their moral economy. O! it will be the sorest sting of that worm which never dies, and the most agonizing pang of that fire which is never quenched, that their name, and their creed, and their principles after them, gather converts on earth, and carry fell desolation to homes that had otherwise been happy, and corruption to hearts that had else beat high with philanthropy and piety. To speak in many tongues and in many lands, long after they are dead, is a source of deep joy to the holy ones that are saved; and to speak in many tongues and in many lands, after they are dead, is a source of the bitterest sorrow to the damned. And thus it seems to come out, that the intellectual and scientific discoveries of every day, are preparing either additional matter of deep pain to the lost, or of intense joy to the ransomed. Knowledge is not only power for good or for evil, but it is Thus I have laid before you the mighty influence which emanates from the dead, and the many channels through which that influence may continue to flow forth upon the living, for generations yet to come. I am now anxious, as a watchman upon the walls of Zion, to improve all passing occurrences, and, among the rest at this time, the death of one who has made a deeper sensation among the religious public, than any other minister since the days of Luther and of Knox, and who being dead speaks volumes-I mean the death of the Rev. Edward Irving. His name is now perished from the catalogue of the living upon earth, but found, I am sure, in the book of the living on high. I believe he has gone to the bosom of his Father and his God, where his sincere, but grievous misapprehensions of many great truths are for ever done away. He held, I know, the alone foundation Christ Jesus, and adorned the doctrine he professed by every Christian virtue; and while the "hay, and straw, and stubble," he built on it are all consumed, he himself shall be everlastingly secure. When I came first to this great metropolis, I found in Mr. Irving a friend when I had none besides, and in his session much spiritual and religious comfort. I was in the habit of spending many Saturday evenings along with a few ministers of England and Scotland, in meditations on the Greek Testament; and when I remember the child-like simplicity, the striking humbleness of mind, and the kind hospitality of that great and good man, I cannot but grieve at the awful eclipse under which he came, and the early tomb he has found. He is gone to the grave, I have reason to believe, with But it was flowers that bloomed not for man upon earth, and make known a geography which is to be known hereafter only. Like the eagle, he soared too near the sun, and was struck blind. He was misled by sparks of his own kindling. Had he been but a retired and ordinary parish minister, how happy had it been for Edward Irving! But so it is; the strongest swimmer is first drowned, and the strongest and the foremost warrior most frequently slain. a broken heart. However much he con- the doings of his audience. tinued to adhere to the unscriptural and his calamity that he knew and felt too enthusiastic notions he broached, he could well the greatness of his genius; and this not yet shut his eyes to the awful disco-made him fancy he could penetrate the veries made concerning the conduct of arcana of eternity in virtue of his intellecsome of his professedly inspired followers.tual prowess, and gather to his bosom Conceive men daring to declare that they were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and, in virtue of their pretended inspiration, ordaining apostles, evangelists, prophets, and, all the while, living in the grossest violation of the ten commandments. In these things there was enough to break that good man's heart; and if we combine with these facts the various tribunals at which he has stood his dissociation and exile from the temple in this city, which the credit of his name had reared, and in which (as he himself most pathe- Here is a lesson for men of great parts. tically said) his babes were buried-his It is not in this case that grace is needed deposition from the office of the holy mi- in the inverse ratio of our intellectual nistry in that church, whose battles he strength. The greater our intellect is, had often fought and whose walls he the greater our need of grace to guide it. dearly loved; we can see more than ade- The strong man has most need of discrequate materiel to bring him to the grave tion, and the rich man of prudence. Let in the prime of manhood. He set out on it be your fervent prayer, that the powers the Christian ministry like some war-you have derived from the Creator may ship, with streaming pennants, and with be incased in grace derived from Christ majestic way but the storms beat, and the waves arose, and prudence was driven from the helm, and, perchance, the seven spirits that are before the throne ceased to breathe upon the sails; and battered, and tossed, and rifted, she foundered amid rocks and shoals. I left him when I conceived that he had left truth; but still, never did I cease to esteem the man, and earnestly to pray for his recovery. It is because "he being dead yet speaketh" more important lessons than any of the dead I have known, that I bring his character before you this day. Let me, in dependence on divine grace, enumerate a few of the lessons, "he being dead yet speaks" to the ministers and people of Christ. 1. He speaks to us strongly on the danger that environs a lofty intellect. No man ever possessed a mind of higher range, and a greater power of fervent and impressive oratory. None, with the exception of his illustrious father in Christ, Dr. Chalmers, was so able to arrest the attention, and gain the hearts, and mould Jesus your Redeemer. Here also is a lesson to men of moderate talents. Envy not the lofty minds of the eloquent and the able: the higher you rise, the greater is your liability to fall. Let us remember, that David's weakness, backed by the blessing of the God of Israel, was stronger than the strength of Goliath without it. Our warfare is not with intellectual, but with spiritual arms. The only desirable gift is the grace of God. 2. "He being dead yet speaketh" of the dangers of ministerial popularity. Never yet did obscurity destroy ministerial usefulness, but often has it been impaired and neutralized by the poison of the popular breath. He who is gone had often and again among his audience, the crowns and the coronets of the worldthe wise, and the rich, and the illustrious; and the matter of wonder is, not that he should have fallen, but that he did not fall much sooner. It would be well if those, who spare no condemnatory language when they speak of him who is gone, would but think, that if they had stood in his place, their fall would have been more speedy, and more disastrous. He became giddy from the eminence to which he was raised; and after staggering awhile, he fell, a warning to all never to forget that "by grace they stand," wherever and whatever be the niche which they occupy. But there is an especial admonition from his tomb to our congregations. His people almost idolized him; they listened to him instead of listening to God; and therefore the Almighty taught them, by bitter experience, that man is not to receive the glory that pertains exclusively to Jehovah. O never was minister-worship so signally punished; and never, I trust, will the lesson cease to be remembered by generations yet to come. is, that the whole inspiration of the word of God was clean at issue with those views which Mr. Irving broached respecting the humanity of Jesus. As to the claims to miraculous powers, never were claims so wild and preposterous. I defy them to produce one single instance of miraculous power. The miracles of our Lord and his apostles were so palpable, that men never disputed their supernatural character, but declared that they were either from God or from Satan; but, in the present day, the miracles said to be wrought are such miserable failures, that the question is among themselves whether they really be miracles or not. Doubt is condemnation here. Nothing should be more satisfactory to these deluded men than the fact, that, a fortnight before the death of him to whom we allude, one of the gifted persons, speaking (as he professed) by the Spirit, prophesied that their leader would not die. What is the fact? And what is the inference? I pressed this single incident lately home to the conscience of one of the deluded people, and he told me that Jeremiah had prophesied falsehoods, and, if he erred, the prophets in Newman-street surely had license to err. So indeed they had. So infatuated are these fanatics that, rather than humble themselves to see the absurdity of their views, they will let go their belief in the inspiration of the word of the living God, and shake the very foun May 3. "He being dead yet speaketh" respecting the danger of self-sufficiency and self-confidence. We are, by no means, prepared to assert, that the verdict of others is to determine the nature of our own decisions on the word of the living God; and we are not prepared to assert, that any national or individual church is infallible; we must all stand or fall by what we ourselves have thought and done, not by what others have said. But when the whole voice of Christendom is lifted up against an opinion which we have cherished-when martyrs have sealed by their blood, and apostles have preached to the death, and reformers have proclaimed in every land, that one propo-dations of all our Christianity. sition is from the Scripture, and the other God deliver us from a spirit of self-conin direct opposition to its statements, it fidence and self-sufficiency, and lead us surely becomes a young and inexperienced to that happy temperament which stands divine, to doubt, to pause, to give away. neither in receiving wholesale and unexaBecause we are not to bow to the ipse mined the opinions of men, nor in rejectdixit of any, we are not therefore to re-ing and despising them as less to be ject the weight of the testimony of the wise, the holy, the ancient. The whole Church of Scotland decided, through her venerable assembly, that the views of Mr. Irving, respecting the humanity of Christ, were unscriptural; and yet he persisted in his adherence to his former statements, and pitched his own judgment against that of the most venerable, and learned, and holy fathers of the Christian church. I do feel, that next to the Bible, we are to honour the church. But the fact depended on than our own. Above all, let us ever feel that dependence on the Spirit of God which is our greatest strength and security. 4. "He being dead yet speaketh" respecting the danger of leaving truth, even in the smallest degree, and preferring opinions simply because they are novel. There is but one straight and true way, while there are a thousand false. In that way we find that the pious and the illustrious dead have walked, and found peace; and |