quitting his parent earth, and without leaving his tabernacle of flesh, Man mingles in spirit with intelligencies of the highest orders, who enjoy conscious existence-who comprehend their holy destinations-who feel themselves in a progress of improvement-who are susceptible of kind impressions and capable of returning them—and who exult in their own immortality.

In answering the cavils of infidelity on the subject of the grand Christian doctrine-" THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD"-the Apostle introduces a variety of simple and familiar images. He refers the objector to the well known, yet incomprehensible, manner, in which the vegetable tribes are reproduced: perishing, in order to be renovated-disappearing for a season, to appear the more glorious—and dying, on purpose to be quickened to a newness of life. He refers to the various species of animal substances, the form and texture of which are adapted to the elements in which they are to live, and to the purposes which they are destined to fulfil. And he refers to the apparent varieties, in point of excellency and importance, of the heavenly bodies, as adumbrating excellence and importance of a different and far superior kind.

Though these elucidations were originally employed, with a view to that "great and notable day of the Lord," when He, who sitteth upon the throne shall say; "Behold I make all things new:" and when "all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth :" yet as there is a close and inseparable connection between what man now is, and what he shall be, I have unhesitatingly availed myself (as introductory to other matter, which I have to offer) of the same beautiful and impressive imagery, to display the present progressive glory of renewed humanity -the germ of that transcendent glory which is to be revealed. As " one star differeth from another star in glory," so also one human being now differeth from another,—IN EXTERNAL FORM—

IN ORIGINAL MENTAL POWERS-IN INTELLECTUAL IMPROVEMENT-IN MORAL EXCELLENCE IN DEVOTIONAL ELEVATION;

-and all these looking forward unto, and issuing in that perfected state, which shall be effected by the Almighty power of God, at the resurrection of the dead.

I. It is part of the economy of nature, that one man should differ from another man in respect of external form, as one star differeth from another star in splendour and in magnitude.

Of all the productions of divine power and skill, which are obvious to the senses or the understanding, the human figure stands confessed the most beautiful, the most noble, and the most excellent. What colours and what comely proportions! What uniformity of stature and texture! What endless and astonishing variety-in gait-in attitude-in look-in voice-in a thousand unutterable, inconceivable somethings, felt and understood, but not to be explained!

-so lively shines

In him divine resemblance, and such grace

The hand that form'd him, on his shape hath pour'd."

And hath thy Creator, distinguished thee, my brother, by any felicity of configuration? Let it minister to gratitude, and not to pride. Darest thou despise another on the comparison of certain exterior graces, which fade and vanish, while the comparison is stating? Remember, be thy superiority what it may, accident may crush it-disease may undermine it-time will waste it-and death will destroy it. And remember too, that the most beautiful and majestic form may be united, as the tinsel covering, to the most demoralized and grovelling mind; whereas the dawn-the maturity and the decline of the pious and the wise, under the homeliest and most deformed outward appearance, promise a beauty far exceeding all that is now called fair among the children of men.

II. As one star differeth from another star in glory, so man differeth from man in respect of original mental powers.

Every rational being is a glorious creature. Every living soul is a star-a sun: but how inconceivable the distance between soul and soul! Nature indulges herself in no very extensive range in forming the human body. The standard for all latitudes, and for all ages of the world, is nearly the same; and the various intermediate shades of diversity are rather the effect of various habits of living, than a difference of original configuration. But in forming minds, Deity exercises unbounded sovereignty, from the point where rationality is faintly discernible, up to the exalted capacity which presses on the sphere of angels.

Here, we light on a spirit so dark-so dull-so contracted, that no instruction-no culture-no perseverance or assiduity is able to rouse to illumine-or enlarge it. It hovers from first to last on the surface of the abyss, incapable of making one generous effort to rise into a purer region.

There, springs into life a spirit all light-all energy—all enlargement; "a Croesus in creation;" whose joys-whose griefs-and powers outrun the beings, of whom he is one, and mingle in the pursuits, attainments, and enjoyments of pure intelligencies. How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God! Not greater the difference between the "sun in noon-tide lustre, and the stars, which" then "hide their diminished heads," than between the seraph-gaze of a Newton, and the earth-bound vision of an untutored and unlettered hind. Yet both are men-both glorious-both immortal-both in a progression, that knows no bound.

Let not, then, the man of limited endowments deem his Maker unjust, or unkind. He has dealt bountifully with thee, my friend, in that he hath made thee a partaker of reason and speech. The faculties which he hath bestowed are adapted to the station which he intended thee to fulfil. Happiness is far superior to knowledge, and is not always found in alliance with it: for

"they, who know the most,

Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The tree of knowledge is not that of life."

Think not meanly of thyself, for thou art the workmanship of the Most High: and he despises not the minutest of the works of his hands. Let not thy talent, though single, be buried in the ground. By use it will increase, both in number and value. Envy not thy more intelligent neighbour. There are beings far more exalted above him, than he is above thee. If his talents are multiplied, his responsibility is proportionably increased. And "the truth as it is in Jesus" (a truth, to which the most unlettered may attain) will make thee wiser than Solomon in all his glory.

Nor let the possessor of ten talents "think of himself more highly, than he ought to think." They were given-given not absolutely, but in trust. They will be redemanded, together with the interest, which they have produced. They are liable to loss -they will be impaired by time-and the ruin, not the palace, will at length meet the eye.

III. As star differeth from star in glory, so one human being differeth from another in intellectual improvement.

This is the glory of man. A degree of creative power is conferred upon him. He has no power over his own formation, nor over the measure of his original faculties; but their application and improvement are confided to himself, and for these he is accountable to the Great Author of his being. Of all those glorious orbs of light, which "swing so thickly in the upper air," not one is endowed with the faculty of self-direction-not one of them can add a single atom to its magnitude-nor deviate a single hair's breadth from its prescribed orbit. They all continue what they were from the beginning, and in their great courses must be guided. But what a spectacle of delight to superior beings-to the God, who made him— is a Human being, who knows, and prizes, and improves the gifts of his Creator, and who is daily adding to his intellectual stature, daily enlarging his sphere, daily increasing his store. But alas! man likewise possesses the unhappy, the fatal ability of cramping his powers, of narrowing his course, and of neglecting or wasting his treasure. Like the lofty mountain, he is insensible of his own elevationlike the cloud-cleaving eagle, he knows not his happy flight-like the fathomless mine, he prizes not the precious gem, which God

has planted in his bosom. With a careless profusion he permits the copious springs of nature to spend themselves on the barren waste, or with suicidal hand tears down the true image of God from his own temple, and makes it the temple of a false god, dedicate to the most abominable idols. Thus, in too many of us, the stately ruins are alone visible, bearing in their front (yet extant) the doleful inscription

"HERE GOD ONCE DWELT.'

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Hence a new order of things arises, and differences between man and man of infinitely greater importance appear. In the hands of this man one pound-one talent, through industrythrough frugal management, and wise application and use, is multiplied tenfold: in those of his neighbour, through indolencethrough extravagance and misapplication, ten melt away into less than nothing.

That man's native inheritance was ample, the climate excellent, and soil productive: it might have produced thirty, sixty, an hundred fold. But he bestowed no culture upon it--he trusted all to the benignity of nature--" he slumbered and slept: and lo, it is all grown over with thorns; and nettles have covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof is broken down." But what a contrast his neighbour's field presents. Of much smaller extent, much less favoured as to soil and climate, it has actually increased in size, and is laden with productions before unknown to the soil: because the proprietor "fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine."

Such is the human mind: such are talents cultivated or neglected: such is man going on from strength to strength, and mounting from pinnacle to pinnacle: or man waxing feebler and feebler, and sinking deeper and deeper from one abyss to another -till the angel is merged in the brute, or transformed into the demon.

IV. As one star exceedeth another star in glory, so man transcendeth man in moral excellence.

Would to God it were uncharitable to suspect, or impossible to believe, that intellectual improvement and moral excellence could be separated. But that unerring teacher, experience, too often exhibits, in the haunts of vice, a cultivated mind associated with a degenerate heart, and mental powers, bordering on the angelic, employed only in devising evil. On the other hand, goodness is frequently contented to take up her abode with the simple-to feed upon the crumbs which fall from the wise man's table-and to pass for a fool with the prudent of the world. It is Moral He

worth, however, which constitutes the true glory of man. who has discovered one defect in his own character, and supplied it-one fault, and has rectified it, has warred to better purpose than the conqueror of a new hemisphere, And he, who has invented, disclosed, and is practising the method of increasing the

sum of human happiness, and of diminishing the ills of life, is by far a more excellent genius than he who has made subject to himself "the springs

Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world."

And in asserting this, think not that I would decry science, nor in any wise undervalue the patient, laborious, and useful researches of ingenious men. God forbid! Much less would I be supposed to insinuate, that goodness is to be sought for only in the mansions of ignorance, or in the paradise of fools; or that genius is always, or even generally, misled by passion, or degraded by vice. But what I would unequivocally insist, and anxiously teach, is this—that the choicest gifts of nature, even those of the understanding, are much inferior in point of certainty, of solidity, of duration, and of the power of communicating happiness, to the calm, unostentatious, unpretending graces of a Christian spirit, which are the gift of God to every one, who in prayer and supplication endeavoureth to attain them.

Learn then, O man, wherein thy dignity consists. Strive to be useful, rather than to shine; and approve thyself to God, whatever may be thy estimation among men. Angels excel demons, not because they are wiser, but because they are better: and science, like the meteor, alarms, perplexes, confounds; indicates a perturbed state of the elements, which threatens desolation and death: whereas goodness, like the steady, fixed luminary, occupies a higher and purer region-shines without glare—is best contemplated in silence and solitude-and sends its "still small voice" home to the heart. Once more,

V. As one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is one man more excellent than another man, in respect of devotional elevation.

What man is to himself, and what he is to his brother, are considerations of no slight importance; but what is he to God, and to what interest has he attained in Christ Jesus? It is this which ascertains his highest tone of character, and eventually determines his state. The preceding gradations of human excellence, if taken unconnected with religion, refer merely to our present existence. They constitute the respectability and felicity of three-score years and ten-they embellish life-and are the cement and the glory of society. But when Religion takes them into her bosom, and spreads her heavenly mantle around them, they take together an angel's flight to heaven, their native home-they return to God, who gave them-they become immortal, and reach forth into eternity.

It was thus, that converse with God on the mount communicated lustre to the face of Moses, preserved the eye from dimness, and sustained the natural force to the age of a hundred and twenty