patriarch would make his "dear home twice dear." But, "by faith," he "went out." True faith will always lead to the renunciation of the old. "What things were gain to me,

those I counted loss for Christ."

2. The adoption of a new mode of life. There are three things about the new life adopted by Abraham worthy of our attention, as illustrative of the inner life of the good. First. It was a life of implicit trust in God. "He went out, not knowing whither he went." He knew nothing of the land whither he was to wend his way, nor the path to it. This conduct would be contrary to the general opinion of men, to the counsels of friends, to the deductions of his own understanding. He trusted in God. This is not idle fanaticism, but true philosophy. If God direct we should follow, (1) because he only knows our future; (2) because he only can make us happy in the future; implicit trust in God is the highest dictate of reason. Second. It was a life of conscious strangeness on earth. "He sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country." He did not put his heart upon that lovely land; he had no idea of making it his home. He regarded himself as a stranger there. Man only acts worthy of his reason as he treats this earth as the patriarch treated Palestine—not as a home, but a thoroughfare. Third. It was a life of glorious prospect. "For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." In the apocalyptic scenes, this city loomed before the eye of John in all its attractive splendor and magnificent proportions.

Where art thou, my friend? Art thou in the spiritual UR, the scene of thy moral nativity, or hast thou departed therefrom? It is God's will that thou shouldst depart. In the Bible he has given thee a special call. Believest thou the call? If so, thou art gone out from thine old sympathies, prejudices, and spiritual habitudes. Thou art following through the desert the voice of Him that called thee. Thou art feeling this earth to be a strange place, and thou art passing through it as a pathway to a glorious city!

Analysis of Homily the Forty-seventh.

"And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children."-Luke xxiii 27, 28.

SUBJECT:-Human Sensibility.

Two great elements enter into the constitution of the human soul-intellect and affection—the faculty of thought, and the susceptibility of feeling. These underlie all its spiritual attributes, and control all his spiritual phenomena. It is quite easy to conceive of mental existence essentially destitute of sensibility—a creature of sheer, abstract, frigid intellect. Such an existent might be very knowing and clever, but hardly capable either of enjoying happiness or of exerting influence. Sensibility we range amongst the cardinal blessings of being. Is it not the primary impulse of action, the bond of social union, the source from which springs every felt delight? What should we be without it? Should we have any spring to our souls-any faculty to taste the sweets of life-any conscious connexion with nature, society, or God? No. We should live in everlasting isolation. In the midst of a teeming universe, we should stand alone, having neither the power of attracting, nor the susceptibility of being attracted. The quickening and cementing touch of sympathy we could never receive-never give. Indeed, the very energy of a man's thought is dependent upon the power of feeling. How weak the thought that springs not from an earnest soul—that has not been dipped in the living current of the heart! The thought that has no connexion with emotion, though the product of a great mind-a mind of keen sight and mighty span is like the ray of the night-orb, pale, cold, and deadly. Whereas, that thought which has mingled with the sympathies of the heart, breathed the quickening atmosphere of an earnest soul, is like the beam of morning-it comes from the centre of the system, it is charged with life, it is the herald of better

things to come. But thought and feeling should not be placed in antithetical relation. They are mutually dependent. Each derives its value from the influence of the other. The right action of either requires the reciprocal action of both; as thought without feeling would be powerless, feeling without thought would be wild, turbulent, and reckless. It is the province of thought to refine, regulate, and humanize our affections-to map out the varied channels in which heaven ordained them to flow on for ever. We thank God for our susceptibilities; though they are the occasion of much mental suffering in this our probationary state, still we praise our Maker for the power to feel; and the more so, as Christianity teaches that the very sorrows of its disciples are disciplinary : "they yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby." The bitterest cup has curative virtues; the fiercest storm breathes to purify.

There are three things here which Christ did in relation to human sensibility worthy of our attention. He involuntarily awakened, distinctly rejected, and solemnly directed, it.

I. HE INVOLUNTARILY AWAKENED IT. Jesus was now on his way to Calvary. Multitudes crowded the road on which the mysterious Sufferer passed. Whilst many shouted with malignant gratification at the scene, the hearts of several women were touched into compassion, and they "bewailed and lamented him." We wonder not at this; we rather marvel that there was a dry eye in Jerusalem, or about the neighboring hills, that day. One might have thought that the scene would have smitten the Jewish heart, and made it outgush with streams of sorrow, as the rod of Moses did the rock of of old. Not one of the numerous spectators did he ever injure, whilst many had recived signal blessings from his hand. Some had been hungry, and he fed them; others diseased, and he healed them; and others on the margin of the grave, and he restored them to life. We know of nothing more suited to rouse the sympathetic passions of mankind than the tragedy of our Saviour's sufferings. The feeling which Jesus

thus involuntarily awakened may be regarded in two aspects:(1) As a testimony to the injustice of his treatment. Had there existed a settled assurance that he richly deserved from his country the agonies he was enduring, instead of this outburst of commiseration, there would have been heard nothing but indignant execrations. It might be regarded moreover, (2) as an expression of a nature favorable to religious impressions. Although, as we shall soon see, there was no religion in the feeling displayed, the possession of such feeling is indispensable to it. If sensibility is no virtue, it is a blessing, and its absence is a curse. A hardened heart has no soil to cause to germinate the precious seeds of spiritual virtue and religion.

II. HE POSITIVELY REJECTED IT. 66 Weep not for me." It cannot fail to strike a thoughtful mind that the conduct of Christ, in relation to the feelings of these women, was very remarkable. There are especially two circumstances in which we are all prepared to hail and appreciate genuine sympathy. First. When under trial. The law of sympathy is a benevolent provision of our Maker to help us under the varied ills of this mortal life. The sufferer instinctively looks out for it, and earnestly seizes it when offered as the best means to soothe and sustain his spirit. And then, secondly, we appreciate it when engaged in some great enterprise. Social sympathy is ever felt to be a stimulus to great deeds. The hero on the field has nerved himself for mightier exploits when assured of the sympathy of his countrymen. The philosopher has concentrated his mind to profounder investigations, and the poet has plumed his genius for loftier flights, as they felt the breeze of public sympathy breathing around them. The orator has waxed warm, and rose to more impassioned strains of speech, as he has felt himself in possession of the sympathies of the men he addressed.

But here we find that Christ rejected sympathy, in those two very circumstances in which men invariably value it. He was enduring the greatest sufferings, and engaged in the greatest enterprise, and yet he repudiated the sympathies that were

expressed. Now, what does this remarkable fact teach? We think that it suggests at least two things:

1. That such sympathy, in his case, was not required. As a sufferer, he did not require pity, but praise, because he chose to suffer. He had power to lay down his life, and to take it up again. In the very rejection of their sympathy, he seemed to say, "Weep not for me; I am not here by a foreign force, but by my own will. My suffering is not some accident that has happened to me; I have come freely into it, according to my predetermined plan. You misunderstand my position: I am not an object of compassion, but of commendation. Nor did he require it in his enterprise. The reason men require outward sympathy in their undertakings is, because they have not sufficient inner power-power of motive and principle. Like the vessels that have no inner machine to propel them on, they depend upon the outward tides and wind. But Christ had such a power within, that made him perfectly independent both of anathemas and hosannas: that power was unconquerable love for souls. It suggests―

2. That such sympathy has no moral worth. If there was anything morally excellent in the feelings they displayed towards Christ, we think they would not have spoken thus. Sympathy with Christ's physical sufferings is a common thing. It is a very easy thing for a minister to give such tragical representations of Calvary as to make people weep. It is a much easier work to produce sentimental tears than spiritual thoughts; but those tears Christ disdains. It is one thing to weep over Christ's sufferings, and another thing to weep over sins; one thing to admire the picture of his outward life, and another to adore the sublime principles of his soul; one thing to desire happiness, and another to desire goodness; one thing to know Christ after in the flesh, and another to know him after in the spirit.

II. HE SOLEMNLY DIRECTED IT. 66 'Weep for yourselves, and for your children." Why weep for themselves?