Again, the progress in our outward condition has not been effected by those who have had extraordinary means. The mechanics from whom have come our most useful inventions and discoveries were self-made men. They had no more time nor means than those of their class generally have. The great reforms that from age to age have changed the face of society have been accomplished by persons in the humblest circumstances of life, and by means which almost all men possess in common. It is a mistake to suppose that we cannot produce great results without great or uncommon means.

Men of inferior natural ability through diligence often rise to higher attainments, and exert a much larger influence in society, than men of superior talents. By diligence, perseverance and economy thousands are constantly rising from poverty to wealth, while as many others from a neglect of the most ample means are as rapidly losing their possessions. In every pursuit success is much oftener attained by ordinary than by extraordinary means. It comes through a rigid observance of the great law of mental and moral attraction. While we keep this in view, we shall receive aid from every department of God's providence; we shall, each, be able by a wise and diligent application of the means which He hath given us, to accomplish the mission he hath assigned us.

The view we have taken of this subject offers great encouragement to all who are seeking mental or moral good. To those who are toiling up the hill of science we say, persevere. Each successive step will strengthen and prepare them for still loftier attainments, each successive truth will lead them on to still greater discoveries, each successive effort will increase their power, till they shall scale the sublimest heights of knowledge, and be able to view the whole horizon of truth. To those who persevere in the ways of virtue the same encouragement is given. Let them go on resisting evil temptations and passions, and by each successive resistance they will increase their moral strength and be able to remove more easily the obstacles to their moral progress. As they advance, new light will dawn on their souls. They will continually receive more and more of the Divine influence. God will bless them in proportion to their efforts. He will, with his almighty power and infinite

wisdom, co-operate with them in proportion as they conform their purposes to his and avail themselves of the laws of his providence. As they purify their hearts, they shall see and know him whom to know is life eternal. The dark clouds of error and sin will disperse, the beauty and glory of nature will shine in upon their minds, and the sublimer beauty of holiness will be revealed to their hearts to attract them ever onward through the happiness and progress of heaven.

W. H. K.

THE BAPTISM FOR DEATH.

HOLY and beautiful is the life of infancy, and not less holy and beautiful is its death. I have sometimes feared that my strong faith in the blessedness of departed children disqualified me for sympathizing, as I ought, with the mourning parent. Hardly can we look steadfastly at a pure spirit resting on the bosom of the Father, and still weep. It is not best indeed, in a world to so many a vale of tears, and where our hearts should be afflicted in the afflictions of the bereaved, it is not best that we should enjoy an open vision of the occupants of heaven. Yet little less than such a vision have I seemed sometimes to enjoy; never more clearly than on an occasion of which I will now speak.

It was early on a bright autumn morning that I was summoned to a dwelling, where lay a little one apparently soon to be called away to a fairer home. For four long weeks this lovely boy had been pining beneath a mortal disease. His hour seemed now to be near, and before he should go hence, it was the desire of his parents that I should place on his brow the baptismal seal. Was it not a pious and beautiful act? As I stood by his bedside and pronounced the few hallowed words that accompany this simple rite, they seemed but words of introduction to the gentle Shepherd, on whose arm he was so soon to lean. The prayer went not up to a distant Sovereign, but was a communication, face to face, (permitted for the moment,) with the future Guardian of the little one before me. I could speak to him as a present friend, and in behalf of these grieved parents implore that he would henceforth stand in their stead, and train and protect this young immortal through his tender years and throughout eternity. The water laid on his brow was thus made the seal of a Divine covenant. A voice seemed to issue from the Father and to say, 'Fear not, ye sorrowing father and mother, for from this day forevermore I will be to him all and more than you could have been, and he shall dearly enjoy my presence. Away from the cares and tears of your transitory and troubled world, he shall not desire ever to leave me, but shall find delight in going in and out before me and growing eternally in knowledge, goodness, and happiness.'

Thus was he given up to his God, and meet it was that when the shades of evening had come over the earth, that consecrated spirit should be folded beneath an angel's wing and be borne gently to its brighter abode.

The third day, before the dew had yet all ascended, we gathered at that house of mourning for the last sad rite. There in his little coffin lined with white, himself fitly robed in the same pure dress, lay all that remained below of that once glad boy. His face, touched by a singular sweetness, and an unusual maturity of expression for one less than two years of age, and his white forehead, all looked tranquil as the sleep of infancy. In that fair hand was a small, beautiful rose, and at each extremity of the coffin were two half-expanded buds. Could anything have so well portrayed the purity of the risen spirit? It had ascended, viewless and sweet, like the odor of that rose now resting in his marble hand. One thing only was needed to perfect the spiritual influence of this scene. Under a clear sky and in the hour of morning the body was borne with funeral train to that fair Mount, that city of the dead, in view of our city of the living. There through the long years will this tender inhabitant dwell, none worthier than his spirit to hover over that sacred spot. The winds of autumn shall sing his dirge, and each spreading tree shall drop lightly over his graceful form its successive tribute of leaves; and winter shall come and lay over the little one its fair sheet; and spring and summer shall talk in glad strains of his happy lot.

How touching are the ministrations of death. The aged, when they go hence, point us upward and homeward; so do those who depart in the meridian of life; but none are so gifted for this holy work as the young. They who are taken up all unsullied by guilt keep the pathway to heaven open before us, they make that world to us a reality, and they bid us all look into, and live for, not these shadows below, but the substantial and sunny and unfading depths above. Especially do the guileless who go up early to God bid the stricken parent yearn with a fresh and undying interest for the deathless loves of the new-born saint.

A. B. M.

THE DEMAND FOR A REVIVAL OF RELIGION.

A SERMON, BY REV. STEPHEN G. BULFINCH.

LUKE ii. 25. **

*

Waiting for the consolation of Israel.

THESE words describe the state of mind of the venerable Simeon, the servant of God, who in the temple took the infant Saviour in his arms and bestowed on him his prophetical blessing. They describe a state of mind which must have been shared by many among the well-disposed of the Jewish nation, at the time of our Saviour's advent. They saw the depressed condition of their country in its outward relations, they saw the melancholy prevalence of moral corruption among the people, they perceived how the glory was departed, they mourned in discerning how the fine gold had become dim. But they lost not their hope. They remembered what great things God had done for them in times past; they felt that the same power still ruled, that had ruled of old. They remembered too the words of prophecy, the promise of a deliverer, and they doubted not that in his own good time God would fulfil that promise, that their mourning should be turned into joy, when salvation should " go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Thus did they wait, in humble but confident hope," for the consolation of Israel."

For years past, my brethren, have many been waiting for the consolation of our own Israel. For years past has a flood of iniquity, of violence and fraud, and where these did not appear, at least of worldly-mindedness and insane avidity for wealth, diffused itself through our land. The habits of steady industry, of frugality, of honorable though moderate independence, which we received from our fathers, have been too generally laid aside. The reverence for law and order, the regard for others' rights, whether of a public or private character, which were such distinguishing traits of our people in former times, have been to an alarming extent forgotten. Two classes of crimes especially have been fearfully rife in our land, the one involving the betrayal of public or private trusts, for the sake of personal gain, the other exhibiting itself in open and high-handed violations of public order. Political excite