SERMON.

HEBREWS, xI. 33, 34.

WHO THROUGH FAITH SUBDUED KINGDOMS, WROUGHT RIGHTEOUSNESS, OBTAINED PROMISES, STOPPED THE MOUTHS OF LIONS, QUENCHED THE VIOLENCE OF FIRE, ESCAPED THE EDGE OF THE SWORD, OUT OF WEAKNESS WERE MADE STRONG, WAXED VALIANT IN FIGHT, TURNED TO FLIGHT THE ARMIES OF THE ALIENS.

THE word 'hero,' does not occur in the Bible. Nothing can be more opposite to its spirit than that self-sufficiency, and recklessness of human rights and sufferings, which are commonly associated with this term. Still, there are no higher examples of a true heroism than the Bible presents. In the text, and the chapter from which it is taken, we have an account of great and heroic exploits, performed indeed in ancient times, but such as we should be glad to see emulated, such as ought to be emulated in the midst of the light and advantages of our day. We have a right to expect, as the stream of time rolls on and pours its accumulated wealth at the feet of new generations, that there shall not only be an increase in the knowledge of nature, but that there shall be, at least, no failure in the breadth and compass of a comprehensive wisdom, or in the might of a true manhood that is ready to do and to suffer in the cause of humanity and of God.

But not only may we expect this; it is also intimated by the Apostle that it is expected and watched for by those who have gone before us. He represents, in the opening of the succeeding chapter, those worthies and veterans who had finished their own course, as gathered into a vast assembly, forming "a cloud of witnesses," and watching with intense interest the bearing of those who follow them. "Seeing then," says he, "that

we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before us."

This race, my friends of the Graduating Class, I would now invite you to run. You are especially called upon to emulate the example of the great and good,-to do deeds that shall not only cause joy on earth, but shall send a new thrill through the vast assembly of those who have gone before you.

But if you are to do the deeds of these ancient heroes you must be girded with the same armor, be controlled by the same principle, must have the same prize in your eye, and be sustained by the same power. Fruitful as the nineteenth century has been in inventions, it yet furnishes none for making great and good men. The great tree must grow now from the same earth, and under the same sun, and by the same processes and ministrations of dew and rain and storms, as the great tree of old; and so, now, as of old, must the life and might of true greatness be drawn from the same fountains, and work themselves out by essentially the same processes. Were these deeds performed of old only

by faith? then only by faith will they be performed

now.

What then is Faith? Avowed by Christianity as its peculiar principle of action, ridiculed by the philosophers, is it indeed some new, or peculiar, or blind, or fanatical principle? Or is it one of those grand and universal principles which underlie human action, which are necessary to true heroism, to a right philosophy, to individual and social perfection, and which must, in the progress of light, come more and more into distinct recognition and general acknowledgement?

Whatever faith may be, it must be conceded that the accounts given of it by its advocates have been neither uniform nor consistent. It has been said to be simple belief, founded on evidence, and not differing from any other belief; to be belief in testimony; to be belief for reasons not derived from intrinsic evidence; to be a belief on the ground of probable, as distinguished from demonstrative evidence; to be a belief in things invisible and supernatural; to be a trust; and more recently, and transcendentally, it has been said to be an organ of the soul by which it becomes cognizant of the invisible and the supernatural.

To some, this diversity of statement may seem to indicate that there can be nothing in faith very definite or important. To me it indicates the reverse; for while men do certainly differ about things which are indefinite and obscure, yet it is also found that they come latest, if at all, to the investigation of those principles which are the most

intimate and essential, and that they are no where less likely to come to a uniform and satisfactory result. As in mathematics the truths that are most nearly intuitive are the last and the most difficult to be demonstrated, so here the principles and processes which are so essential that they seem inwoven into our being, are the last to be investigated and the most difficult to be satisfactorily explained. Men are no better agreed what reason is, or what personal identity consists in, than they are what faith is; and yet, as those who think wrongly on these subjects may, and do, exercise their reason, and continue the same persons precisely as they would if they thought rightly, so those who make different statements in regard to faith, all exercise faith, and receive the benefits of faith, in precisely the same way.

That the term faith may not be used loosely and popularly, to designate the ideas just mentioned, and also others, I would not say; but the inquiry now is, What, generically, and specifically, is that Faith upon which the Bible insists as essential to salvation, and by which the great deeds it records were performed? Can this faith be so defined that our idea of it shall be distinct, that it shall harmonize with philosophy and with reason, and that it shall be adequate to the great offices assigned to it in the Bible?

I propose in the following Discourse, first, to answer these inquiries; and secondly, to speak of the offices of faith-more particularly, as adapted

to this occasion, of its office as a principle of action to be adopted by every young man.

The definition of faith which I would propose, and which seems to me to meet the conditions just mentioned, is, that it is confidence in a personal being. Faith lives and moves and has its being only in the region of personality. Whatever we may believe respecting things visible or invisible, on any other ground than our confidence in a personal being, does not seem to me to be faith. It implies the recognition of a moral nature, and a conviction of the trust-worthiness of the being possessed of such a nature.

This definition of faith implies a division of this universe into two departments, that of persons, and that of things; and, in connection with this division, will give us a clear distinction between philosophy and faith. The sphere of faith is the region of personality, that of philosophy is the region of things. Each of these spheres addresses our sensibilities and calls for investigation, but in accordance with its own nature and laws.

By things, are called forth, in the region of sensibility, the emotions of beauty, of sublimity, and of admiration; by persons, in addition to these, confidence, affection, passion.

In her investigations in the department of things, philosophy is concerned, not with all knowledge, but chiefly with resemblances in those things that exist together, and with uniformities in those that exist in succession. These are the basis of all classification, of all inductive reasoning — and it is