Or, again, it is a yet more simple sign, and one that in cludes, in a manner, all others, if you find that you are deeper and deeper in the love of Christ. For, if Christ spreads himself over your being, and you begin to know nothing else and want nothing else; if you love him for his character, as the only perfect, and cleave to his sinless life, as the holiest, and loveliest, and grandest miracle of the earth; if words begin to faint when you speak of him, and all that can be said or thought looks cheap and low, compared with what he is; then it is most certain that you are growing in purity; for the growing enlargement of your apprehensions of Christ is the result of a growing purity, and will be also the cause of a purity more perfect still. And now, my brethren, I have many things to say, but I only ask whether you perceive, by signs like these, that you are growing pure? That you believe yourselves to be disciples we know, that is easy; but I ask you here seriously, before God, whether you find that your religion has any purifying power? Is it a baptism? Is it a finer's fire? Does it move you to cry,-Create in me a clean heart, O, God? True piety, brethren, is a power, and purity is the result;-a result, as I have shown you, that may be indefinitely realized, even here on earth. Is it realized in you by the signs I have named? You hope in Christ that you shall be with him, and see him as he is. O, it is well, the most elevating hope, the most inspiring and celestial thought, which ever fell into the soul of a mortal! I only ask if you see in your life, in the practical bent of your works, that this hope has verity enough in you to take hold of your springs of action, and bring you into a true endeavor after Christ's purity? What an opinion then will you be seen to have of the soul wher

you are living for its purity! And then, what sublimity is there to your eye in that state of glory, in which your soul practically dwelleth among its kindred spirits, pure as they, and all as Christ is pure. These are they that have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

But how little signifies this discourse of purity to very many of my hearers! I well understand the vacant, dreamy sound of such discourses before the conception of purity, and the sense of it gotten out of the want and out of Christ the supply, is opened to the soul. What is there so great in purity? who, that is untouched by God's gracious quickening, cares enough for purity to give the word an earnest significance? It has, of course, no greatness to us, because the fact itself is a lost fact. We can not think it, because it is really gone out of the mind's reach and knowledge. But, O, when once the heart feels a touch of its divinity, then a yearning is wakened, then the greatest and sublimest thing for a mortal is the unmixed life! a soul established in the eternal chastity of truth and goodness! O, God! who of this people shall ever know what it is? I can not tell them; thou alone canst breathe into them, and set in their living apprehension a truth so impossible for any mere words to express!

This only I can testify, as God has given me words, (and I pray God to show you their meaning,) that the heaven we are sent here to prepare, is a most pure world, open only to the pure;-And there shall, in nowise, enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatso ever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the Lamb's book of life.

XV.

LIVING TO GOD IN SMALL THINGS.

LUKE xvi. 10.-"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much."

A READINESS to do some great thing is not peculiar to Naaman the Syrian. There are many Christians who can never find a place large enough to do their duty. They must needs strain after great changes, and their works must utter themselves by a loud report. Any reform in society, short of a revolution, any improvement in character, less radical than that of conversion, is too faint a work, in their view, to be much valued. Nor is it merely ambition, but often it is a truly christian zeal, guarded by no sufficient views of the less imposing matters of life, which betrays men into such impressions. If there be any thing, in fact, wherein the views of God and the impressions of men are apt to be at total variance, it is in respect to the solemnity and importance of ordinary duties. The hurtfulness of mistake here, is of course very great. Trying always to do great things, to have extraordinary occasions every day, or to produce extraordinary changes, when small ones are quite as much needed, ends, of course, in defeat and dissipation. It produces a sort of religion in the gross, which is no religion in particular. My text leads me to speak

Of the importance of living to God on common occasions and in small things.

He that is faithful in that which is least, says the Saviour, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. This was a favorite sentiment with him. In his sermon on the mount, it was thus expressedWhosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And when he rebuked the Pharisees, in their tything of mint, anise, and cummin, he was careful to speak very guardedly--These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. It will instruct us in prosecuting this subject—

1. To notice how little we know concerning the relative importance of events and duties. We use the terms great and small in speaking of actions, occasions, plans, and duties, only in reference to the mere outward look and first impression. Some of the most latent agents and mean looking substances in nature, are yet the most operative; but yet, when we speak of natural objects, we call them great or small, not according to their operativeness, but according to size, count, report, or show. So it comes to pass, when we are classing actions, duties, or occasions, that we call a certain class great and another small, when really the latter are many fold more important and influential than the former. We may suppose, for illustration, two transactions in business, as different in their nominal amount as a million of dollars and a single dollar. The former we call a large transaction, the latter a small one.

But God might reverse these terms. He would have no such thought as the counting of dollars. He would look, first of all, at the pinciple involved in the two cases. And here he would discover, not unlikely, that the nominally small one, owing to the nature of the transaction, or to the humble condition of the parties, or to their peculiar temper and disposition, took a deeper hold of their being, and did more to settle or unsettle great and everlasting principle, than the other. Next, perhaps, he would look at the consequences of the two transactions, as developed in the great future; and here he would perhaps discover that the one which seems to us the smaller, is the hinge of vastly greater consequences than the other. If the dollars had been sands of dust, they would not have had less weight in the divine judgment.

We are generally ignorant of the real significance of events, which we think we understand. Almost every person can recollect one or more instances, where the whole after-current of his life was turned by some single word, or some incident so trivial as scarcely to fix his notice at the time. On the other hand, many great crises of danger, many high and stirring occasions, in which, at the time, his total being was absorbed, have passed by, leaving no trace of effect on his permanent interests, and are well nigh vanished from his memory. The conversation of the stage-coach is often preparing results, which the solemn assembly and the most imposing and eloquent rites will fail to produce. What countryman, knowing the dairyman's daughter, could have suspected that she was living to a mightier purpose and result, than almost any person in the church of God, however eminent? The outward of occasions and duties is, in fact, almost no index of their