ceived the adoption of sons, cannot long wear any resemblance to servile dread, or desponding gloom. When it sinks deep in the soul, and grows familiar and habitual there, it becomes generous and confiding, and borrows its character from the exalted Object of its regards. Then indeed, fear is but another and more solemn name for love, and acts as the spring of cheerful, unremitting obedience. It is that reverential trust, which, in view of all the changes of time and earth, relies entirely on Him who changeth not; - and which, amidst all their operations and convulsions, can say to them-Change on, ye servants of the Immutable! Ye can only do his bidding. But to shake those hearts which rest on his Eternal Throne, is beyond your power-is beyond your power!

SERMON VII.

BY REV. EDMUND Q. SEWALL,

OF SCITUATE, MASS.

HUMILITY ESSENTIAL TO TRUE GREATNESS.

MATTHEW XXIII. 12.

WHOSOEVER SHALL EXALT HIMSELF SHALL BE ABASED; AND HE THAT HUMBLETH HIMSELF SHALL BE EXALTED.

This saying was often on the lips of Jesus, and we may thence infer his purpose to give it a degree of prominence among the maxims intended to regulate the dispositions and conduct of his disciples. We owe him a debt of fervent gratitude for having given us in a few such sentences as this so true a guide to the explanation of the meaning and uses of that singularly restive feeling which prompts us to rise, to magnify ourselves, to enhance our consequence, expand our sphere, and become great. It is wonderful how much influence, so variously exerted, this part of our nature possesses. Scarcely do we become conscious of what we are, before we begin to think how much more we might be. Scarcely do we know ourselves endowed with this or that quality at all, before we begin to aspire to what is above it. We wish to have it known and acknowledged by others, and are jealous of any who may appear likely to outdo We blindly seek precedence before we are taught

us.

to discern among things that differ, which is the more excellent. The pains of mortified vanity and defeated ambition are not alone the torment of men, they are even no strangers to children. The desire of eminence and distinction so absolutely insatiable in some, has in all a kind and degree of power which demands careful heed, lest it choke in its rank growth every seed of contentment, and convert the mind from the residence of humble and peaceful virtues into the abode of vicious monsters, the miserable progeny of pride.

The instinctive feeling which incites us to raise and expand ourselves, could not, more than any appetite, be left to itself without regulation. When it is thus abandoned without control, it may be expected to plunge us into fatal errors as to what constitutes the exaltation which we seek, and instead of adding anything to our worth by the endeavors to which it urges us, we may belittle and degrade ourselves at the very moment when we are indulging the exulting emotions of a proud heart.

How many have fastened their eyes on some brilliant lure of luxury, or the splendors of social distinction, or the baton of high office, or the parade and pomp of life, as the prize for which they will endure for years toil's most severe exactions, and self-denial's straitest bonds. How many have indulged the desire of precedence in such meannesses as they were guilty of, who at the feast in the chief Pharisee's house pressed eagerly for the chief rooms, and heard from Jesus the reproof, conveyed in those plain words "When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden

of him, and he that bade him and thee come and say to thee, Give this man place, and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room; but when thou art bidden go and sit down in the lowest room, that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher; then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee, for whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." How many under an impulse alike in origin and equally mistaken in the direction, for want of right views and a nobler aim, the fruit of moral and religious culture, have done as did they who would have men's eyes turned upon them in all their works and ways;-" made broad their phylacteries and enlarged the borders of their garments, and loved the chief seats in the synagogue no less than at the festal board, in the house of God, as well as in the dwellings of their fellows, and would have greetings in the markets and be hailed by all men-Rabbi-Rabbi; be popular leaders-laying the burdens on other men's shoulders and delighting in the flattering voices of a subservient throng. Such persons Jesus would never have us imitate. "Be not ye called Rabbi, for your master, and all ye are brethren. Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." Again, we see the false and baleful operation of the same feeling, instanced in one of the two men who went up into the Temple to pray, as described in that very beautiful parable of Jesus, which he

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