humanity fail, when the heart and life of the doer are not in them nor in harmony with them. We often see the personal, well known character of an individual exerting a secret influence for mischief and evil, and much more powerfully too than any good influence he can exert, through the instrumentality of the most eloquent and able speeches. We must know that the sentiments that the man utters are the honest expressions of his own moral life befor they can influence us. If his life and his precepts are in marked antagonism, he is as a teacher of morals powerless. It is the life and not the lip, the every-day home character and not the stage performances of the man, that go down the deepest into the heart of social life for good or evil. It is not the mere force of collected public effort, but the individual, personal influence, each giving the right tone to these efforts that must regenerate society.

III. But while I say this, I admit that the many associated and in many cases, the well directed labors of societies for the suppression of vice, and the amelioration of human wretchedness are among the boast and glory of the age. One association after another lays about it manfully. This one belabors that vice, and that one some other. Still comparatively little is accomplished. The blows of each tell upon the social wickedness of any given period, nearly as much as the blows of the Geologists' hammer upon the stability of the mountain rock. The error lies here. We are all in too great a hurry to reform others before we have thoroughly reformed ourselves-before we have acquired such a conception of right and duty as will spread itself with a felt omnipresence over the entire field of human responsibility. The world is not to be made morally better by mere associated labor companies, as one would drain a marsh or clear a forest. A work profounder, deeper, and more earnest than all this is needed. Each must be the actor and the subject, the reformer and the reformed, before the great heart of the world can be cleansed. Did every man realize for himself that his conduct is not narrowed to the sphere of his individual movements, but that it takes hold on all time, on all place; nay, more, that it passes forward into all the ages of the future, strengthening the moral discipline of some soul, confirming those habits of order, reverence, and selfgovernment, that will fit that soul to strike a seraph's harp with a seraph's devotion, or sink it into a deep and yet a lower gulf of misery, thrust in upon its own unhallowed thoughts, and surging passions, amid the hauntings of conscious guilt and the agonies of hopeless despair? Did every man realize this, how soberminded and blameless each would strive to be in his deportment and intercourse with all around him?

Did every man but realize this one solemn truth, My thoughts, my example, my actions, are all indestructible and eternal as my soul-I say, did every man but realize this, our world might blow the trumpet of jubilee for its ransomed captives, and the whole universe of mind break forth into singing and gladness. Then

would every man feel that a stain upon his own or his neighbor's soul was not like a breath stain upon glass, or a finger-stain upon a book-a temporary obscuration of its brightness-an accident that can easily and hastily be remedied, but as a guilt stain and a hurt which nothing can either remove or heal but the power of Redeeming Love, the all-sufficient and cleansing virtue of the blood of the Lamb of Calvary.

Finally, if this be so, and it is a fact every man can easily prove or disprove by his own observations, our human life is not to be gauged merely by great deeds done, or by bold and prominent traits of character. The most effective energies of nature are all noiseless and gentle. The power, for example, that binds atom to atom, and world to world, and wheels the planetary systems of this vast universe in their appointed paths, is yet so gentle as to roll together the dew-drops and poise them each glittering on its own blade of wheat in the sunshine. It is not the fervid heats of the summer sun, nor the loud-voiced winds, nor the heavy rain-storms, nor the electric fires, leaping from cloud to cloud, that carry forward the vast interests of terrestial life. But it is the low, soft breezes, and the gentle showers, and the warm, kind sun, and the quiet dews that clothe the earth with verdure and fill the habitations of man with plenty and gladness.

Though every man is a teacher to his neighbor, yet it is not the man that wields the thunderbolts of Sinai as a terrorist, that makes the profoundest and widest impressions. It is by the exhibition of a pure Christlike love for man, and for his spiritual interests. It is by the right culture and reform of our own moral and intellectual natures, by the undimmed beauty of our lives, by infusing into the thoughts of others aspirations after goodness and heaven, by scattering around us the seeds of truth and right doing, in the humble, lowly and reverent trust, the good Husbandman and Shepherd of Israel will enable us to gather in our sheaves to the harvests of celestial blessedness with songs of praise and everlasting gladness. This is the kind of teaching that will go down the deepest into the human heart, and evolve from the most abandoned materials of humanity, thoughts, desires and hopes, clothed with celestial beauty. This is the resurrection voice that will start up earthly and stupid slumbering souls with the vital forces of the Christian life burning and glowing within.

What is it that has changed the moral aspect of the Christian world during the last 1800 years? Not simply the great sacrifice on Calvary. But the words of surpassing power uttered on the Mount of Olives-by the banks of the Jordan-by the sea sidein the streets of Jerusalem-by the well of Samaria-at the table of the Pharisee-beneath the sycamore tree at Jericho, and in that sad hour that preceded the scenes of Gethsemane. It is the mysterious energy of these words that has wrought such changes in the moral aspect of the world, and wherever they have been re

to say,

peated, whether on the banks of the Tiber, or of the Thames-of the Hudson or the Ganges, they have become centres of refinement and human progress, and wherever they have been believed in and obeyed, they have excited a new life, even the life of God in the soul. And to cherish these thoughts in our inmost hearts, and to express them truly and lovingly in our actions is the grand mission of our lives. Wherefore let us see to it, that our lives are on the side of right, and goodness, and humanity. It will not do for us to cheer on, and to strengthen by our example and our influence, some weak brother in the direction of a bad habit, or of a wrong way of life, and when he falls a victim in the struggle, to seat ourselves down, and like the old prophet in the bitterness of unavailing regret over the man we have deceived, "Alas! my Brother." And if we are vain, showy, irreverent, unworshipful, lovers of pleasure more than we are lovers of God-hasting after this world's honors as our chief good, we will have our imitators-the diligent disciples of the same school of fashion, or frivolousness, or pleasure, to which we belong. So, too, if we are humane, gentle, spiritual, earnestly, and thoughtfully seeking after the kingdom of God, and its righteousness-if our piety be the free, unstudied outgoings of our hearts-zealous, without being fanatical-reverential, without being superstitiousearnest and constant, without hypocrisy, and guileless, we must from the law of influences we have thus far endeavored to illustrate, make vice abashed in our presence, and the profane, and the abandoned, though we utter not a word, feel, nay, even mourn the loss of virtue, for there is in true goodness, an awfulness and severity of beauty, which claims even the homage of a lost archangel. This power of Moral Influences, is a talent entrusted to us all. It is this that makes every man his brother's keeper-every man the guardian and fashioner of his neighbor's life and manners to a certain extent, and by the right or wrong use of which, we are instrumental in introducing the kingdom of light and life, or the kingdom of darkness and death-spreading around us circles of ever widening, and ever onward influences for good or for bad-dropping into some soul thoughts that will send it upward and heavenward, or cause it to gravitate downwards, and still downwards into abysses of self-shame and moral desolateness.

And now in conclusion, I would say to Young Men-to all who are beginning life's mystic march-you who are to be the example and the guides of the generation that is to follow you tell me, if the doctrine I have attempted to unfold be true--and no man can disprove it—are there not grave and weighty responsibilities resting on you to be virtuous, upright, sober, right-living, and rightdoing men? The youth of any community express the moral state of that community, for intelligence, virtue and goodness. If the heads of families in a community, love order, virtue, piety, and

peace themselves, the youth of the community, generally, will express it by the sobriety of their lives by their respect for the civil and religious institutions of the land, and above all, by their love of goodness.

Now, whatever the cast and character of the youth may be, that are to rise up, when you have passed off from the scene of action, depends mainly on you. You are to be their instructors, their guides, their moral and religious keepers. Your piety or want of piety; your love of right and goodness, or love of self; your sober-mindedness, or your love of irreverent mirth, will multiply and enlarge itself, and give their moral expression, to the youth that are to come after you. It rests with you to say what it will be whether it will be the expression of moral beauty, or of moral ugliness. That this must be so from the nature of the social relations is most plain. I will suppose a case for illustration's sake. Suppose a young man is a gambler, a dram drinker, or a swearer. Do not suppose these terms are below the dignity of the Pulpit? Whatever concerns the moral welfare of the youth of a community, that most legitimately belongs to the Preacher, and it is his right to speak-be silent who may. He is not to be a mere man-pleaser, but to warn, rebuke, exhort, instruct, and win to virtue and to God, as God giveth him grace and power. · Well, who made that young man a gambler, a swearer, a drunkard, or an immoral man? Most assuredly his guilt is the result of imitation and companionship. He learned to gamble, and swear, and drink, and be immoral, just as you learned your trades and professions, from others others who taught him, and learned him, and cheered him on, by their example, their sneers at virtue, and piety, and soberness; their irreverence for the Sabbath, for the Scriptures, for the Church. They are just what their models and teachers have made them. Oh! better, if a man has by his influence, his example, or his sneers against virtue and religion-better, I say, for that man, if he knows of any man made a gambler, or an intemperate man-made so by his influ ence or example, better for him to travel, though it were to the ends of the earth, upon his bare feet, and beseech him to be a new man in Christ Jesus, than to meet that man's face in eternity -a dark soul-ruin, the workmanship of his hands.

Well, indeed, did Paul say to Timothy, "Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."

And equally earnest and emphatic are the words of Peter, "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." Even so may it be. Amen.