We are weak; we are needy; we all need disinterested friends. And there is no such Friend as God-none that is so near to us, none that thinks of us so much, none that looks upon us as so dear. Your father does not love you as God does, and your mother does not. The very center of the universe burns and glows with the summer of love. And all the intimations of our affiliations with God and our dependence upon him, are but so many sweet voices speaking to us with words of love, of benediction and of immortality.

God grant that in our constant needs we may rely, not even upon our own earnest efforts, but upon Him who is our health, our strength, our life, and who puts his arm about us, and says, in the moment of every strait or emergency, "Without me ye can do nothing." And may our souls rejoice, and say, "I can do all things, Christ strengthening me."

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.*

Thou holy and eternal God! we rejoice that we may look forth without trembling, though we reverence. For thou art our Father, and art a thousand times more full of graciousness and tenderness toward us than we, with our limited instincts, are toward our children. Thy wisdom comprehends all our being. Thy power surrounds the utmost limit of thought, and transcends conception. Thy wisdom is entire and infinite, and thy goodness is the reason of the goodness that is throughout creation. For every heart has been kindled at thine. Every pulsation of gladness is of thee, and learned of thee how to be. And thou art in all things, filling all, teaching all, inspiring all, and rejoicing in all thy work.

And now grant that we may be lifted up above the level of ordinary apprehensions, and that we may learn to love those that are dependent upon us, even as we are loved of God. Help us to give more and more dignity and wisdom and power to our affections, and to distil them upon our children: not as upon idols, but with the thought of their immortality. May it be granted unto us so to live as to strengthen all love, and to build up in a godly and holy faith a commonwealth of life, and a preparation for immortality.

Be with thy servants that have presented their children, and have with faith offered them up, that they may from infancy be consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that these children may be spared, and that they may grow up to lives of usefulness and wisdom and honor. And may the parents be actuated to say the right things, and to do the right things. And may they find the blessing of God going with them and surrounding them in their households, so that it shall not be a vain thing that they have offered themselves and their offspring in covenant unto God.

We pray that thou wilt remember the parents who have aforetime, by discipline and instruction, and in the spirit of love, sought to win their children from all that is earthly and evil, and to inspire in them all that is right and noble. Accept their desires and their efforts.

Immediately following the baptism of children.

And we pray for the young in our midst. Wilt thou grant that they may grow up in integrity, and in truth, and in honor, and in fidelity, and that they may be prepared well to perform their part in the life that now is, and to inherit the greater gladness of that life which is to come.

We pray that thou wilt bless all the labors of those that seek to inspire the young with truth. Bless our Sabbath-schools and Bible-classes. And be with all those who go forth among the neglected, to teach them. May they be sanctified with the spirit of their master, and with all patience and gentleness and fidelity may they seek to make up the lack of those that are outcast and needy.

We pray that thou wilt bless the labors of this church, in every direction More and more fill it with thy Spirit and with thy praise. More and more may its power be a power as of God, and direct men as with a shining light into the right path, and away from things harmful and things dangerous.

We pray that thou wilt bless thy churches everywhere. Multiply the number of those who shall be able to make known the excellence of God to men. Build up Zion on every hand. May her waste places come up in remembrance before thee. Be with all those who in feebleness and sickness and opposition, and half-discouraged, labor and strive in word and doctrine; and by the Spirit give them courage and victory.

We pray that those who have gone abroad to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ's Gospel among the dark and outlying nations of the earth, may be prospered. Though the seed which they sow seem long to lie unfruitful, at length bring in Jew and Gentile, and fill the whole earth with thy glory.

O Lord! how long shall it be that the kingdom of darkness shall contest the kingdom of light? How long shall cruelty lift its hand against mercy? How long shall men rage against their fellow men as brute beasts of the forests rage against each other? When wilt thou come to make known thy power and thy love? When wilt thou bring peace and knowledge and purity? When shall the earth see thy salvation? Thou hast promised it; and we believe that in thine own good time thou wilt bring it to pass. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit, evermore. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we beseech of thee that thou wilt grant thy blessing to go with the words which have been spoken. Draw near to our understanding and our imagination. Draw near with might, and interpret thy power and truth and wisdom to us. Lift upon us the light of thy countenance. Give us the joy of thy salvation. By the Holy Ghost may we be lifted above all trial and trouble, and be made strong in the life which now is, and be prepared for the life which is to come. And at last wilt thou crown us with welcome and greet us with joy.

And we will give the praise of our salvation to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MAKING OTHERS HAPPY.

"Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself."-Rom. xv., 2, 3.

A man's soul is like a garden belonging to an old neglected mansion. It is full of excellent things run to waste. There are vines unpruned, and fruit trees covered with moss and canker; thickets of roses, and thickets of thorns; tangles of vines and of nettles; rank and noisome weeds, as well as fair flowers.

Now, it is the business of a garden to be wholesome, and sweet, and beautiful. It has no right to have weeds in it, nor to have its beautiful things dilapidated. It is made on purpose to confer pleasure and profit.

Thus it is with the soul of man. It is full of good dispositions; of kind impulses; of true affections; of wholesome fruits. But besides these, the mind of man is full of frets, and peevish murmurings, and the stinging nettles of pride, and vanities flaunting coarse colors. A soul's power to produce pleasure or pain in another is very great. If it throw over on its fellows the whole force of its excellence and its beauty, it can produce great cheer and great delight. But if the soul of man scowl over upon its neighbors, it is organized to produce very great pain and trouble. We are commanded, therefore, so to use the whole of ourselves that from day to day we shall produce pleasure among those with whom we consort. It is not left optional with us, whether men shall be made happier by our going among them. It is not left to us to produce pleasure in occasional moments. It is a commandment that includes the whole of our nature, and the whole of our time. We are to be such and to live in such a way that wherever we go we shall please men for their good to edification, please them in such a way that they shall be more manly afterwards than they were before. The soul finds in the reason an infinite field of material from which to select the implements of pleasing. Its affections are full of sweetness as the honey-comb is of honey. Its wit, its taste and its imagination, are

SUNDAY MORNING, Jan. 15, 1871. LESSON: ROM. xiv. HYMNS (Plymouth Collection): Nos. 1344, 898, 1262.

potent engineers of pleasure. But these are just as strong to produce discontent, and irritation, and a sense of painful inferiority and general unhappiness, in other people.

Now, beside the great ends which men are commanded to seektheir manhood here, and their immortality hereafter-there is a distinct command that they shall so carry themselves in the weighty business of life, that they shall make all around them happy. And not occasionally, by a gleam and a smile. It is to enter into our fundamental notion of the carriage of our lives. We are deliberately and anxiously to cast out from ourselves those elements that make needless pain; and we are to cultivate and employ-and that generously and continuously-those elements which make pleasure, and which make our fellow-men happier.

ness.

Making people happy is neither a small nor an unimportant busiAs I regard good nature as one of the richest fruits of true Christianity, so I regard the making of people round about us happy as one of the best manifestations of that Christian disposition which we are commanded to wear as a garment.

In our Lord's own life, it is manifest that he did, day by day, a multitude of things for the mere sake of soothing trouble; of calming irritation; of smoothing asperities; of producing amiable feelings. While he instructed men, while he inspired them with noble heroisms and ambitions, his life was also filled up with a thousand small shades of goodness, whose very nature it was to make men contented and happy. And his example is expressly quoted in the context, for our imitation.

First, in the great movement of human life, men find the lower side of their nature played upon more than the upper side. We are brought in contact with the world through our appetites, through our passions, through those faculties which belong to our physical organization. These baser instincts are apt to sink down into animal life. We drudge by them. They are unable to

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rouse themselves. Men are often unable to excite their better nature. The thousands and thousands who are poor, who are unsuccessful, who are feeble, who are perpetually in ill-luck, are liable to dwell in the low and chilly fog of fret and discontent. The undertone of human life is very sad. The household does not ring out, except here and there, like a well-tuned instrument. It is cheerless, it is solitary, it is voiceless, or it quarrels, or it drones, or it droops, or it drudges. Men that we meet-the seiect, the fortunate, whom by elective affinity we naturally take to ourselves they sparkle upon us, and we sparkle back upon them; but in every trade, in every profession, in every kind of business,

is a middle line; and below that men are living with but little there cheer, with comparatively little comfort, with much fear, with much sorrow, and with many malign passions.

Now, it is not simply our duty as Christians to make known a historical Gospel. Our duty as Christians is not simply to go out after men that enthrone themselves outside of morality. Here, at our right hand, and at our left-all about us-society is full of men whose lives average but very little sweetness. And it is for us to please them; to seek to make them happier. This we do if we have a purpose to serve. If we desire to use men in any way selfishly, we seek to please them. But the command is that we shall do it benevolently that the way in which we carry ourselves shall not be merely to avoid evil and to maintain our own uprightness; but in maintaining our uprightness we are so to carry ourselves that the vibrations of our hearts shall bring music out of the hearts of others.

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The business of making men happy that are not happy does not lie half so near to the consciousness of men as it ought to. If it is in the power of men to touch the higher nature, and to rouse men to cheer, to good nature, to hope, to good will, to mirth, to courage, then this is a part of their Christian duty.

What is an adagio from one of Beethoven's symphonies? What but a mere motion of the wind-a congeries of invisible pulsations in the air? And yet, when care has lowered, and life sits heavily on your heart, one half-hour in hearing such divine sounds renews your soul, and sends you away recreate. How much more, then, when not dead instruments, but the living faculties of a truly loving Christian soul, send forth their influence! How the heart of man can make the heart of man pulsate with pleasure, if it will!

Some men move through life as a band of music moves down the street, flinging out pleasure on every side through the air to every one, far and near, that can listen. Some men fill the air with their presence and sweetness as orchards, in October days, fill the air with the perfume of ripe fruit. Some women, cling to their own houses like the honeysuckle over the door, yet like it fill all the region with the subtle fragrance of their goodness. How great a bounty and a blessing is it so to hold the royal gifts of the soul that they shall be music to some, and fragrance to others, and life to all! It would be no unworthy thing to live for, to make the power which we have within us the breath of other men's joy; to fill the atmosphere which they must stand in, with a brightness which they cannot create for themselves.

Men neglect frequently these very simple and very obvious truths, because there is still a remnant of stoicism and asceticism