the apostle: "As though God did beseech you by us, We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God?" O, it is the absolute certainty of the final triumph of the Gospel, and the full manifestation of God's glory therein that gives the preacher both his confidence and his solieitude that constitutes the controlling impulse and the crowning motive to his eloquence!

Thus have we seen that the aim of the preacher is the highest conceivable, even God's glory and man's blessedness in Him; that his matter is as valid as God's truth, even God's unerring word; that his motive is as pure and tender as the love of Christ, as earnest as the strivings of the Spirit, and that his success is as sure as the decrees of the Eternal. The very thought is eloquence.

The question, perhaps, might be raised, whether the vast magnitude of the theme, and the infinite moment of the interests involved may not overwhelm the mind, and make it lose itself in the very boundlessness of the subject. It is very obvious that the sacred orator can never exhaust his subject; and thus that secular interests from their limitation might seem more suited for oratorical presentation. It is true, that those temporal relations which concern the individual and the State, sometimes rise to a very imposing magnitude and importance, and yet admit of being unfolded with completeness. They may reach far and spread wide, but there come at last an end and a limit. As in the great trial of Warren Hastings, where such lustre was added to the fame of Burke, the matter may fill volumes, and stand for all time as a fountain from which the scholar may draw stores of philosophy and learning; the statesman lessons of policy; the orator models of eloquence— but still it can be circumscribed; it can be seen round, and seen through. It can be rounded off and finished,

so that we may say of the work; it is done. While the great argument of the preacher is never finished. He is ever studying and elaborating it by parts and subdivisions, making his life a consecration to it, and a part of it, feeling that as the poet "who would write well in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem," so his life should be his most perfect sermon, Christ's "living epistle," by which all men as they know and read it, may be persuaded, seeing in all his speech and thought and work and sentiment, one united and mutually supporting utterance of his great end. It is the fact of its filling thus a man's whole being with its inspiration and its light, that brings the infinite grandeur of the subject into intimate and special relations to the hearts of men. And, therefore, little as a single sermon, or all the sermons of a single lifetime can accomplish, still every earnest word, every pious thought, every holy deed, speeds on the coming of the kingdom of God, and helps to hew out the lively stones of that glorious living temple, which is slowly but surely rising, whose cornerstone is Christ. That aliquid immensum infinitumque which the mind in its loftier moods requires, is united with the nearest and dearest interests of our common life, with our present and most urgent duties. And that is the only true eloquence.

The sermon, therefore, even though it be but the minutest infinitesimal of that grand discourse which is to embrace the counsels of eternal wisdom, and the destiny of men, furnishes ample scope for a man's largest enterprise and best work. It furnishes a channel for the full current of his thoughts and affections, and may itself become a work of excellence and strength. Like the work of the coral insect, insignificant as it may seem in itself, it is a part of that majestic whole which is emerging in colossal proportions and massive strength and

grandeur, like a solid island out of the mighty deep of the divine counsels, a part most minute indeed, but essential and vital, and as such, a thing of beauty" and a "joy forever."

yours

What a glorious and blessed vocation, then, is ! Given the love of Christ to constrain us, and we shall find fields ready and waiting for us. Be they high, or be they lowly, they shall surely afford the one thing sought, a place to work for Christ, an opportunity to evince our loyalty and devotion and our eager obedience to the heavenly call. Does the patriotic ardor of the poet, engage our sympathy, which prompted in him the wish,

"That he for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some usefu' plan or book could make
Or sing a sang at least,"

and shall not an ardor be kindled in us to do something, little though it be, in the service of that free Jerusalem which is above, the mother of us all? Shall we not be fired with a just ambition to labor and suffer for the glory of that kingdom which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost? Shall we not, above all, sympathize with the blessed Master, whose meat it was to do the will of the Father who sent Him? and with Paul, who was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, and made light of every kind of suffering and danger and reproach, nay rejoiced in them for Christ's sake, acknowledging but one occasion for sorrow and heaviness, and that one, that his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh were strangers to the love of Christ; dreading one only woe, and that one, "woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel!" And especially shall we not be so animated when we remember the assurance that our work shall not be "in vain in the Lord ?" "that now is our salvation nearer than when we believed;" that the

night is far spent, and the day is at hand?" that the time is drawing nigh when the good seed which has been sown in tears shall spring up into a harvest of joy; when the nations shall see eye to eye in the light of the kingdom of God, and all things shall be "gathered together in one in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in Him!"

ARTICLE II.

Philosophy of SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON Bart., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Edinburgh University; arranged and edited by O. W. WIGHT. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

THE philosophical erudition of the late Sir William Hamilton is probably unsurpassed. He has surveyed with surprising diligence, the entire domain of psychological and metaphysical research, and has usually evinced the acumen of a master critic in judging of their relative claims. He has not however done much in the way of discovery; he has not carried the human mind forward to any important new point, as Bacon, Newton, Locke, Reid and Butler did; but he has examined points already gained, and has placed in a new and interesting light, speculations valuable to mental science. His Philosophy of Common Sense, and Philosophy of Perception, originally in the form of periodical discussions, but now before the public in a systematic collection, have, in the main, done especial good service in placing the writings of his great teacher Thomas Reid, in their right position as related to those of Thomas Brown, and especially to those of the rationalistic schools of the Continent.

Having admitted this much, as justly due to one of

the finest scholars of the age, we must allow ourselves to take some exceptions to his strictures upon Reid, and especially to his speculations in regard to consciousness and perception. He claims to have made some actual progress here, and to have set the human mind a step forward on the solid pavement of truth. We do not think he has. Learned and able as he is in the thoughts of others, whenever he attempts to lead the way in an untrodden path, we need to exercise especial caution in accepting his guidance. He has done good service to his fellow countrymen, Dr. Reid, in vindicating him from the attacks of others, but he seems to have somewhat emulated the example of the amiable wife of John Milton, who would not allow others to scold her husband, as she wished to monopolize all that luxury to herself.

But it is not our object to vindicate Dr. Reid. One of the clearest and soundest of thinkers, he was yet liable to the errors of all mere human speculations. Our concern at present is more particularly with Sir William Hamilton himself, and that only in relation to a single point, the philosophy of perception. He claims to have bridged the gulph, so long a terra incognita between mind and matter, by proving that we are directly conscious of the external world. The conclusion at which he arrives is thus expressed. "Consciousness and immediate knowledge are thus terms universally convertible; and if there be an immediate knowledge of things external, there is consequently the consciousness of an outer world." p. 177. He does not allow consciousness to be a "particular faculty," but the "universal condition of intelligence." We have no partiality for the phrase "particular faculty," but the meaning of it, we cannot afford to lose sight of. We think it important to distinguish a power from its act. The former is continuous, the latter intermittent. When we say a man has the