liness, and disarmed of all its inflictions, and be converted into the richest blessing. The christian victor's song is, "O death, where is thy sting? grave, where is thy victory?"

3. The Gospel is adapted to every order of mind.

In this respect it differs from all human systems. Among the most distinguished ancient nations they had one religion for the learned, and another for the illiterate. This was true in Greece, and probably, to some extent, in Rome. Their great men, and especially their sages and philosophers, gave little or no credit to the doctrines of polytheism admitted by the vulgar; but on the other hand approximated to something like a pure theism in their religious belief. I would not affirm that this was universal, possibly it was not even general; but, in many cases, it is an unquestioned fact. As to their systems of philosophy, they were too refined and subtle to be received by common minds. I do not say understood, for it may be fairly doubted whether they were understood by any. They were marked by intellectual caste; and this stamp had been put upon them intentionally, in order to protect the prerogatives of great minds, and to show the common mass of men that they had no right to think. Neither the system of the Stoics nor of the Epicureans could have become universal. They were limited by their very nature; the former to a certain order of

mind, and the latter to a certain moral or physical temperament; and both of them entirely inapplicable, in all their parts and ramifications, to the society or population of any country. Were we to examine the speculations of any or every ancient philosopher, trace out the various systems, examine their origin, scrutinize their purposes or intentions, and follow their progress to their final results, we should arrive at this conclusion, that they were never designed for the world at large, and being adapted to a particular order of intellect, their influence, whether good or bad, would be restricted to a small number of individuals wherever their doctrines might be embraced.

By the side of these intellectual and moral schemes, contemplate the character of the Gospel in relation to the single feature of its adaptedness to every order of mind. While some religions are suited to the unlettered, and some to the cultivated, and while the same may be affirmed of certain systems of philosophy and morals, the Bible scheme is adapted to the intellect of every man. No elevation of mind can rise above the sublimity of its truths, no stretch of thought can go beyond the vast reach of its purpose, no analytic powers can detect a discordant element in its grand and complicated system. It teaches the great man, and makes him wiser and better. Time would fail me, were I to attempt to enumerate the men of mighty minds, the giants of the earth, who have

towered above their fellows, as the oak above the saplings of the forest, who, at the same time, have acknowledged themselves indebted for their best lessons of instruction, to the Bible. Boyle, of whom it has been said, "To him we owe the secrets of fire, air, water, animals, vegetables, fossils, so that from his works may be deduced the whole system of natural knowledge," was in the habit of reading this letter from heaven upon his knees; and Newton, that child-like sage, investigated the wonders of revelation with an intensity not less excited and profound, than that with which he scanned the starry heavens, or passed his measuring-line around the earth, or unbraided the complicated tissue of light.

Nor was this communication from God made for the instruction or entertainment of great minds alone, but is equally adapted to the humble and the unlettered. It is in revelation as in nature: sublimity and simplicity are always united. The same volume which furnishes the richest instructions to the sage, can be understood and enjoyed with as fine a relish by the husbandman who follows the plough, by the mechanic in his workshop, or by the child in the Sabbath-school. What a vast variety, with respect to mental power and acquirement, may be found in the ranks of believers; and yet, gathered as they are from the four winds of heaven, they all entertain essentially the same views of the way of salvation, and have

manifestly imbibed the same spirit. Indeed I may add, what no one who has studied this subject can have overlooked, that the Gospel, being designed for a world as it is a world in which the great majority of its inhabitants are ignorant and uninstructed, has been formed for the very purpose of meeting this case. It is a revelation to the benighted and the lowly. It teaches the sublimest truths in such a manner that babes may understand them, and inculcates the simplest with such a heavenly elevation and pathos, that minds of the largest compass and the profoundest thought are instructed and delighted.

4. The Gospel counteracts sin in every possible condition.

Sin is the source of all the other evils which prevail under the government of God; and the object of the coming of Christ, and the introduction and propagation of the Gospel, is the extermination of this great evil from our world. The Bible describes its nature, and tells us of its present and future consequences. It holds up, in the sun-light of eternal truth, its malignant features, and, for an illustration of its fruits, points us to a bleeding earth and a burning hell. The introduction of this evil into our world was the work of Satan; and "for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." No other system of morals or religion

has made an attack upon sin as such. Some particular sins have been denounced, and to a certain extent, no doubt, counteracted by their practical influence; but it was reserved for the Gospel alone to proclaim war against every sin, great and small. It spares no man; it has no protecting shield for the transgressor. It has no mantle of charity to inwrap the sinner, and thus cover up his true character as the enemy of God. It lays the axe "at the root of the trees," and hews down the tall cedar as well as the withered bramble. It condemns the sinning monarch in terms as unsparing and uncompromising as it does the sinning beggar. For the city and the country, for the refined and the ignoble, for christian and for pagan lands, there is but one law-"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." It has no respect to age, station, learning, country, kindred, sex, family, or profession in life, but bears testimony against all who love and practise sin.

But the Gospel does something more than describe the nature of sin, and point out the present and future woes which hang around a wicked heart and life. It proposes a remedy. It would relieve our sinful and suffering world from its accumulated evils by striking a death-blow at the very root of all mischief. The Gospel is a scheme contrived of God and revealed from heaven for the removal of sin. It undertakes to make men happy only by this process. It provides for the pardon