audience. He was ever appealing to the inner spirit—the moral sympathies-the conscience. He taught that the Object of worship was a SPIRIT, and that true worship was not a formal service, but a spiritual devotion. He taught that religion was not in overt acts, but in hidden principles. -Not in the outward propriety of the Pharisee, but in the inner penitence of the Publican. He did not prescribe rules for the external conduct, but inculcated principles to govern thoughts and control emotions. He directed His hearers to holy principles, purposes, and spiritual habits, as the true riches; and warned them against labouring mainly for worldly wealth. He was a Spiritual Teacher. The God, the wealth, the kingdom, the honor, and the happiness, He spoke of, were all spiritual. His words were "spirit and life.”

Fifthly: His tenderness as a Teacher should be imitated. His treatment of the woman taken in adultery; His tears at the grave of Lazarus; His pathetic lament over Jerusalem; His last conversation with His disciples; His gracious notice of Peter on His first meeting with him after the denial; His prayers; and His address to His mother on the cross; are a few examples of his exquisite tenderness. His tenderness was not the simpering of an effeminate nature,—it was the nerve of a mighty mind who looked into the heart of things, having the deep consciousness of its solemn and strange relations. It could roll the thunders of faithful rebuke as well as breathe the words of soothing sympathy and hope. His tenderness was as the sap of oak,—the strength of his nature. His tear was the exudation of moral force. Let all teachers imitate the Great Teacher in this. Tenderness is the soul of eloquence; it tunes the voice into music; it breathes our thoughts into the hearts of our hearers, and makes them one with us.

Sixthly: His faithfulness as a Teacher should be imitated. Though poor, friendless, despised, and persecuted, He stands erect before the greatest men of His age;-confronts them, and spares them not. He takes off their mask and brings out into the light their long hidden sins. The voice which

whispered in accents of love to His disciples, "Let not your hearts be troubled," resounded in thunder elsewhere. He He had no soft and courtly forms of speech for the respectables of his country-the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Lawyers, the Priests, the Rulers. Without mincing, in broad vernacular, and with the emphasis of honest indignation, He told them what they were:-"a wicked generation;" "whited sepulchres;" "hypocrites;" "blind guides;" "fools;" "serpents;" and "vipers." He treated pretence as infamy; seeming sanctity, as a damning crime. Oh! for this faith

fulness in teachers now! Do we not want more of the ring of honesty, and the withering flash of out-spoken faithfulness in the ministry of this artificial and soft-tongued age?

Seventhly: His consistency as a Teacher should be imitated. His doctrines were drawn out in living character. He exemplified the spirit He inculcated, He embodied the truths He taught; His life illustrated, confirmed, and enforced, His language. He was truth ;-breathing, living, speaking, acting, truth. This consistency is an element of power which every teacher should devoutly and habitually seek.

Eighthly: His devoutness as a Teacher should be imitated. Christ was ever full of the great idea of God, and, therefore, ever full of the spirit of prayer and worship. Frequently do we find Him withdrawing into some secluded spot,—to a "mountain," to a "solitary place," to "a desert place," to "a garden," to pray. He felt the eternal Father ever with Him; encircling, nay filling, the whole sphere of His being, -sunning and warming the entire atmosphere of His soul. He always spoke as in sight of God, and always spoke, therefore, with the unction of devotion. Herein is speaking power. Sermons are mere intellectual productions until they are bathed in the life-giving current of devout emotions. Ideas become instinct with life as the soul grows prayerful. It is the felt idea of God alone that gives life, energy, unity, to all the parts of a sermon.

Vol. IV.

2 E

We have now to direct your attention to Christ, as He appears in another character, namely, that of

THE WORLD'S HEALER.

It would seem, from chapter iv. verses 23, 24, that Jesus had effected numerous extraordinary cures,-"healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease, among the people," prior to the cure of the "leper," recorded in the passage now under notice. But the case of this leper is the

first miraculous cure which Matthew narrates in detail. Jesus had now finished His Sermon on the Mount. That sermon had evidently made a powerful impression upon the listening assembly; for "as He came down from the mountain great multitudes followed Him." His thoughts had polarized their hearts, and so long as the new impressions lasted, they were drawn after Him as by a magnetic force. The "leper" came within this new and mystic circle of influence, felt the attractions of Christ, approached Him, "and worshipped Him, saying, Lord if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."

We shall look at Christ healing the leper as an illustration of His healing souls. There are three reasons which justify us in turning it to this use. (1.) Because physical evils in man are the effects and emblems of spiritual. We do not say that the particular evils of any given individual arise from his particular sins; but that the physical evils of all have moral evils as their roots. Human suffering springs from human sin. These physical evils, moreover, are not only effects, but emblems. Diseases of the body represent the diseases of the mind. Blindness, deafness, debility, pain, are the body's portraits of the soul's woe. (2.) Because Christ's physical cures were generally effected on spiritual conditions and for spiritual ends. As a rule, Christ required the patient to have faith in Himself before He performed the cure. He generally gave the mind an impulse

before He touched the body; and moreover, spiritual good was the manifest design of all His physical cures. He sought to win the soul through kindness done to the body; and He often did so. (3.) Because Christ's physical cures are admirably suited to represent His healing of souls; and assuming, what we are far from believing, that they were not intended for this purpose, their wonderful adaptedness justifies us in thus using them.

The passage, looked at in this aspect, suggests four remarks in relation to Christ's curative power :—

I. HIS CURATIVE POWER IS EQUAL TO THE WORST CASES OF HUMAN DISEASE. Amongst the physical ills which afflict humanity, perhaps that of leprosy may be regarded as the very worst. It covers the body from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot with disgusting pustules; it roots itself into the system, and is seldom eradicated; it is transmitted from sire to son, through many generations; it debilitates the whole system, and produces a most oppressive sense of prostration. Sometimes it is so virulent that it mutilates the body and separates the joints and the limbs. It makes the wretched victim repulsive to society, so that his nearest relatives and friends shun him with disgust; and it renders his mind restless, gloomy, desponding, so that his "soul chooseth strangling rather than life.” But malignant as is this disease, it does not surpass the curative power of Christ. This poor leper came to Him having, perhaps, the malady upon him in its most virulent form and offensive aspects; and Christ had only to say, "I will, be thou clean; and immediately his leprosy was cleansed."

Let this leprosy stand as a picture of sin in its most aggravated forms; let the leper be taken as the type of the "chief of sinners," and the glorious truth illustrated is, "HE IS ABLE TO SAVE TO THE UTTERMOST." What a glorious word is this "uttermost"! Who shall gauge its dimen sions? It compasses all sins. Whatever their class, whether

of omission or commission,-of ignorance or knowledge,— against the teachings of nature or the spirit and provision of the gospel; whatever their degrees of enormity, and whatever their number; though they be more heinous than those connected with the infernal deeds of Calvary, and more numerous than the sands on ocean's wide-spread shores, this word "uttermost " stretches beyond them all, covers them all, and has ample room for more. It compasses all periods of life. It extends over all the years of our mortal existence, and touches the last moment of our probationary career. It takes hold upon the dying thief and rescues him, just as the pendulum of life was making its last vibration on the side of time, and as the deathless soul was about sinking into the flames. Zaccheus, the rapacious tax-gatherer; Peter, the lying blasphemer; the converts on the day of Pentecostmen who had imbrued their hands in the blood of Jesus; Saul, the infuriated persecutor; and the proverbially dissolute and depraved Corinthians;-all, and myriads now on earth, and millions more in heaven, attest the Almighty energy of the Son of God to heal the worst diseases of the soul. "He is mighty to save."-HE IS MIGHTY TO SAVE. Hosanna!

II. HIS CURATIVE EFFICACY HAS ITS SOURCE IN HIS OWN WILL. "I will, be thou clean." I WILL. This is the fiat of omnipotence; the fontal force, the spring of all the impulses and movements in the creation, but those of sin. This is the ultimate reason of things; the final resting-place of logic and love.

In order to see the greatness of Christ's will, look at it for a moment in connexion with ours. We have all a will. We can all say "I will;" we do say so; and by saying so with earnestness we often effect something of more or less importance. But, the "I WILL" of Christ is different from

ours.

First: His will can act without any instrumentality, ours