something exceedingly striking and impressive in his peculiar mode of teaching by parable; it is a method, which almost forces his doctrines upon the minds of those who are willing to receive them, and ensures a lasting recollection of them. The parables are so interesting and so appropriate, that he who has once heard them, can scarcely ever forget either them or the lesson which they are intended to convey. I am really inclined to class this circumstance among the minor evidences of his being a Divine Teacher; for look at the learned men, who in antient times endeavoured to instruct the world on the subject of morality. They sent forth long and laborious and systematic treatises, which it requires studious application, and a strong intellect, and a well cultivated mind, to embrace and master; none but the learned could be their disciples; the poor, the illiterate, the men of inferior capabilities, those who had to gain their livelihood by active occupations in the various affairs of life, (in other words, the great majority of mankind) could not possibly profit by their labours; a mere man, however wise, and however idolized by a few of the more learned and intelligent, could never have converted the world to his doctrines; it was never effected, never even attempted; because it was felt to be impossible. None but he who imparted

to the human mind the faculty of reason, and who perfectly understood the different degrees and measures in which he had communicated it, could have been the author of such a code of morals, as all mankind, from the highest to the lowest in the scale of intellect, and from those, who have most leisure, to those who are the most actively employed in the numberless engagements of a busy life, might have ability to comprehend and time to study.

And this has our divine Instructor accomplished, not by reversing the method of those learned writers whom I have mentioned, inculcating a few self-evident and puerile maxims, thus consulting the feeble powers of unenlightened minds, while he teaches nothing worthy the attention of an higher understanding; for the morality of the Gospel is so beautiful and sublime, and so adapted to the circumstance of man in every condition of life, that the very wisest admire it; even infidels acknowledge its excellence; and those, who have been most industrious in the unholy work of endeavouring to undermine the authority by which He spake, have found no other way of depreciating the value of his instruction, than by trying to pick and cull, out of the heavy and numerous volumes of the heathen moralists, some few scattered sentences

which they venture to compare with the holy precepts of our Heaven-descended Lawgiver, as teaching equally pure principles of virtue: so compelled are the bitterest enemies of evangelic truth to confess that morals taught by one, who to outward appearance was but an uneducated, humble mechanic, are, in their own judgment, at least not inferior to the lessons of the most learned sages, that adorned the most refined countries of the world! Oh! this is a testimony to the worth of the Gospel, which we gladly receive at the hands of its reluctant adversaries. If after all the ingenuity of reason which their hostility disposes them to employ against it, they are forced to acknowledge that nothing better was ever taught, we may justly infer the secret confession of their hearts to be that nothing so good was ever taught. Besides, who was to discover this grain of corn in a heap of chaff, even granting it to be there? not one in ten thousand could separate it from the refuse in which it was hidden: to the bulk of mankind it was useless, if it existed at all.

But now turn over the pages of that little book, the Gospel; how replete they are with the sublimest wisdom! and yet how intelligible to the meanest capacity! how impressive to the dullest apprehension! I say again

therefore (nor do I think that it is a fanciful opinion) that there is in our Saviour's very mode of instruction, (seeing that his doctrines are of equal importance to every individual in the world,) an evidence that he was not a human, but a Divine Teacher. Well might those who heard his striking parables, and his weighty maxims, conveyed in such brief and simple language, be" astonished," and enquire with wondering admiration, "from whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is that which is given unto him?" My brethren, He assuredly had them from Heaven; and his wisdom was the wisdom of God.

I hope you will excuse this long introduction, which I allow is irrelevant to my text, and to the main purpose of my present discourse; but the observations which I have made, struck me so forcibly in reflecting on the parable which you have this day heard, and on part of which I propose now to address you, that I could not refrain from expressing to you the sentiments which arose in my own mind upon the subject; and perhaps you may be able to make some use, in your retirement and private meditations, of the idea which I have (it may be, somewhat unconnectedly) suggested to you. It may point out to you one great excellence of the Gospel,

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which some of you may not have before remarked; I mean the simple and impressive form, in which its doctrines are conveyed; so utterly unlike any other composition in the world; so indicative of a higher origin than a mere human mind. Indeed how often does man, by his laborious learning, perplex, and render obscure, the plain and perspicuous truths, which God, who "confounds the wisdom of the wise," has revealed for the instruction, and guidance, and comfort, of honest and simple hearts!

I need not inform you of the general scope of the parable, from which I have selected my text; but I will tell you why I made that selectionit was, because I am inclined to believe, that the greater number of those on whom the preaching of the Gospel produces no permanent effect, belong to the class which our Saviour meant to describe, under the comparison of the seed that fell on a rock. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away." It is true, that the word "temptation" here, means rather "trial" of that sort, which is more distinctly expressed in the corresponding passage of St. Matthew; "when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is