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wiit thou bring forth light in every household where there is darkness, and wilt thou bring forth joy in every household where there is sorrow.

Grant thy blessing to rest upon all teachers in public schools and in private schools; upon all who are teaching the poor or neglected, whether they be near or afar off; and upon all who are seeking to lay foundations of piety in true knowledge. Bless all those who are laboring to prepare teachers for their sphere; and may they rejoice in their work, even under discouragements.

May knowledge go forth, not to overturn faith, but to establish it on immutable foundations. May this nation be saved from superstition, from blind adhesion to exterior things, and from vanity arising from a conceited ambition in things intellectual. May this great people fear God, and keep his commandments. So we pray that thy name may be honored and glorified in our prosperity.

Bless, we pray thee, the President of these United States, and all who are joined with him in authority. Bless all judges, and magistrates, and legislators. Grant that the whole body of the citizens of this land may obey the laws implicitly, and that justice may prevail, and that peace may abide throughout all our borders.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt hold back thine hand. Suffer not the scourge of disease to fall upon this land. Let not thy plagues visit this people. By thy mercies soften their hearts and lead them to repentance.

We pray for all the striving nations of the earth. We believe that out of darkness is coming light. Ere long the morning shall break; and there is not that in night that can put out the light that, traveling afar, shall come again.

Though revolution follow revolution, though there be wars upon wars, and though troubles multiply, we rejoice, O Lord our God, that thy word stands sure. Thou art the God of the whole earth. All things are beneath thine eye, and all things in the end shall come to work together for good for the welfare of man, and for the glory of God.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt, in thine own time, hasten these things. Bring in Jew and Gentile. Exalt all nations. Make the weak strong, and keep the strong from impetuous pride and domination. So make all men recognize the brotherhood of love as that which should bind them together. Bring in the bright ideal of life in society and among nations. Make haste. we beseech of thee, thou that art emerging toward the future with abundant victories, to show forth the signs and tokens that shall give hope to all men. Come, for the whole earth doth wait for thee.

And so, at last, when thou shalt have redeemed the nations and established thy kingdom in all the earth, let the heavens and the earth rejoice together, and all the sons of God unite in gladness and thanksgiving to thee, as when the world was first created.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit, evermore. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

O THOU that art love over all the earth, thou that art power over all the earth, thou that art knowledge to all the earth, thou that art redemption to all the earth, thou that hast in days gone by, from eternity, been God, and thou that shalt be unto eternity God over all, to thee we bring our rejoicings, knowing that we do not understand thee; knowing that it is but the hem of thy garment that we touch with our thoughts, but believing that we shall behold thy blessed and beatific countenance and understand thee when our souls, by heavenly intelligence, shall be uplifted in the life that is to come. Grant, we pray thee, that all the glimpses and fragmentary knowledge which we have of thee may be so directed by thy good providence that we shall go on, to virtue, to fortitude, to aspiration, to the utmost endeavor, and to patient continuance in well doing on every side. By faith, by love, and by hope may we hold fast to thee, and wait for thy disclosure, which shall be made when we shall see thee as thou art, and be like unto thee. Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then we shall see face to face. Now all things are transient, and are passing away; but amidst universal wreck behold, blossoming in the wilderness, unsmitten by the winter, and unscorched by the summer, that youth which time cannot touch. There abideth faith, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love; and thou, O God, art love. And to thy name shall be praise for ever and ever. Amen.

THE DELIGHT OF SELF-SACRIFICE.

"Even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."-Matt. xx.. 28.

"If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a nam I which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."-Phil. ii., 1-11.

You will observe that that which sounds through this passage is the glory of self-renunciation. This is not the vision of a God in the plenitude of power: it is the vision of a God. disrobing himself of power. Not the attributes of royalty, but the habiliments of servitude, are the insignia here held forth. All creation is exalted to a rapturous praise of a being who is set forth by the symbols of suffering and selfrenunciation.

That which is here uttered (not a dirge but a paan) by the apostle of our Saviour was also, in the first passage that I read, substantially stated by the Saviour himself. When

SUNDAY MORNING, July 5, 1874. LESSON: Psa. xcvi. HYMNS (Plymouth Col. lection): Nos. 212, 907.

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they were making the last progress toward Jerusalem, just before his passion and death, the mother, with her sons, drew near, with a secret ambition to exalt James and John (perhaps it was) to the first places-to seats on the right hand and on the left of Christ; and our Saviour, with great gentleness, instructed them-for instruction in this case was rebuke; whereas, the other disciples were exceedingly angry; and to these it was that the Master turned and said:

"Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them; but it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister [not your clergyman-by no means— but your servant]; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your slave [that is full force of the original]: even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto [not to be served], but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

There can be no question that the Christian religion has come down to us with a color which it had not in the primitive church, and which it ought not to have; and that it has been so stained through and through with the ascetic element as to make it a totally different thing in the apprehension of men from what the religious spirit and service were to the Old Testament saint, from the spirit of the apostles themselves, and from the normal nature of things.

I declare that the Christian religion is the introduction upon a lower nature of a higher nature, and that it is therefore, in the highest and noblest sense of the word, natural. Men have been afraid to call religious things natural for fear that they should drag them down and degrade them; but the true way is to bring nature higher, and show it as it is, as the organized thought of God, and to make it larger in its sphere, so that we shall no longer think of mere matter when we speak of nature, but include in it mind and emotion and disposition, and the total of a glorious manhood.

I say that religion, instead of being an interpolated thing, a stop-gap, made by reason of man's fall, an episode in the history of creation, is in the nature of things, from eternity to eternity, and expresses the best things of God and the best things of man; and that it bears in itself the highest nobleness and the highest happiness.

The Jewish religion involved, to be sure, penitential elements, and recognized in the experience of life abundant sorrows; but the genius of the religion that was instituted by inspiration through Moses was certainly cheerful and joyous; and the spirit of the Old Testament, while it has its sadnesses, while, in other words, it recognizes the experience of the human race, yet whenever it lifts itself up to the ideal plane where the human race are entitled to live is wonderfully joyous.

The life of Christ also, I take it, is greatly misinterpreted. It involved suffering, and, at the last and great dramatic hour, an awful passion which human thought may not compass nor fathom. And yet, it seems to me, no man can read the life of Christ continuously, from beginning to end, and take in what must have been the movement of the thoughts of such an one as he, going about clothed with double power-power from on high and from on the earth-and doing good, with any other result than that of finding there the fruit of joy. The essential spirit of Christ was not sad, but deeply joyful; and so it is said:

"Who, for the joy that was set before him [that ever hovered over him and lightened his path], endured the cross."

Joy, supereminent and abounding, floated up the life of Christ upon the under waves; and when, in his darkest hour, he met his disciples, he was not as a sufferer overcome: he was in suffering the unsuffering, if I may so say; for he said to them, when the shadow was on him, "My peace I give unto you." Now, he that in the extremity of suffering had peace to give to those who were about him was not overwhelmed with any such sense of suffering as we have been wont to attribute to him.

The writings of the apostle are full of pathos and full of earnestness, and they recognize, in the most eminent degree, the conflicts of life; but the very spirit of hope and joy pervades them. They always move with the step of victory. There is nowhere else, in an equal compass, such exaltation or exultation, I think, as is to be found in the writings of the apostles, and preeminently in those of Paul, the sufferer and the rejoicer. I know not where you will find, if you come

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