25 part that needeth,

that there should be no schism in the

body, but that members should have the same care, one 26 for another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it: and if one member is honored, all 27 the members rejoice with it. Now ye are Christ's body, 28 and its members severally. And God hath placed in the Church, first, apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers; then, mighty energies; then, gifts of heal29 ing, helps, governments, kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all 30 mighty energies? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret ?

HUMAN Society, and human History, when religiously regarded, assume organized forms, of which classes of men, individual men, and individual eras are but articulated members. The present moment cannot be separated from the past and the future Providence of God. It is but a point of transition, not in itself a perfect and consistent whole. It is unintelligible without reference to the Ages that are gone it is mutilated and incomplete without reference to the Ages that are come. History is a vast Whole not yet finished, of which the Eras are connected Parts; and Society is an organic Body, of which each individual man is but a subordinate Member. Happy for him, if he has found aright his own position in the vast system, and is contented with his functions! It must be admitted, indeed, that this view of the organic connections of Time, and Human Growth, rests upon Faith as

much as upon Knowledge, that it implies a Trust in the Providence of God, and that it can be clear only to His Omniscience. For we border on the Infinite, when we contemplate the operations by which the Spirit that rules through all things worketh out the destinies of Humanity. Faith may receive it, and even have some insight into it; but no Intellect can reduce it to system, or find in it a Unity of Design. Who is competent to discern, and to unfold, the gradual working out of God's great Plan, as it is taken up and carried on by the successive generations of men! Who, through all action of the human Drama, its Scene, the wide Earth, its Characters, all the pilgrims of Mortality who have lived their hour upon the Stage, its Time, from Creation to the present hour, who is able

to trace out an onward development of the Plot of Providence! Who will undertake to pass in review before us the distinct Epochs of Humanity, and declare to us how the great features that characterize each are but the several portions of a connected Scheme, and how, amidst diversities of operations, the same guiding Spirit is continuously conducting the Education of our Race! And yet, the discovery of such a Plan must be possible, and to God's mind manifest, else is there no Providence in Heaven. The History of the whole World, if we could see it in one view, should present the same sort of connected growth and of attainment, the same consistent flow of character, as would the history of one mind, if we supposed it to exist from Creation until now. It is the noblest use of History

to afford materials for discovering this Plan of God in the Education of our Race, and in that magnified Image of man which the large mirror of Time presents, to trace the order of succession in which the human mind passes to an advanced stage, and becomes a new reflection of the mind of the Eternal. When this is seen in History, then shall History be a new Bible, exhibiting God continually working out, over the wide Earth and for Man Universal, those results of Character which He has indexed in Revelation, and prefigured in Christ. Then only shall we have a Philosophy of History, when God is seen in it. Then shall Providence display its distinct outline and its just proportions on that ample sheet, — and each individual Man, perceiving that the Moral World has a plan, that all things progress together, and that nothing hangs loose, will discern also that himself is an instrument in God's hands,that faithfulness of Life in him, in every one, is necessary to the full accomplishment of God's purposes, and so will stir his spirit to fulfil his own mission, and to do his own work.

And, to be in harmony with this view of Providence, that God produces his noblest results by that organized Union of Members which Christianity calls a Church, each man must forego all personal pretensions, all claims to individual independence and completeness, and regard it as his highest distinction that, in the vast subdivision of human service, he has a functional place, where he may do needful work under the eye of the Supreme Lord, and with an humble and loving devotion to

the common Good. Whoever is thus incorporated with the Social Body, lovingly articulated into its frame, -so that, within his sphere of operation, the loss, as of a limb or member, would be deplored, if his Mind thought, or his Hand wrought, or his Tongue spoke, no more, is so far in true spiritual connections with both God and Man; and if he holds this place, not as a part of a Machine, but with the freedom, and love, and conscious insight, of a devout Soul, consecrating itself to a voluntary service, he has opened for himself the pure fountains of unambitious Duty, of unselfish and perennial Peace; he has made himself to be a living Branch in that Vine of which God is the Husbandman.

But there is a tendency in human Nature to undervalue this functional service, and to seek a distinction more personal, more individual to ourselves, — so as to stand out independently to receive a homage of its own, and not be obscured and lost in the general community of beneficence, in the silent workings of System. The organic structure of Society is disregarded, and every limb and member claims to be complete and perfect in itself. Our gifts and graces are not satisfied to be estimated relatively to an aggregate Result, which they contribute to produce; but must have a glory of their own, as if they had in themselves an independent existence, and were ultimate ends of God. only possible Mirror to us of the perfections of God, with the single exception of the man who was His perfect image, a vast Community, in which every variety of power, every manifestation of the

That

Almighty's spirit in separate men, works in harmony of heart and for a common Good, is now broken into individual atoms, each presenting only its own poor and partial reflections of the Infinite, and this sublime image of the Power and Beneficence of Deity is reduced to the scale of a single imperfect mind. No individual can ade

quately represent the Civilization of which he is but a part, the organic Body of which he is but a limb. The wisest, and the greatest, of men has but the merest fraction of the Knowledge and the Power that are in the world, and the moment he makes a personal pretension, or claims more than his functional place, he has started aside from his sphere of service, and is guilty of that Sin by which, it is said, the Angels fell.

The efforts of Ambition, for the mere love of distinction, to stand out from the body of the Community and not be confounded with its other members, - the discontented spirit, that might derive Honor and blessed peace from the faithful exercise of its own Powers if it had no envy of a brother's gifts and place, — the divided Church, that finds sources of sectarian bitterness and selfish alarm in the spiritual varieties that, if properly understood, would afford the requisite materials of its own Universality and fulness of strength, the partial Interests, that everywhere neglect and disorganize the Community, while they seek a Monopoly for themselves; - all these are examples of the tendency which Human Nature, in its unspiritual states, exhibits, -the tendency to make individual pretensions more