In those smaller communities, in households, families, circles of associates and friends, how much may be done, quite independent of and beyond all that is required for bodily support, the common purposes of education, and the maintenance of external appearances! Each one may and should do something to deserve well of the whole. One has the knowledge that instructs, another the accomplishment that charms, another the activity that serves. Children even may do much, by their attention, docility, respectfulness, for the comfort of those most distant from them in age and feeling. And what may not woman accomplish? The customs and notions which restrict her from much, yet leave her this sphere, and she may fill it with blessedness. Happy they who have witnessed the demonstration of this power, when it is, with her, a study, an art, a science, a work, to multiply, by all the means within her reach, the pure and pleasurable emotions of all to whom her influence extends; when there is not a peculiar taste that she does not remember and consult, not an infirmity that she does not carefully avoid irritating, and gently prevent others from wounding; when without increased expense, a delicate taste makes every object and arrangement seem more than commonly beautiful and harmonious: children and servants yielding implicit obedience to the only law that can command it, and that must be wisely administered to command it-the law of love; the ordinary broils and troubles, and misfortunes as they are called, of families, anticipated by a keen foresight; every day, in what is generally its mere filling up, the getting through the time by each

and all as they can, having its peculiar tendency of enjoyment or improvement impressed on it by the directing spirit; and withal no ostentation, no boast nor bustle, no ignorance of or indifference to the great affairs that involve the good of society, but all being merely the silent, systematic application to her task of a sound mind and a lovely heart. In the imagination of such a character, I have described a work and enforced a duty. There is scarcely a house in which there are not annoyances when there might be enjoyments; in which there are not, every day, some painful sensations which might be pleasurable ones; in which female judgment, tact, thoughtfulness, and kindness, acting in an enlightened, conscientious, benevolent, and persevering manner, might not increase, by portions separately so small as to be indescribable, but in the aggregate a mighty sum, the amount of human happiness. Solomon says that 'a continual dropping in a very rainy day, and a contentious woman, are alike:' and the simile describes woman's benignant influences too, which, with that kindly dropping on the proudest pile of man's best achievements, thus soothed, supported, and stimulated, will wear an inscription lasting as the hieroglyphics on Egyptian columns, but commemorating better deeds, and preserving a more blessed memory.

I spoke of the church as under this law of labor. In the kingdom of Christ flourish no gilded idlenesses, which toil not, neither do they spin. It is a kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy; but the righteousness comes first, the peace and joy only follow; and 'if any will not work, neither shall he eat.'

No man can have the full fruition of Christian blessings and hopes in his own bosom, who has been criminally neglectful of diffusing them in the world. The Gospel imposes on each, according to his opportunity and ability, a work of zeal and labor of love: 'To do good, and to communicate, forget not.' It is the forgetfulness of your business as a Christian. Men are too apt, even in religion, even in the Christian religion, to think only or too exclusively, of themselves-ministers for their own instruction, chapels for their own assembling, books for their own reading; and there an end. Let this be

done; but in duty as in prophecy, 'the end is not yet;' there is more, not of calamity, but of good, to be realized. We have need to look more systematically, and act more energetically, for the diffusion of religious knowledge, with all its happy concomitants of moral principle and unfailing consolations.

And of individual exertion, and individual reward, the text is eminently true, as to religion. He who takes no thought nor pains for moral improvement is sure to deteriorate. His indolence will bring on him the curse of moral starvation or disease. There is always something to be done, for self-correction or selfimprovement. There is always in religion need of the emphatic injunction, 'whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Who is so wise in the things of God, as to have no ignorance left which study may remove? Who so free from fault as that heart and life offer no crooked things to be made straight-no need nor place for reformation? Who so bright in all Christian graces, that there is no

quality yet to be added to perfect the starry circle of his crown of glory? Let them be idle. But they cannot. For in the wisdom they have acquired is this that increase of divine knowledge is the increase of divine enjoyment. In the follies they have corrected is this-the folly of ever resting while yet more remains to be done. In the graces they have gained is this the activity that urges on, and will eternally urge on, towards infinite perfection. The more man does in religion, the more he is able to do, and is desirous of accomplishing. And short enough is life for the moral probation assigned to it-for the preparation we should make for that immortal world on which at death we enter. Soon perhaps may the Master's voice summon us from our toil to our rest, from our rest to judgment. There, a proportionate recompense awaits each and all of us. 'Work while

it is day-the night is coming.'

SERMON IX.

GATHER UP THE FRAGMENTS.

JOHN vi. 12.

Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.

This direction is not more remarkable for the homely and practical wisdom which it contains, than it is also for the extraordinary circumstances under which it was delivered. This plain precept of carefulness, economy, and frugality, occurs in a narrative of the supernatural-follows the multiplication of so small a portion of food as five barley loaves and two fishes, into sufficient to satisfy the hunger of five thousand persons; and introduces the consummation of that miracle in the quantity which remained, and which confirmed the impression on the minds of the multitude, so that they said of Christ, 'This is of a truth that prophet which should come into the world.' There is, therefore, a double lesson to be learned from it; the one direct, by considering merely the force and spirit of the injunction in itself; the other inferential, growing out of the comparison of that injunction with the recorded transaction. And this last view of the matter is by no means unimportant, but may be subservient to our preservation from mistake