tion for ourselves, which we thankfully I be a disciple? And further, let the confess to have been wrought out for us followers of Christ learn, that nothing by Christ. whatsoever is to be gained by those In short, the bearing the cross is re- compromises which may be made with vealed as the indispensable prerequisite the hope of conciliating the world. If to the wearing the crown. And the you truly belong to Christ, you must memorable thing is, that it is Christ's bear the frown of the world; and all cross which must be borne. You are that you will get by evading, or trying not to think that every cross is the cross to disarm it, is, that when it comes, as which the Savior requires you to take come it must, it will be all the severer up. Many a cross is of our own manu- for having been shunned. Where had facture: our troubles are often but the Simon the Cyrenian been, whilst Christ consequences of our sins, and we may was enduring shame and indignity? not dignify these by supposing them the Not in Jerusalem: he was met, as St. cross which is to distinguish the Chris- Mark states, "coming out of the countian. Crosses they may be; but they try." Supposing him a disciple, he are not the cross which was laid upon ought to have remained with Christ in Simon, and which had first been on his hour of danger: but he had proba Christ. The cross of Christ is endur- bly gone out of the way, wishing to let ance for the glory of God, and the fur- the storm blow over before he showed therance of the Gospel: "this is thank himself in the city and now he may worthy," saith St. Peter, "if a man for have been returning, calculating that conscience toward God endure grief, the worst was past, and that no harm suffering wrongfully." It is something could happen to him from his reputed more than self-denial, though frequently adherence to Christ. This was declinspoken of as though it were the same; ing the cross; and the short-sighted for our Lord distinguishes them when policy met a full retribution. He is He says, in words already quoted, "If compelled to bear the cross. The solany man will come after me, let him diers seize him, the multitude scoff him; deny himself, and take up his cross, and and he has perhaps a thousandfold more follow me." We read of the Apostles to sustain than had he not thought to of Christ, that they rejoiced that" they ward off, by a cowardly absence, what in were counted worthy to suffer shame one form or another a Christian must bear, for his name," and this was both bear- or be a Christian in nothing but name. ing his cross, and feeling it an honor to bear it. So that he alone bears Christ's cross who suffers in his cause, who has troubles to endure simply because he is a Christian.

And be ye thoroughly assured, that "the offence of the "9 cross has not ceased. He who glories in the cross of Christ, will certainly find that cross laid upon himself. He cannot separate from the world without incurring the frown and derision of the world; and these are but the modern forms of persecution, less virulent indeed than the ancient, but often to the full as galling and oppressive. And if there be one of you who is not aware that he has a cross of this kind to carry, that religion exposes him to any measure of obloquy, contempt or opposition, let him rather fear that he is not a real Christian, than question whether Christ's cross have indeed been transferred to his disciples. You may not have the cross: but it should suggest to you the inquiry, Can

Be ye certain, then, not only that, if Christians, you must carry Christ's cross, but that you make it all the heavi er by avoiding it when it lies in the clear path of duty. There is no such way of incurring shame as the being ashamed of Christ. For if you be not left, in just judgment on your cowardice and desertion, to harden into mere nominal disciples, of whom Christ will be ashamed when He cometh with his angels, you may be sure that you shall be punished with an aggravated measure of the very contempt which you have thought to avoid. Even the world respects consistency; and its bitterest scorn is for those who have tried to disarm it by concealing, if not abjuring, their principles. Simon might have remained in Jerusalem, and then have followed Christ to Calvary with but little observation: but forasmuch as he is met," coming out of the country," he shall be the sport of the rabble, a mark for universal ridicule and scorn.

And is this all that was typically re presented by the laying of the cross on Simon the Cyrenian? Indeed we ought never to press a type too far: it is easy, by indulging the imagination, to injure or bring into discredit the whole of the figurative lesson. Yet there is one thing more which we would venture to advance, though we may not speak with the same confidence as when asserting that Christ taught by action, as He had before taught by word, that his disciples must suffer with Him, if they ever hope

our inability to ascertain any particulars respecting Simon, or even to determine whether he were a Jew or a Pagan. Many of the ancient fathers suppose him to have been a Pagan, and consider that, in being made to bear the cross after Christ, He typified the conversion of idolatrous nations which either have been or will be brought to a profession of faith in our Lord. And there are no such reasons against this opinion as can require its rejection, nor such even as can show that the weight of probability is on the opposite side. We must be therefore at liberty to entertain the opinion, and, at least, to point out the inferences which would follow on supposition of its truth.

And yet even in his case, there is one | Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the other particular which should be noted country, and him they compelled to bear for the comfort of the Church. The his cross. cross was carried by Christ, before it was carried by Simon. The arrangement might have been different: the disciple might have borne the burden the first part of the way, and then it might have been laid on the Master. But our comfort is, that the cross which we must carry has been already carried by Christ, and therefore, like the grave which He entered, been stripped of its hatefulness. It might almost be said to have changed its nature through being laid on the Son of God: it left behind it its terribleness, its oppressiveness: to reign. We have already mentioned and now, as transferred to the disciple, it is indeed a cross, but a cross which it is a privilege to bear, a cross which God never fails to give strength to bear, a cross, which, as leading to a crown, may justly be prized, so that we would not have it off our shoulders, till the diadem is on our brow. "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ "-and this is the cross-" happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you." O see ye not, then, how eloquent and comprehensive a homily was delivered through the simple incident related in our text? It is one of Christ's last and most impressive sermons. He would not leave the world without furnishing a standing memorial, that his disciples must bear the same cross as Himself, inasmuch as, like Himself, they must endure the world's hatred as champions and examples of truth. And together with this memorial He would show, by a powerful instance, that, in religion, a temporizing policy is sure to defeat itself, so that to fly from the cross is commonly to meet it, dilated in size, and heavier in material. But He had one more truth to represent at the same time-the beautiful comforting truth, that He has borne what his followers have to bear, and thereby so lightened it, that, as with death, which He made sleep to the believer, the burden but quickens the step towards the "exceeding and eternal weight of glory." And that He might effect and convey all this through one great significant action, it was ordered, we may believe, that, as they led away Jesus, carrying like Isaac the wood for the burntoffering, the soldiers laid hold on one

But once let it be considered that Simon was a Pagan, and our text becomes one of those bright, prophetic lines which shoot through centuries of gloom, giving promise of a morning, if they cannot scatter night. It is not the single fact of his having been a heathen on which we would now fasten: for there are scriptural assertions in abundance, that the heathen have been given to Christ for an inheritance, and that all the ends of the earth shall yet look to Him as a Savior; so that if the laying of the cross upon Simon merely intimated prophetically the conversion of the Gentiles, it would be but one in a series of predictions, and might not claim any special attention. But Simon was a Cyrenianthis is carefully noted by each of the three evangelists-and Cyrene, as we mentioned in commencing our discourse, was a city and province of Africa. Then it was on an African that the cross was laid-on an inhabitant, a native of that

the martyrs and confessors of every age of Christianity have counted it their highest honor to succeed. It was as though to tell us that even Africa shall yet be brought to the discipleship of Jesus. Europe gave not this type of the Gentile world submitting itself to Christ. Asia was not permitted to own the favored individual. America, as yet unknown to the rest of the earth, might not send the representative of heathen

ism. Africa is the privileged country; an African follows Jesus-oh, the darkness of many generations seems scattered; and I rejoice in the assurance that the land of slaves shall be the home of freedom, the land of misery the home of happiness, the land of idolatry the home of Christianity, when I observe that it was one Simon, a Cyrenian, whom the soldiers seized and constrained to bear the cross after Christ.

SERMON XII.

THE POWER OF THE EYE.

"I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridlo, lest they come near unto thee."-PSALM xxxii. 8, 9.

tion and arrangement of these beautiful hymns, has divided each into parts, and assigned to each part its speaker; and if you cannot, in every case, see the propriety of the division which he makes, you will yet in most find that division itself an admirable commentary on the hymn, the appropriation of the stanzas removing much obscurity, and elucidating the meaning.

There may be some debate as to who should be considered the speaker of these words, whether the Psalmist or God Himself. You must often have observed in reading the Psalms, what a frequent change of persons there is, so that the sacred hymn has all the appearance of a conversation, carried on between various though undefined parties. And you should bear in mind, that the Psalms, having been composed for pub- In the instance of our text, the learnlic worship, were used in services con-ed prelate supposes the first verse to ducted by numerous ministers or per- proceed from the oracular voice which formers: a voice from one side of the pronounced those parts of a psalm which temple wakened a voice from another: were to be taken as spoken in God's chorus replied to chorus; and occasion- name; the second he considers as the ally a single low strain was heard, as utterance of the Psalmist, addressing from the recesses of the sanctuary, breath- himself to the by-standers, who had ing words which were listened to as from heard this oracular voice. We do not the oracle of God. It often surprising- know that it materially affects the force ly helps the interpretation of the Psalms, and beauty of the passage, whether we to observe the change of speakers, and regard it as thus spoken partly by God to endeavor to determine who may have and partly by David, or whether we been personified by one, and who by consider it as proceeding wholly from another. Bishop Horsley, in his transla- either of the two. But perhaps the

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bishop's supposition accords best with by-standers, who are supposed to have the character of the verses themselves; been hearkening to the heavenly proand we shall therefore adopt it, so far mise. A certain disposition had been as we may have occasion, in illustrating described as essential to all who would what is spoken, to make a reference to have God for their leader: at least, if the speaker. not explicitly described, it had been sufficiently intimated to be known by every hearer. The Psalmist, therefore takes occasion to deliver a warning against the opposite disposition—a disposition to yield only to harsh measures and severe discipline. "Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle." You see that a contrast is intended between those who could be guided by the eye, and those who required the bit and the bridle. It is as much as to say, you have heard who those are who may expect the great privilege of being led by the Almighty, even such as may be said to be watching his countenance, that they may catch from it the least signs of his will. Take ye good heed, then, that ye be not careless and stubborn, resembling those beasts who need the rein and the muzzle, and whom nothing but actual force will keep in the right path, or prevent from doing mischief. If the promise of God be to those who are observant of his eye, what must their condition be, who care for nothing but his scourge ?

It is God, then, who may be considered as saying, whether to the Psalmist individually, or to every child of our race, "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye." There is here the promise of direction and protection, but a promise, as you will all see, whose fulfilment can take place only to the watchful and the meek. If there is to be instruction and teaching on the part of God, there must be a hearkening and an attentiveness on the part of man: the relation supposed is that between a preceptor and a scholar: and it is not enough that the preceptor be willing to impart knowledge, it is further required that the scholar be ready to receive it. And that a teachable disposition is supposed in those who are addressed by the oracular voice, you will further infer from the remainder of the utterance, "I will guide thee with mine eye." We shall, as we proceed, lay great stress on this expression; it is a very singular one, and deserves the being most closely considered. At present it will be sufficient to observe to you, that if God is to guide us with his eye, to guide us, as it were, by a look, it is evident that there must be a watchfulness on our own part; the voice of God might force attention, compelling even the careless to receive certain directions, but manifestly the eye of God can guide none but those who are diligently observing the lightest indications of his will. Hence, as we said before, whatsoever there be of gracious promise in the oracular utterance, is addressed to those only who possess and exercise a certain disposition, a disposition to receive and be on the watch for instruction. God does not promise that He will guide those who give no heed to quiet suggestions and gentle intimations, but those alone who are hearkening for instruction, and for whom a glance is sufficient.

And this being the scope and bearing of the words from the oracle, you will enter readily into the meaning of the following verse, considered as the address or advice of the Psalmist to the

Here, then, we have before us a very interesting subject of discourse, in the opposite dispositions delineated by our text. We have said enough to put you in possession of the general idea, and we may now proceed to illustrations and inferences. We shall naturally arrange what we have to advance under the divisions suggested by the verses themselves. In the first place, we have to examine what may be gathered from the saying, "I will guide thee with mine eye:" in the second place, we have to consider what force this saying gives to the exhortation, "Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule."

Now you will have already understood, that we regard guidance with the eye as proving great attentiveness in the party who is led, great anxiety to catch the wishes of the being who guides, and great readiness in obeying the lightest intimations of his will. We know very well that with a thoroughly obedient and affectionate child a look is