affection that shall absorb your soul, and give direction to all subordinate loves. And yet you, infatuated in your idolatry, exhaust your nature in devotion to man, till there is left not one breathing of fondness for God. Is not this an odious, criminal partiality? Is it not a hideous disproportion? Is it not a depraved idolatry?

III. These social affections may be the means of inflaming the natural heart with hatred against God.

Every sinner has in his heart the elements of this hatred. Perhaps his circumstances have not been such as to call them forth into a violent outbreak, and he is not fully conscious of present enmity to his Maker. But God has so ordered it that few persons can go through life without meeting with something to draw out this latent principle, and lay bare to their own view the unreconciled state of their affections. Now there is no more sensitive spot, which God can touch than these very social feelings, and he wounds them most keenly when he comes suddenly and mysteriously, and tears from the very bosom of affection the object to which it has been clinging as its life and joy. The mother that goes nightly to the cradle, and watches the unconscious smile of her sleeping babe, and dreams that nothing can be so fair and so good and so secure from harm, is sometimes called to watch the gathering flush upon the cheek, to see those little hands clenched in spasmodic agony, to bend over the lingering sufferer in the tediousness of a long disease, till at length maternal care can be of no more avail, and her last duty is to wipe the cold sweat from the forehead that was so fair, and dispose the white garments for the burial. The father has a son, mature and manly, over whom he has watched from infancy with unwonted fondness, on whom he has lavished every expenditure, to whom he has looked forward as the representative of his own family and name, and the comfort of his old age. He finds his graces of mind and heart

maturing with a beautiful harmony, and begins already to lean on him as his strong staff and his beautiful rod. But suddenly a deplorable disaster prostrates his hopes. The blow that strikes down the darling of his pride is worse than death; it dooms him to a perpetual sight of that most awful of spectacles, a diseased and shattered intellect. He beholds the glare of idiocy, where was once the sprightliness of youth, and the staff on which he leaned has become a broken reed. Now here are afflictions which may occur at any time to the most prosperous, and if the heart have not been educated to complacency in view of the hidden depths of God's character, what will it do in an hour of such deep desolation. Here are events of which there is no adequate explanation, except that God has caused them; and as religion is needed at such an hour, not to produce a stoical indifference, but a calm trust in the mysterious Providence, so such an hour tests the character of the soul and proves its wickedness if religion be not there. Oh! my friends we live in a fearful world. Many of us go through life with a small share of sorrow, but there is not one of us that may not be wounded in the very part of our nature, where all our energies and affections would combine in the agonizing prayer, "Good Lord spare thy people!" And how desolate is the heart that has no refuge to which to betake itself but its own bleeding sensibilities, which has no pious promptings which cause it to look up with a smile of faith to him who administers the chastening. My brethren, how much better is the love to which the gospel calls us than the love we find implanted in our social nature. This devoted to objects which must fade, that fixed on objects which are unfading and eternal. This sustained amid a thousand fears and doubts which increase with its fondness, that built on a faith in the promises of God which no storms and danger can shake. This often crushed and bleeding and desolate, with its idols all torn away, with its most fine gold become

dim; that a perpetual fountain of delight, flowing more serenely and beautifully amid the sorrows of earth, like the river of God sending its streams through the valley of death.

And now, I appeal to you, man of the affectionate nature, whether you do not this day stand condemned before God. Do you not see the depravity of your heart more clearly in those very affections which you possess and exercise for the world, but do not, will not devote to higher objects. Can you give any reason for feeling no love to God, and to Christ, and to souls, except that you are a sinful being? Have you not cultivated your moral nature with a disproportionate, idolatrous devotion to the creature? Are you prepared to meet the divine administration with complacency and calmness, if it demands of your social nature its most costly sacrifice? Are you not an enemy of God, entirely destitute of that governing principle of piety, which is all that can give elevation and holiness to your soul? Yet to such as you, though she comes in the language of reproof-to such as you, religion appeals with sisterly tenderness. Unto men is her call. Unto the sons of men is her voice. And the demand is that you become subjects of an affection higher than earthly, and live and act and love like sons of God as well as sons of men.

NOTE.

This sermon was preached at Danvers, Mass.; never to his own people.

26

SERMON XI.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS.-(A THANKSGIVING SERMON.)

WHEN JESUS THEREFORE SAW HIS MOTHER, AND THE DISCIPLE STANDING BY WHOM HE LOVED, HE SAITH UNTO HIS MOTHER, WOMAN, BEHOLD THY SON! THEN SAITH HE TO THE DISCIPLE, BEHOLD THY MOTHER! AND FROM THAT HOUR THAT DISCIPLE TOOK HER INTO HIS OWN HOUSE.-John 19: 26, 27.

Ir is said, that the celebrated Dr. Johnson once read a manuscript copy of the book of Ruth to a fashionable circle in London. The universal exclamation of the company was, "where did you get that exquisite pastoral," and the thoughtless were directed to the book, which to them had been associated only with gloom and dullness. It is in truth remarkable, that among a people whose domestic institutions and exclusive habits seemed so unfavorable to social refinement, the Old Testament history should abound in such delicate narratives of the affections. The ancient classics are notoriously deficient in the sentiments of the fireside, but the more ancient literature of the bible, even in the primitive traditions of patriarchal life, seems to have held the family relation among choicest subjects. In the whole range of eastern story, I know of nothing more rich than the account of Isaac's courtship. The witching pages of fiction have never yet surpassed the true narrative of Joseph and his brethren. And the sweetest

its

refinement which modern taste has thrown around the grave is unequal to the simple pathos of old Jacob, in his dying request: "Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite: There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah."

Yet it was left for the genius of Christianity to consummate the work of refinement. Indeed the whole career of Jesus seems to speak the language of a delightful harmony with the social feelings of our nature. In this respect as in all others, his life stands forth as a pattern for mankind to admire and imitate. His filial relation in the office of mediator, and that spirit of devout and affectionate submission with which he always addresses the Father, seem in this respect to have a peculiar significance. The fact that his miracles are almost all directed to the happiness of social life, gives the assurance that Christianity was designed to shed its light about the domestic fireside, and to be in turn refreshed by its gladdening glow. It was the sacred institution of marriage which Jesus honored by his first miracle. Throughout his whole career of benevolence, he seemed to take peculiar delight in healing the wounds of disappointed affection, meeting desolate widowhood as she was following out to his burial the last solace of her life, and giving back the young man to his mother; pressing his way through the mourning minstrels around the death bed, and waking the pale maiden from her sleep; healing the tortures that were worse than death, and restoring to health and reason and friendship those that had been a burden and a shame. Nor can we forget his attachment to the little circle at Bethany, where he used to take his sabbath evening meal, and whither he hurried with such fraternal sympathy to weep over the buried love of the sisters, and call back its object to life. The remarkable attachment of females to his person, seems to declare the same truth concerning his social character. When Chateaubriand was asked, why the women