whole conduct. He, being really unwell, was lying asleep on the sofa; and observing me upon another, with my feet hanging over the side, he quietly got up, placed a chair under them, and then lay down again. His whole appearance, with his worn and thoughtful face, is so much that of a man whom one would approach with some sensation of awe, that these small, though exquisite, acts of tenderness are the more unexpected, and, consequently, the more pleasing.""

And this was the man who felt the wrongs of the slave as other men feel a domestic calamity,-whose life was shortened by his public labours,-whose name, in future ages, will be a household word to millions in Africa, and the West Indies, and America.

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SERMON XXI.

MOUNT OLIVET.

ACTs i. 10, 11.

"And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."

(For Ascension Day.)

VERY slowly, we find, did the minds of the Apostles open to receive the mysteries of God's kingdom in all their fulness and blessedness. Till the Holy Ghost came down upon them in power, they, like all the sons of earth, were dull scholars, with all the infirmities of our common nature clinging about them, and many prejudices besides, which specially belonged to them as men of Jewish extraction. But compared with their previous uncertainty and perplexity, it is most interesting to see how bold and how clear was their testimony when the day of illumination came. On Mount Olivet, standing

alone, where, presently before, their Lord stood by their side, they were like men in a dream. But all bewilderment was gone, and all fear and hesitation with it, when the Comforter was come, which is the Spirit of Truth, the Witness for their Lord's ascension, and the Interpreter of all His dark sayings and hidden counsels. Then, presently, all Jerusalem rang with a message like this," God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ ;—yea, hear it, all who boast that ye are sons of the Patriarchs,-hear it, and learn that we speak of no new faith, but receive and teach what Moses and the Prophets have written for our learning,-the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus; and we, who stood by Him in the days of His humiliation, here testify before you of His royal honours. Wherefore repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."

And that is our message, you know, my brethren. We receive it from the men who saw the Lord,saw Him ascend up where He was before; and we hand it on to you. Gathered here to-day in that blessed Name,-rejoicing to pause for a little hour on our way, and to commune together respecting the high and holy things of our common Redemption, we meet in this House of Prayer, and feel that it is good for us to recal the events of that day of Jubilee

when the Son of Man, the Conqueror of Death and Hell, returned in triumph to His own kingdom, and made all heaven, through its ten thousand peopled provinces, more glad than the tribes who dwell nearest to the poles when dreary winter suddenly flees away before the radiant Spring, and the glorious Sun, which has been hidden for months, begins 'to bathe the yielding soil in light and beauty. May God help us rightly and profitably to meditate on this animating theme! May we ponder the solemn meaning of this day's lesson! May our prayers and our thanksgivings go up from honest hearts! May we go back to our homes, and mingle with the busy world, and tread our own path, and fight our own fight, remembering that the Captain of our salvation has "conquered Principalities and Powers,” and "made a show of them openly," and reading in His most blessed and glorious triumph, a type and figure of our own.

Let us say a few words, in the first instance, about the time of our Lord's departure.

He was seen of His disciples after His resurrection "forty days," St. Luke tells us,-not for forty days continuously,-not through several weeks of familiar companionship like the many months which preceded His crucifixion, when the Master and the servants dwelt in the same house, sat at the same board, travelled together through the livelong day, and were content with the same precarious shelter in some hired or borrowed home when darkness

covered the earth, and their labours were for a time suspended. Not thus did the risen Saviour keep company with His chosen disciples in the interval between His rising from the grave and His ascending to His throne; but during some few weeks, the number exactly that have passed since we met together for our Easter celebration, He saw them and conversed with them at intervals, came and went at pleasure, joined them sometimes in their upper room, walked with them sometimes in their journeyings, met them sometimes when they were busy with the craft,-wrought a miracle for them at one time like the miracle of early days, showing Himself always the gracious Master, though now His place of sojourning was not with them or among them, but somewhere in the upper or lower worlds which were both His own.

We know what all these meetings meant. It is not hard to see how wisely and how kindly all was done. Time enough was given to have the faith of the Apostles in the Resurrection thoroughly settled. Discourses were addressed to them, certainly on one occasion, possibly on more, in which the meaning of the prophetical Scriptures was fully unfolded to them. The mystery of the Cross, the stumblingblock of their days of ignorance, came out to view in all its glory, and the men who shortly before thought it an indignity, not to be heard of with patience, that their Lord should be defeated and condemned, that the Holy One should suffer and