virtuous or elevated source; that the vast majority of all equitable dealing amongst men is performed, not on the principle of honour at all, but on the principle of selfishness; that this is the soil upon which the honesty of the world mainly flourishes and is sustained; so that were the connexion dissolved between justice to others and our own particular advantage, this would go very far to banish the observation of justice from the earth, the genuine depravity of the human heart would burst forth and show itself in its true characters, and the world in which we live be transformed into a scene of unblushing fraud, of open and lawless depredation; that while there is much in this contemplation to magnify the wisdom of the supreme Creator, who, by the same power whereby he makes the wrath of man to praise him, has also upon the selfishness of man caused a most beauteous order of wide and useful intercourse to be suspended, there is also much in it to humble man, and to convict him of the deceitfulness of that moral complacency with which he looks to his own character and his own attainments. However strong the attraction we feel to follow out the train of cogent reasoning by which this sentiment is supported, we can only indulge ourselves in extracting the following paragraphs:

"And let it not deafen the humbling impression of this argument, that you are not distinctly conscious of the operation of selfishness, as presiding at every step over the honesty of your daily and familiar transactions; and that the only inward checks against injustice, of which you are sensible, are the aversion of a generous indignancy towards it, and the positive discomfort you would incur by the reproaches of your own conscience. Selfishness, in fact, may have originated and alimented the whole of this virtue that belongs to you, and yet the mind incur the same discomfort by the violation of it, that it would do by the violation of any other of its established habits. And as to the generous indignancy of your feelings against all that is fraudulently and disgracefully wrong, let us never forget, that this may be the nurtured fruit of that common selfishness which links human beings with each other into a relationship of mutual dependence. This may be seen, in all its perfection, among the leagued and sworn banditti of the highway, who, while execrated by society at large for the compact of iniquity into which they have entered, can maintain the most heroic fidelity to the virtues of their own brotherhood — and be, in every way, as lofty and as chivalric with their points of honour, as we are with ours; and elevate as indignant a voice against the worthlessness of him who could betray the secret of their association, or break up any of the securities by which it was

held together. And, in like manner, may we be the members of a wider combination, yet brought together by the tie of reciprocal interest; and all the virtues essential to the existence, or to the good of such a combination, may come to be idolized amongst us; and the breath of human applause may fan them into a lustre of splendid estimation; and yet the good man of society on earth be, in common with all his fellows, an utter outcast from the society of heaven with his heart altogether bereft of that allegiance to God which forms the reigning principle of his unfallen creation and in a state of entire destitution either as to that love of the Supreme Being, or as to that disinterested love of those around us, which form the graces and the virtues of eternity." [pp. 92-94.]

"This, then, is the terminating object of all the experience that we have tried to set before you. We want it to be a schoolmaster to bring you unto Christ. We want you to open your eyes to the accordancy which obtains between the theology of the New Testament and the actual state and history of man. Above all, we want you to turn your eyes inwardly upon yourselves, and there to behold a character without one trace or lineament of godliness there to behold a heart, set upon totally other things than those which constitute the portion and the reward of eternity there to behold every principle of action resolvable into the idolatry of self, or, at least, into something independent of the authority of God there to behold how worthless in their substance are those virtues which look so imposing in their semblance and their display, and draw around them here a popularity and an applause which will all be dissipated into nothing, when hereafter they are brought up for examination to the judgment-seat. We want you, when the revelation of the Gospel charges you with the totality and magnitude of your corruption, that you acquiesce in that charge; and that you may perceive the trueness of it, under the disguise of all those hollow and unsubstantial accomplishments with which nature may deck her own fallen and degenerate children. It is easy to be amused, and interested, and intellectually regaled, by an analysis of the human character, and a survey of human society. But it is not so easy to reach the individual conscience with the lesson we are undone. It is not so easy to strike the alarm into your hearts of the present guilt, and the future damnation. It is not so easy to send the pointed arrow of conviction into your bosoms, where it may keep by you, and pursue you like an arrow sticking fast; or so to humble you into the conclusion, that, in the sight of God, you are an accursed thing, as that you may seek unto him who became a curse for you, and as that the preaching of his cross might cease to be foolishness." [pp. 97-99.]

A very pleasing specimen is afforded in the commencement of the fourth sermon, of the use Dr. Chalmers is capable of making of any of the finer thoughts, or those expressive

words of language, which may have been furnished by the treasures of general literature or unconsecrated genius, in his adoption of a most striking description from the poet Burns, where he says of the man who carried a native, unborrowed, self-sustained rectitude in his bosom-" His eye, even fixed on empty space, beamed keen with honour." He adduces it, not in the customary form of a mere citation, but as the guide to his own subsequent observations, which are indeed, throughout the introduction of that discourse, chiefly an expansion of the same noble thought, and an application of it to the purpose of illustrating, with great force and beauty, the principle stated in his text, viz. that he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much, Luke, xvi. 10; or, as himself expresses it, that he who has sinned, though to a small amount in respect to the profit of his transgression, provided he has done so by passing over a forbidden limit which was distinctly known to him, has, in the act of doing so, incurred a full condemnation in respect of the principle of his transgression. He proceeds first to elucidate this sentiment, and then to urge it onward to its practical consequences. This sermon, as it contains the first instance, in the present volume, of a professed quotation from any other source than the Scripture, so also does it afford us the first example of a formal division of the discourse into separate portions. It is among the many distinguishing marks of Dr. C.'s manner, to resort very seldom either to direct quotations of any but the language of inspiration, or to those technical divisions and separate heads of discussion which are so common, and were once so minutely ramified, and so universally employed, in addresses from the pulpit. In both these respects, we think he has chosen a correct and elevated standard. With reference to the former, it is surely unnecessary that a man who has, in the stores of his own mind, both thoughts and images adequate to every purpose of instruction and argument, with a capacity to give them just such expression as either their peculiarity or the circumstances of his hearers may require, should have recourse to the writings of other men whenever he desires to produce a more than common effect, and while probably he could have presented the very same sentiments in language equally appropriate, had he trusted to his own powers, yet to be for ever occupied in the work of connecting together the sentiments, or, perhaps, only the phrases of those who have gone before him, so as that amongst them they shall make up a

tolerably uniform composition, whereof only the arrange ment of the patchwork can be truly ascribed to him. It is a habit which, though some persons have fallen into it that could not be suspected of any defect in originality, yet has a strong tendency to repress the higher exercises of the mind, by causing us to rest always satisfied with those combinations of thought and language that are already familiar, instead of leading us to search out those new and varied conceptions, to which a more entire reliance on our own individual capacity, both of thinking and of expression, will. be found frequently to conduct us. It is, besides, unfavourable to the more fervid kinds of eloquence, by creating frequent interruptions in the current of our ideas, while we pause for the purpose of recollecting and inserting the favourite phrases of other men. With reference to the practice of unvaryingly distributing a sermon into a succession of heads and sections, we have, besides other authorities, that of one of the greatest preachers England has ever pro duced, in addition to the frequent usage of Dr. Chalmers, to urge against it;-not, indeed, that such divisions are always injurious, for there are certainly subjects which they contribute much to bring within the apprehension of a common auditory, and they are, besides, of some assistance to the memory; but then we conceive they have long been deemed too inseparable from a public discourse, and may be sometimes dispensed with, not only without loss, but with positive advantage, especially to that unity and strength of impression which it should ever be the preacher's aim to leave upon the mind and conscience of his hearers. When employed at all, however, there can scarcely be a model better than that supplied in some of the sermons of this writer, for natural, obvious propriety, and the absence of all needless complication.

But we must hasten onwards to the close of our remarks on these discourses. We have already stated, that the one immediately under consideration is designed to establish this apparently common, yet too much forgotten sentimentthat the gain of sin may be small, while the guilt of it may be great that the latter ought not to be measured by the former, but that he who is unfaithful in the least, shall be dealt with, in respect of the offence he has given to God, in the same way as if he had been unfaithful in much. The first reason assigned in vindication of this is, that by a small

Hall's Charge to Robertson, p. 25.

act of injustice, the line that separates the right from the wrong is just as effectually broken, as by a great one; and that, besides, when this transition is accomplished, the progress will follow, of course, just as opportunity invites, and just as circumstances make it safe and practicable. The second reason is, that the littleness of the gain, so far from giving a littleness to the guilt, is, in fact, a circumstance of aggravation; since he who has committed injustice for the sake of a less advantage, has done it on the impulse of a less temptation: and thus the very circumstance which gives to his character a milder transgression in the eye of the world, makes it more odious in the judgment of the sanctuary. In unfolding the practical consequences that may be drawn from this principle, the author produces the very first act of retribution that occurred in the history of our species. What is it, he asks, that invests the eating of a solitary apple with a grandeur so momentous? How came an action, in itself so minute, to be the germ of such mighty consequences? How are we to understand that our first parents, by the doing of a single instant, not only brought death upon themselves, but shed this big and baleful disaster over all their posterity? After proving that the objections and ridicule of infidelity excited by it have nothing else in them than the grossness of materialism, he thus sums up the argument:

"God said, Let there be light, and it was light;' and it has ever been regarded as a sublime token of the Deity, that, from an utterance so simple, an accomplishment so quick and so magnificent should have followed. God said, That he who eateth of the tree in the midst of the garden should die.' It appears,

indeed, but a little thing, that one should put forth his hand to an apple, and taste of it. But a saying of God was involved in the matter-and heaven and earth must pass away, ere a saying of his can pass away; and so the apple became decisive of the fate of a world; and, out of the very scantiness of the occasion, did there emerge a sublimer display of truth and of holiness. The beginning of the world was, indeed, the period of great manifestations of the Godhead; and they all seem to accord, in style and character, with each other; and in that very history, which has called forth the profane and unthinking levity of many a scorner, may we behold as much of the majesty of principle, as in the creation of light we behold of the majesty of power." [pp. 125, 126.]

The whole residue of the sermon is of a nature even more exclusively and forcibly practical; and calculated, if any thing could, to do away the calumny often cast upon the