thine, as soon as thou dwellest in Zion. Dwell ever there with Peter in the Hospital, or sit with David in sackcloth and ashes, or with Job on the dung hill; cling to the words of the text: the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick the people (mark it well, the whole people) that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.

There stands the City! Enter its gates? Do ye hesitate? You will seek, indeed, for pleas of carnal worldly pleasure in vain. No, ye are not invited here to empty husks, but to Heavenly manna. If ye prefer the flesh-pots of Egypt, then remain without, and perish with the unbelieving of Israel in the wilderness. Even without you there shall not be wanting a people to the Lord, which rejoicing shall enter into His mansions. He builds no house for desolation, but wherever He locates His habitations, He is already Himself at once the Inhabitant. There stands the City! No salvation without its walls! Do ye consider your righteousness the tree of life? Oh observe those, who trust in it. They have no peace; and how righteous are they? They are submissive to God, so long as He complies with their wishes, and may not know any other law, than that they have laid down for themselves. Come to them with the divine law, and they gnash their teeth together at you. That is their obedience, that their virtue.

There stands the City! Its gate is narrow; but for the sake of the salvation of your soul, enter, enter! Or do ye think to delay repentance. Ah, do ye know whether the morrow's sun may shine on you, and that ye shall not give your life in despair to day. To day, to day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. Hasten to place your soul in safety; for already the power of error reigns and it is perilous to stand upon the streets.

There stands the City! O ye, who have a care as to what shall benefit mankind, and for their good establish society after society, see to this above all that ye lead the people to this city and thus furnish them help for time and eternity. In this City no man dies of hunger. Here rules love, which has nothing, and can have nothing, for itself alone. In this City success in one's calling and handicraft shall never be wanting; for godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. In this City flourishes alone the true form of civilization; for the Creator of all beauty-the Holy Spirit-brings here not only the purely human to a harmonious development, but impresses it with the stamp of Heaven and transfigures it into the Divine. Yes, this City is like a school for the eternal Jerusalem, its outer court, and from it that wonderful ladder hangs down, which the enraptured patriarch saw in his dream. Enter then its gates before the bolts shall be fastened. Pay your homage to the Lord your God before it becomes dark, and your feet shall stumble on the dark mountains. See the insignificant requirement that is made of you at its barriers. Nothing but a handful of wretched worldly pleasures and a death begetting self-delusion are you called upon to re

nounce. Oh see how ye will be recompensed with every thing! Come and ye also shall be made partakers of that great happiness, and be greeted in hearing the blessed invitation: For ye are not come unto the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest; but unto Mount Sion, and unto the City of the living God, and to the general assembly of the first-born, which are written in Heaven; and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. AMEN.

WHAT AN EARNEST BOY DID.

BY THE EDITOR.

It is always painful to see boys, who have every advantage for the improvement of their minds, spending their time in idleness, and what they regard as fun. Some even whilst at school seem to have no proper appreciation of the advantages they enjoy. They grow up to manhood but poorly qualified to take the places in society which they are necessarily called to fill. Lacking earnestness they give but poor promise of making any important impression upon the generation in which they live.

For the benefit of such, by way of furnishing them a little wholeSome stimulus, we propose to relate briefly the story of "an earnest boy." The lad whose history we propose to give, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29th, 1808; and as he is still living he is now nearly fifty five years old.

But we must begin with his infancy. It will be seen that his life was early clouded by an afflictive dispensation of Providence. "When he was four years of age," we are told, "he lost his father, who died from the effects of exertions to save a friend from drowning. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to a tailor in his native city, with whom he served seven years. His mother was unable to afford him any educational advantages, and he never attended school a day in his life. While learning his trade, however, he resolved to make an effort to educate himself. His anxiety to be able to read was particularly excited by an incident which is worthy of mention. A gentleman of Raleigh was in the habit of going into the tailor-shop and reading while the apprentice and jouneymen were at work. He was an excellent reader, and his favorite book was a volume of speeches, principally of British Statesmen. "Our boy became interested, and his first ambition was to equal him as a reader and become familiar with those speeches. He took up the alphabet without an instructor; but by

applying to the journeymen with whom he worked, he obtained a little assistance. Having acquired a knowledge of the letters, he applied for the loan of the book which he had so often heard read. The owner made him a present of it, and gave him some instruction on the use of letters in the formation of words. Thus his first exercises in spelling were in that book. By perseverance he soon learned to read, and the hours which he devoted to his education were at night after he was through his daily labors upon the shopboard."

"He now applied himself to books from two to three hours every night, after working from ten to twelve hours at his trade. Having completed his apprenticeship in the autumn of 1824, he went to Laurens Court House, in South Carolina, where he worked as a journey man for nearly two years. In May 1826 he returned to Raleigh, where he procured journey-work, and remained until September. He then went to seek his fortune in the West, carrying with him his mother, who was dependent upon him for support. He stopped at Greenville Tennessee, and commenced work as a journeyman."

"He remained there about twelve months, married, and soon after went still farther westward, but failing to find a suitable place to settle, he returned to Greenville and commenced business. Up to this time his education was limited to reading, as he had never had an opportunity of learning to write er cipher; but under the instructions of his wife he learned these and other branches. The only time, however, he could devote to them was in the dead of night."

He now began to have a start upwards. Growing in knowledge he grew in influence. In 1828 he was elected alderman of the village. He was re-elected to the same office is 1829, and also in 1830. In 1830 he was also elected Mayor, which office he held three years. In 1835 he was elected to the Legislature-and again in 1839. In 1840 he served as presidential elector for the State at large. In 1841 he was elected to the State Senate. In 1843 he was elected to Congress; and when his term expired was re-elected so that he served till 1853. In 1853 he was elected Governor of Tennessee. In 1855 he was re-elected Governor. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate for the term of six years. Such was his popularity, influence and reputation for wisdom, honesty and faithfulness, that before his term in the United States Senate expired he was appointed by the President to an important position in his native State; and the boy is, now known as Hon. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee!

Boys, do you hear that!

Johnson has acquired a reputation wide as the land. His name has been heard in every home of the country. His eloquence in the Senate is well known. He has made better speeches himself than he ever read in that book of speeches which he so much admired as a boy, and from which he drank his youthful inspiration. His loyal and stirring appeals all over the land since the Great Rebellion has been inaugurated, in favor of the old flag, have given new

courage and confidence to thousands, and his name and acts will fill an honorable chapter in the History of the war for the Union. We cannot, of course, promise the same success to all the boys. But the road is open to all. "Fortune favors the brave." The earnest shall win. God will help all who help themselves; and to all who truly desire it, and who are found worthy in the trial, He will appoint places of usefulness and honor. Wake up, boys, and see what can be done!

THE ORDER OF NATURE IN ITS NORMAL FORM.*

A LECTURE BY DR. J. W. NEVIN.

REPORTED BY THE EDITOR.

The Church is in its very conception a supernatural constitution in the world-the order of grace over against the order of nature. It supposes the existence of nature, rests in nature as a basis, and stands out in relief from it as its back ground.

By nature we mean the present world in its entire range from unorganized matter up to man. It is in its conception a whole, a system. It is a pyramid starting in the lowest forms of nature and growing up to a point. It is a circle in the compass of which all converges toward a centre, and is held in union with it as a complete whole. We find that creation begins in an incomplete way in unorganized matter, chrystalization, &c., and grows toward a higher perfection, till at last it culminates in man which is its highest point. Man may be called the microcosm in which all beneath comes to a completion-in him all nature becomes intelligent and intelligible. Man is the mirror from which it is reflected. All the lower forms of nature, chrystalization, vegetable, animal, reaches its height especially in the human body. The relation between the lower and the higher is inward-not so, however, that the one can pass into the other, vegetable become mere animal, and mere animal man-but one sphere loses itself in the other, is taken up in it, as its proper completion. The lower cannot get into the higher, but it foretells and foreshadows it. The higher still, however, includes the lower; as for instance, man has animal life, the animal has vegetable life, and the vegetable the lower form of organized matter. They are actually taken up, and held in living union with the higher-so that the human body and through it the soul includes these lower forms of existence, though they

* This article is the substance of a lecture-the first one of a series on the Church-delivered by Dr. Nevin in the Lecture Room of the German Reformed church in Lancaster, Pa., Jan. 11th 1856. It was taken down by the Editor of the Guardian and afterwards revised and corrected by its author. It is an article for those who think, and will be appreciated by many of our readers..

themselves never are transferred, or transubstantiated into what is above them.

With this order and process agrees the account in the first chapter of Genesis. First the division of the dryland from the waters -then vegetable life, "grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruitful tree after its kind," whose seed is in itself, upon the earth-a kind of secondary creation, self-production of nature from beneath up. Then animal, in the same way by the secondary law of creation-then at the close comes the solemn crowning act, "Let us make man, &c." Here the work of nature is finished-this is the end of nature's organic development-it culminates in man, who is head and lord over all-first in his body, but this itself in the soul. The soul as a microcosm collects, represents, and reflects back the true and proper idea and meaning of nature. The soul is, therefore, on the side towards nature kindred with the living spirit of nature— nature has its climax in the soul, in the form of intelligence and

will.

The animal, being in this sense a product of nature, has no mind, but only instinct-blind-yet it has that which is allied to mind, and in man the higher stadium of nature becomes such. The animal has also, therefore, no will, being only under the power of nature's blind force.

This primacy of man,-of the human soul,-includes, however, more than nature in its highest form. It involves a higher sort of existence. The soul of man is more than the life of nature carried to its climax. It is by its very constitution inwardly related to another world. Thus in Genesis, after the completion of nature's process to the highest point, there was the creation from above down to meet that from below up. He breathed into man

the breath of life. This was, therefore, the infusion of a life above nature regarded as a simple physical system. [The moral, with its powers of reason and will, may be termed hyperphysical, though not strictly supernatural.] This is signified by man's creation in the image of God. Thus he stands related to a higher order, and in a higher source. The soul is inwardly related to a higher world -not merely the climax from earth up; but also the product from heaven down. He is from God as well as from nature.

It is by virtue of this relation to a higher order, that the natural can pass over into the supernatural. Hence also the physical passes over into the moral. There is an important difference between these two conceptions. The physical is blind-blind powers-as the life of a plant, growth of plant or animal. This is only a dark adumbration-but the animal or physical, that which belongs to the mere order of nature in its development from beneath upward, cannot be moral. The physical nature is under the power of forces over which it has no control, working upon it, not from itself, but from around, behind, and beneath. Not so man. If so, he could not be moral. The moral is found only in the sphere of reason and freedom. His life would be helpless and hopeless; he would face back again on nature, were it not for his moral constitution. This