may hasten to the refuge, and we now say that the danger must remain whether you receive the Gospel or reject it. Contend not, then, with the best and truest friend that you will ever know-the only system of truth that has a hope for every fear, and for every peril a way of escape.

"Ye believe in God," the devils also believe and tremble, and that because, while they know the power of his wrath, they have have no hope in his mercy. And what will a belief in God avail you more than them, if it reaches not to God in Christ, and fixes its grasp upon the great truths of redemption? Oh? we know too much of God already, as he reveals himself out of Christ, for pain, and misery, and death are solemn teachers, proving that there is judgment here, and pointing to a judgment to come. God, in the Son, supplies us with another kind of knowledge, a knowledge whose relation to the other is like that of joy to sorrow, like that of life to death.

SERMON XV.

BY REV. SAMUEL SCHAFFER,

PASTOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ABINGDON, LUCERNE COUNTY, PA.

GOD'S ESTIMATE OF THE VALUE OF MAN, "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's welfare."-1 Cor. 10: 24. I CAN taste no refreshment until this earth shall own the sway of its Redeemer!-was the exclamation of one of the best minds of the day. His fervent desire was fixed upon the moral progress of the race. It was his ruling desire. Other minds are intent on the same grand object, minds that seem to show no affinity for the doctrines of Christianity. They would have the elevation of man and the amelioration of society without Christianity, perhaps in opposition to its entire system. They allege that Christianity is in the way of human progress, and that if the world ever arrives at that great ideal, it must be by the gradual development of the race according to its present principles, and acccording to its present progress. To illustrate their theory, they say that the whole history of the race in the past may be compared to a colossal man whose life reaches from the creation to the last limits of time. The successive generations of men are the days of his life. The discoveries and inventions which characterize the different epochs of the

world's history are his works. The creeds, opinions, doctrines, and principles of the successive ages are his thoughts. The state of society are his manners. He grows in knowledge and self-control, and in visible size as we do, and his education is in the same way, and for the same reasons similar to ours. And this, they further add, is not a mere figure, but a compendious statement of a very comprehensive fact, a power whereby the present gathers itself in the past.

If this ingenious representation were true, that colossal man at the present must be a being of hugely mis-shapen growth, and of exceedingly irregular proportions, and of a habitude that can dose through centuries. Akin to the injustice of all such dreamers, they first borrow their fundamental principles from the Scriptures, and then turn round to demolish the magazine whence they are taken. The probability is sufficiently strong that the idea of moral progress, as little as the doctrine of redemption, would never have entered the human mind had it not been first disclosed in the Scriptures. Still candour forces us to admit that with a system so perfect and so powerful as Christianity has proved itself to be, with its sublime principles, its benign spirit, its grand remedial provisions, its high reformatory character, and all depending for their efficient influence upon a divine agency, the mystery is as dark as it is painful, that so many centuries have been permitted to elapse, and yet the human race is still left to groan under accumulated miseries. War rages as fiercely as ever it did, oppression holds down its victim, wrong and injustice walk arm in arm, ignorance sits beneath its dark cloud, vice strikes its root deep in the soil of social life, idolatry nails its idol to the niche, governments riot in corruption, and sorrow, suffering, and tears are still the sad lot of man. The expected age for which the yearning creation has looked for centuries, seems, if coming at all, only its dawn. No Christian nation has yet become the land of Beulah, no sun of sevenfold splendour illumines the smallest section of Christendom. Justice is nowhere established, our courts of law are mere lotteries, our Governments yet uncleansed from heathen vices. The full, clear high-principled nature of the Gospel has not been brought to bear upon the masses with anything like the might of its beneficence. Still, with these sad admissions, it must be acknowledged that there is sufficient power in the Gospel to satisfy man's highest anticipations, and to answer the largest demands of the world. There is enough for the removal of all human ills, and the promotion of the highest human' welfare. The text contains the element of power that can effect it all. In announcing it you have all doubtless perceived that I have substituted the word welfare for the word wealth. My reason for the change is simply this: in the text there is no substantive expressed, but simply the

neuter article. By casting the eye along the chapter we find that the name and article occur together in the last verse. All we do is to substitute that in the place of the word wealth, which is not so expressive, and which strongly disagrees with the context. The text is thrown into the discussion of the subject of the chapter as a general principle, whose spirit is fundamental of all moral pro

gress.

I. The first truth which it presents to our consideration is that it fairly expresses God's estimate of the value of man.

The evidence of his regard for man gleams on almost every page of the Bible. It appears in the rich array of means intended for his instruction and development, and in the still richer and more wondrous provision made to exalt him to dignity and honour. Redemption is God's highest practical testimony to the worth of man, and yet redemption itself is only the grand means of leading him back to benevolence. The text contains in itself the essence of every moral precept, and therefore embodies most fully God's estimate of man. Herein He expresses the strength of His desire for the highest welfare of man, by calling into requisition the activity and entire influence of every man in aid of the welfare of every other man, and in default of the duty, places in forfeit his individual happiness. Basing the value of man on his original nature, and not on his present character, he makes it the duty of the race to seek the well-being of one as if the one were the race. The spirit of the precept seems to run in this tenor: that whenever the higher good of one man demands it, each one of the race shall voluntarily surrender his own welfare rather than impair or injure his. In its practical operation the principle is the same as if God should collect the race around him, and selecting one man from the exceeding multitude, should elevate him in the sight and presence of all, and there laying his command upon all, should forbid all wrong or injury to be done him, and enjoin, with kind and benevolent authority, that each should care for his welfare with the same constant and tender solicitude as if he held his own welfare in trust only for him; and then in return for the duty should make each one of that exceeding multitude the object of the same universal regard and attention. It binds the race together in such a chain of dependence, that if a single link be flawed or broken, the strength of the whole will be weakened, and the invisible current of influence intended to pass through every portion either destroyed or interrupted. The connection is so close that if a single man be benefited, the race is benefited in him; and if a single man be injured or degraded, the whole are degraded in his individual degradation. The value and place of every member corresponds to the value and place of every depen

dent link. The subtile current which goes from one passes through all, whether for good or for evil. The principle of the text, then, does not barely accord to every man his individual natural and moral rights. It does more; it makes those rights the foundation of good to the race, and each one responsible for their preservation and influence.

Were man to value man according to this divine standard, the world would be advanced to a higher state of progress than it has ever witnessed. It is by departing from this standard and erecting one of their own, that they contrive to lower the true estimate of humanity and aid in building the tower of the world's miseries. In place of regarding the elevation of man as the great aim of his exertion and labors, his object has been to depress and degrade him to the lowest possible scale of value. His measure of human value is strength of muscle, industrial skill, general utility, the amount he can earn, or the quantity of labor he can perform. God takes into account his high moral nature, his immortality of being, his grand capacities, the effect of his endless influence through the long line of his endless being. God would raise man to what he may be, and can be, by calling out the right use of his various powers, and the power of all other resources in his behalf.

The text, therefore, is God's practical estimate of human value. It stands out more fully than a distinct or formal affirmation. Its language is so plain that it cannot well be mistaken, while its spirit is the vital element of all moral elevation and progress. The whole is so clear, so just, so reasonable, that it seems to me, if the voice of the divine Redeemer were to break in upon the stillness of this assembly, and in its mild authoritative tones designate the name of some individual in the midst of us; and then in tones of equal tenderness and authority enjoin upon each to unite our efforts in seeking his highest temporal and eternal welfare, it would not be so strong and certain a proof of his regard for man as he has here given in this divine fundamental enactment which he has instituted for the guidance of human conduct for all time and through eternity. No miracle could be a stronger attestation of his estimate of man than he has expressed in establishing it as the fixed and immutable law of his kingdom.

Some, in their endeavors to exalt the value of man have supposed that it would have been well worthy of the Creator, if he had called into being this great fabric of the universe, and continued it for ever, simply for the purpose of instructing a single immortal mind. Were the supposition well substantiated, we do not see how it could be a higher proof of God's estimate of man than he has given in the principle of the text, To make immortal

minds the aiders and instructors of immortal minds in the use of their reciprocal and collective influence, and that under the highest principle of their nature, binding them in everlasting bonds of affection to one another, is certainly something so much higher than the mere tuition of material nature, as to make the supposition almost vanish from consideration. Such, then, is the exalted condition under which men are born, that this great law of kindness stands ready to meet us as soon as we enter the precincts of life. God has engraven it on our very constitution; nay, he has engraven it on the very constitution of the universe. It encircles us with its kind embrace wherever we are; it leads us by its kind direction wherever we go. It is the divine warrant of our safe conduct through life, in which men are notified beforehand, as soon as we take our place among them, that they shall care for our welfare as they care for their own. God so prizes and exalts our nature, that he commands the world to do it service.

II. The principle of the text does more: it augments the value of man in all the powers of his nature.

It does so from its very nature. Disinterestedness is the prime element of manhood. It is the fine gold of human character the sole essence of moral value. Selfishness is deterioration and debasement, the mere dross of human nature, Short-sighted in view, and limited in its range of vision, it sees all objects out of their true relation, and reversed in their proper value. What God exalts and prizes, selfishness lowers and degrades. What God despises and contemns, selfishness exalts and prizes. It contradicts the unerring Judgment of God, and so blind and obstinate is it, that rather than see in the light which he has kindled it, will either bandage or dig out the eyes of the soul. Disinterestedness is that single eye which fills the whole body with light. It sees all things in their true relations, and according to their proper value. It draws the line of demarcation between good men and bad men. It fixes the great gulf between heaven and hell. It marks the eternal distinction between the Son of God and the great adversary of men. It forms the splendor of redemption and the glory of all the attributes of God. Substitute selfishness in its place, and there is no virtue, no heaven, no Saviour, no God. It is, in fine, the great moral force of the universe, giving motion and direction, power and value to every good-willing being. He who surrenders himself intelligently and voluntarily to this great principle lifts his whole nature at once and forever. He no longer needs particular rules and detailed prescriptions. He is a law unto himself, obeying all laws in one, without feeling subjection to any; a freeman of the universe, admitted into fellowship with all goodness. Placed within the sphere of his invisible relations, under those