the power which threatened her extirpation from the earth. For the ground that she occupied, and the conquests she had won, she was indebted, under God, to the labors of her ministers. In Stephen, she had found an able defender of her doctrines, a bold and fearless champion of her rights; a man, the lightning of whose eloquence flashed conviction upon the hearts of his hearers, and the heavenly benignity of whose spirit sought pardon for his murderers in the very arms of death. In this crisis of her affairs, how could the church do without Stephen? What need had she for his counsels, his constancy, his theological attainments, his persuasive eloquence, and his heaven-born spirit! His death seemed like tearing out her very vitals, and laying her loftiest energies in the dust. No wonder that devout men, while they carried him to his burial, made great lamentation over him.

And are not such men always a loss to the church, in times of peril and rebuke? To the Presbyterian church at this time, it is an afflic tion of no small magnitude, to have an able, prudent, zealous, godly minister removed from her midst. Such men are needed to guide her councils, to defend her doctrines, to sustain her piety, to rebuke her slanderers, and to give an impulse to her zeal for the promotion of the Redeemer's glory. It is not every man who is furnished to meet such a crisis as the present; who is thoroughly acquainted with the standard doctrines of the church, and able and willing to defend them, when assailed by the enemies of the truth. When, therefore, ministers who are gifted for times like these are taken away, the loss to the church is peculiarly great, and she is called to lamentation and mourning whilst they are carried to the tomb.

IV. In the death of a minister of Jesus Christ, the world at large has sustained a loss. Let not the infidel smile at this remark. It is by the doctrines of the gospel, which the ministers of Christ are com missioned to preach, and the accompanying energies of the spirit of grace, that the heathen are to be enlightened and the world brought back to God. To preach these holy doctrines is the appropriate business of every minister of Christ. To give them extension and power over the hearts of men, is his most delightful employment. In this respect, he is emphatically the friend of man, and the benefactor of the world. His plans and his labors have for their object, the moral and spiritual renovation of every inhabitant of our globe. His is not the infidel charity, which would erect palaces and endow seminaries of learning, whose dying inmates should never be blessed with the sound of salvation by the blood of God's eternal Son, proclaimed by the commissioned heralds of the Redeemer of the world. But with a benevolence as expansive as the globe, he would send the gospel throughout the whole earth, and have it proclaimed by the messengers of God, in every hamlet and in every palace, in the midst of the haunts of ignorance and the halls of science, that all might be brought to the knowledge of the truth, and obtain salvation and eternal glory in the heavens.

For these blessed objects the minister of Christ labors: for these he prays: for these he enlists the sympathies of his fellow christians, and opens the hearts and the hands of the benevolent to contribute of the substance which the Lord has bestowed on them. And it is impossi ble to tell how far the efforts of a single minister of Christ may extend

in promoting the general interests of the world. If he does not go himself, he may by his preaching and his prayers, and his contribu tions be the means of training some pious youth, who may go to the heathen and be instrumental in converting thousands to God. The plans which he devises, and the energies which he elicits, may reach in their effects to the ends of the earth, and tell upon unborn millions of our race.

What a loss, then, is it to the world, when a minister of Jesus Christ is removed from the earth? When one who thus feels and labors for the cardinal sorrows of our race is consigned to the tomb? It is no ordinary calamity, no insulated bereavement. The world has lost a friend. The human family has been bereaved of a benefactor.

Having thus pointed out the grounds of sorrow occasioned by the death of a minister of Jesus Christ, the way is prepared for noticing the grounds of that sorrow in which we are called to indulge at the news of the death of my worthy predecessor, and your late Pastor, the Rev. Obadiah Jennings, who died at Nashville, Tennessee.

As a member of civil society, the loss of Dr. Jennings will be felt. From his early education and habits, he was, doubtless, well skilled in the economy of civil society. At the bar and in the council chamber, he had learned the character and the strength of the evils, with which our political and social system had to contend; and could pronounce from experience upon the excellence of our laws, and their effective power for all the purposes of salutary government. In common with his clerical brethren, he was the ardent friend of civil liberty. He wanted no alliance of church and state. He would have tolerated He understood the interests of the church and the principles of civil liberty too well, to desire or advocate that which would prove ruinous to both.

none.

A man so meek, and peaceful, and unpretending, as the deceased was, must also have been peculiarly valuable to the social circle in which he moved. In times of public excitement, when society was tossed and distracted by the unhallowed influence of party strife, we can readily conceive of the beneficial results arising from the gentle breathings of a spirit so affectionate and heavenly as his. His very example, one would think, would be an host in allaying the excitements of party, and infusing a spirit of peace and love into the breasts of contending combatants. In this respect, his death is doubtless á loss to society.

As the friend and patron of literature, civil society has also reason to deplore his loss. In this, he evinced his regard for his country, and his attachment to her institutions. No man is a greater enemy to his country and its prosperity, than he who is the advocate and patron of ignorance. For if ever our liberties perish, it will be when ignorance, with all her brood of kindred vices, shall have snatched the reins of government from the hands of intelligence and virtue. Every friend of learning, then, who is called away, is a loss to the country; especially one whose influence was so great as that of him whose death we this day deplore.

But it is especially to the church of God, that the removal of Dr. Jennings is a loss. His entire devotion to her interests none can

doubt, when it is recollected that he abandoned a lucrative practice at the bar, for the sake of becoming her humble minister, on a salary which was insufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of his family. That he was thus willing to make a sacrifice of his worldly interests, that he might preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to perishing sinners, is strong proof of the ardent desire which he felt to be instrumental in promoting the highest interests of the Redeemer's church on earth. And how faithfully he sustained her interests and her honor, you all know. From what we know ourselves, and have heard from others, his exhibitions of scriptural truth were always lucid and solemn, and often convincing and powerful in a high degree.

Of his elevated character as a debater, he had often given evidence on the floors of our ecclesiastical assemblies. His speeches (and we have had the happiness to hear some of them ourselves) were always marked by perspicuity, intelligence, sound argument, and well balanced discretion. His eloquence, so far as we understand its character, was not the lightning which flashed, nor the thunder which roared, filling the heart with awe; but it was the clear, strong, vigorous current, which carried his audience willingly and with self-complacency to the place of destination. In theological debate, when called to defend the doctrines of his own church and of the Bible, against the encroachments of heresy, the annals of the church, will give him a deservedly high rank.

In the estimation of his ministerial brethren, Dr. Jennings was regarded as a wise, sagacious, dispassionate counsellor, whose judgment might be relied upon in times of difficulty and distraction in the church. His sound, discriminating mind, his great experience, his devotion to the standards of the church, and his mild and heavenly spirit, marked him out as an efficient agent in allaying the agitations, and conducting to a sound and healthful issue the existing distractions of the Presbyterian church. But Dr. Jennings is gone. In him the church has lost an able champion and ardent friend. He is gone from the conflicts and trials of the church militant on earth, to enjoy more peaceful scenes in the church triumphant in heaven. The church to which he belonged, and of which he was a minister, mourns his death.

Nor let it be thought extravagant to say, that the death of this phi lanthropist is a loss to the world. He was the friend of our race. He sought to have the gospel preached to every creature, to send messengers into every land, and to have the light of salvation shed down upon every dark place on the earth. Of his labors and his prayers on this behalf, you have all been witnesses. The loss of such a man, therefore, as this, whose benevolence was as diffusive as the dimen sions of the globe, is one which every friend of man is called to mourn.

But while we mourn his death, we are animated with the assurance that our loss has been his unspeakable gain. His life was that of the righteous, and his last end was like his. With holy composure, he gathered his family around his bed, and having given to each his dying counsels, commended them all to his covenant-keeping God. Having done this, he departed in the full hope of a happy resurrection, and a glorious immortality in the presence of his God and Redeemer.

BY ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D. D.,

PROF. IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT PRINCETON, N. 3.

THE HOUSE OF GOD DESIRABLE.

PSALMS 84: 1, 2. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

In the patriarchal ages, the pious had no particular place or consecrated edifice, where they offered up their worship to God, but wherever they happened to reside, there they erected altars, on which they offered sacrifices, agreeably to the original institution; and, sometimes, consecrated pillars, by anointing them with oil, to be memorials of some remarkable transaction. But in the time of Moses, while Israel remained near Mount Sinai, a command was given to build a tent or tabernacle for the worship of God, of the most precious materials. The quality and workmanship of these were specified with the utmost particularity. The form and dimensions of this sacred structure were also revealed, and it was positively directed that every part of it, even to the loops and pins, should be made in conformity to the pattern shown to Moses in the mount. Around the sacred tabernacle, a spacious court was enclosed, within which stood the altar of burnt-offerings, and the laver for the purification of the priests. While the Israelites sojourned in the wilderness, the taberna. cle moved or remained with them, and the pillar of fire and cloud which rested on it, by night and day, was their constant guide. But when they had conquered the promised land, SHILOH became the permanent residence of the house of God. For several hundred years, even to the time of Samuel the prophet, the tribes were accustomed to assemble for the celebration of divine worship at this place. But in the time of David, the ark of the covenant, after its return from the

land of the Philistines, was brought to Jerusalem, where king David had erected for it a new tabernacle on a piece of ground, which, by divine direction he had purchased from Araunah the Jebusite, at the time of the destructive plague by which so many thousands of the people were cut off.

Here, on Mount Zion, was henceforth the sacred place where God met with his people. But the devout king of Israel was not contented, that now, when the nation was rich and powerful, God's worship should be celebrated in a moveable tent: he, therefore, by divine permission, resolved to erect a costly and splendid temple, adorned and furnished with the greatest possible magnificence. During the life of David, however, the tabernacle continued to be the place of worship; for, although God approved of his pious purpose to build him a house, yet he chose that the work should be executed not by him, but by his son and successor, Solomon.

While there was only one place where God recorded his name, and one house where he gave tokens of his presence, it was a precious privilege to enjoy the opportunity of frequent access to the courts and to the tabernacle where divine worship was daily and periodically cel ebrated; and where such rites were performed, and such objects exhi bited, as were calculated to strengthen the faith and enkindle the devotion of the pious.

But it was especially desirable and pleasant to enter these courts, and join in the solemn worship of the sanctuary on those sacred festivals, which, by divine appointment, were periodically solemnized: at which times, the scene was rendered peculiarly impressive and interesting, by the number of appropriate and significant ceremonies which were exhibited; and by the eager multitudes of people who attended from every part of the holy land.

On these solemn occasions, it must have been a delightful spectacle to behold the thousands of Israel, of every age and condition, coming up to the house of the Lord, and presenting themselves before the God of Jacob, with their respective gifts and offerings. Who can tell, with what rapture the bosom of the devout worshipper swelled, when his eye caught the first glance of that holy and beautiful house which contained so many expressive and mysterious emblems of Jehovah's presence, and of Jehovah's grace! The worship of God in the taber. nacle or temple was, doubtless, to the pious Israelite, a most solemn and affecting service. In it the ancient saints took exceeding great delight. Therefore, we find in the Psalm from which our text is ta ken, and many others, an expression of the most ardent desires to enjoy the privilege of joining with the people of God in the worship of the tabernacle; and the most pathetic lamentations, when by any circumstance, the psalmist was prevented from attending the public worship of God, celebrated in this sacred edifice. "As the hart panteth for the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee, O God; my soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" And the liveliest joy was expressed upon the pros