as wide spread and enduring call, might be seen flying "a cloud." The churches too would see in the brightness of every morning, in the blossoms of every spring, in the waving fields of every summer, and in the loaded wains of every harvest, the means of growing holiness. The decays and neglects and even contentions, which until now are cherished alas, "when the spirit is withdrawn," might be turned into the activities, and growth and love of a people under the light of the Sun of righteousness; thriving in holiness, though going forth in the fulness and life of " calves of the stall." THE WALKS OF BUSINESS. We are not to think that the walks of business, from youth to life's end are so many stray paths, where the soul must needs be out of the road to heaven. This were to take our seat under the dark shadow of an accommodated mythology, instead of keeping our happy station amidst the light of the gospel. It is because business is supposed to bring with it unavoidable pollution, that Hindooism presents the GREAT SUPREME, retired from all management of created things; and commits this world to business-deities, as base of course as business-men. This is an extravagance from which we start back with horror. We are willing to follow eastern folly half way, so as to excuse the sin and pre vent the salvation of Christendom. We shall be recompensed ten-fold for our kindness to the heathen if our discovery of their error shall lead us to correct Thus may our efforts abroad open a wider door of utterance, and give the gospel freer scope at home. our own.. On this subject revelation is plain: God is the Actor in all the affairs of earth, holy, not by means of secluded and useless contemplation; but while directing at once all the hosts of worlds, and the lighting of the sparrow and the dropping of one hair of the head. Heaven too, is kept holy, not by walling in its inhabitants from earthly affairs, but by sending them abroad amidst all its cares and business, to fly among the families of mankind, and to aid the commencement and the progress of holiness: nay, the ETERNAL SON comes down mysteriously, to live like us, to toil like us; not only to give his blood for us, but to show us how holily life's affairs may be carried on. Let us not hinder the progress of his mercy by charging our delinquencies to our employments-our neglect or rejection of his saving grace, to the channels which he has appointed to communicate it. If we need any farther illustration, we have but to regard the religious history and prospects of the world. The Old Testament seems as if designed expressly to illustrate a heavenly piety, growing amidst the business of life, a religion of this world, fitted to be transferred to the glory of heaven. No doubt Enoch's walking with God was in the midst of business; a life of piety in the midst of men; not in the cell of the monk, nor in the cave of the hermit. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were men of active business, in the employments of their day, growing rich under the blessing of their God: yet, as strangers and pilgrims, living in faith, seeking the "better country." Such also, were Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, David, Mordecai, Daniel; in all whose cases we learn that the walks of business are not diversions from the path to heaven. Was Jacob, for instance, diverted from that path, the diligent shepherd, the careful provider for a family, and its watchful gaurdian? Was Daniel diverted from that path-the busy courtier, who stands amongst the Scripture worthies a pre-eminent example of holiness, growing amidst a busy prosperity? Christianity, when it came, brought in no other doctrine, required not its disciples to "go out of the world," but to improve its leisure and its business in training the soul for heaven. St. Paul gives the Christian summary in this matter: "Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." Assuredly then, we learn not from the gospel, that leisure from business, is the best school of piety-neither the leisure of retired situations, or of sickness, or of old age, but life in all its right employments, amidst its cares and toils and disappointments and hopes and abundance. The laborer is in it. The farmer, the mechanic, the merchant, the politician, the housewife too, and her daughters and her maidens. No business, which men or women ought to do, lies without the school for heaven. Christianity, we say, required not its disciples to go out of the world. But superstition did, monkery did, to the injury of many ages. Pride and enthusiasm joined their voice, and called men into the forests after the ancient and modern mistakes of the pagans:-put men and women into monasteries and nunneries put them out of this world, in order to fit them for another, that they might have leisure to be heavenly! What was the consequence? Just what might be expected when men attempt to mend the great school which the INFINITELY WISE has set up. Men grew more vile, by all their leisure, and the Christian world (except the few in whom notwithstanding the sacred fire was kept burning) was covered with darkness and sin for a thousand years. Then the day broke. Luther took a wife, brought up children, mingled in the affairs of life, and the Protestant world began to walk amidst the growing day. And yet it is not full morning, while Christians even, excuse their neglects and delays by referring to the hindrances of busy life; sanctioning the mistake, which bars the gospel out from half the Protestant world. Again, just principles beam upon us in the rising prospect. The walks of business will be well trod in the millennium. People will not stop work then: and certainly then, labor will be available, will be prosperous, will invest the world with beauty and comfort. One of the most marked descriptions of those happy times, indicates the busy employment of men. "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks." What a scene rises on the eye. By improved processes, no doubt, earth is dug, and the wood is charred for the purposes of the forge where smithery is employed in converting the instruments of war into instruments of agriculture. Those instruments are employed by the busy farmers, on hill and dale, mountain and morass, until the wilderness is turned into a fruitful field, and the desert into a garden of the Lord. And yet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD, will be written on all employments and be the crowning glory of those glorious days. "Then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us." Indeed, the principle we are advocating is the only one on which the millenium can come at all, as it is the only one on which the individual now, can obtain to himself the substantial blessedness of that glorious day. In the figurative language of the prophecy indeed, an Angel will descend, "having a great chain, and will bind Satan hand and foot." Yet no one imagines he will bind him in chains of iron. How will Satan be bound? By such chains as he was bound in respect to Job, when his captivity was turned and he was employed safely and holily in the care of his sheep, and camels, and oxen, and asses; in the chains of discouragement and disappointment, such as we may forge now of no feeble strength, if we rightly accept the ministry of angels and the aid of the Spirit. Such, by that ministry and aid, they will be enabled to forge who with Christian studiousness shall "go forth and look" upon the experience of ages of sin and woe, and in perfect liberty, "from one new |