mulated they may be, is never right, is always wrong. And then the illustration which follows: "That ye may be the children of the Highest; for he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Be ye therefore merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful." We do not stop to point out the moral excellence of the spirit here inculcated. It is the beautiful simplicity and clearness of the instruction given to which we have called the attention. Who can fail to see what our Lord meant in these instructions, as well as that the sentiments inculcated are right and replete with moral excellence. All our Lord's instructions were of the same simple and easily intelligible character. They remind us of heaven,-not less as a world of light than of love.

2. Our Savior, in his teaching, was wont to employ a great variety of illustrations; sometimes by means of short and pointed similies; sometimes more expanded parables; and sometimes by incidental allusions to present objects and passing occurrences in the natural world. Scarcely ever does he teach any important truth without making use of some well-chosen illustration, to render it more clear or more impressive. He knew the mental habits of the people to whom his preaching was addressed. He knew, that in general they were not a cultivated and an intellectual people. Their conceptions were gross, and they needed a species of instruction which should make much use of their senses in so setting truth before their minds as to do them good, and he adapted his instructions to them accordingly. When he would rebuke the pride of man, and inculcate on his disciples the need of cultivating a lowly and confiding temper of heart, he does not merely deliver to them the abstract and general, though all important truth, that man must be converted and experience a radical transformation of character in order to their being saved; but, to impress this sentiment more strongly, he takes a little child and sets him in the midst of them, and then tells them how salvation is to be obtained: "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God. Whoso receiveth not the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." When he would teach men to confide in the all-governing providence of God, and not yield to impatience, or discouragement, or unbelieving fear, he summons to his aid the objects of nature around him, and makes the dependence of all her tribes, animate and inanimate, subservient to his design. "Consider the lilies of the field." "Consider the ravens." Who nourishes them? Who gives them their delicate clothing? Who protects them in the storm? Whe preserves them through the changing seasons? The field, untrodden by the foot of man and uncultivated by human care, has flowers surpassing in glory the

richest and wisest of earthly kings, but "they toil not, neither do they spin." Who rears and upholds these little and delicate structures? "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not clothe you, O ye of little faith?" When our Savior would impress upon us the duty of kindness to our poor neighbor, and tell us who is our neighbor, he relates the misfortune of a Jew, who "went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves." Waylaid and plundered by a band of robbers, he is left upon the highway, weltering in his blood, and half dead. A priest and a Levite pass by that way, but offer no aid to the sufferer. It is a Samaritan, that passing by takes pity on him and saves his life. What a beautiful illustration is this, to show us who is our neighbor, and what is the proper conduct which is due from us one towards another in any circumstance of need! When he would make known to us the real feelings of our Creator, and of all holy beings, in view of the recovery of lost sinners, he gives us the story of the prodigal son; and thus refers us to the strongest sensibilities of nature within us, as an illustration of the paternal interest which God himself takes, in beholding one of his lost creatures recovered to virtue and to happiness. This delightful interest, which the Creator himself feels in receiving back to his favor the lost sinner, is represented too as a diffusive common interest, felt throughout the heavenly world. What a vivid impression does this give us of the importance of a single conversion! In what other way could we have been made to feel this fact so strongly, or been prompted to use our powers so earnestly, in spreading abroad through the earth the means of salvation to our fellow-men! When he would teach us what it is to be finally lost from God's holy kingdom, or finally happy in his favor, what appalling and what delightful imagery does he employ! The poor suffering Lazarus, coldly and disdainfully repelled from the sympathies of his fellow-men, and left to die of hunger at the gate of human affluence, because no man would give unto him, is carried by angels to Abraham's bosom. Despised on earth, he is admitted, beyond the grave, to the intimate fellowship of the "father of the faithful." Friendless on earth, when he dies, he is admitted to the bosom-confidence and communion of the "friend of God." Angels perform the office of conducting him to his blissful home. How exceedingly does the imagery here employed heighten the impression of the simple truth thereby illustrated, that good men, however neglected and overlooked on earth, will be honored and happy in the world to come! So, too, on the other hand, what a fearful picture of wretchedness is that which is drawn by our Lord, in the same chapter, as descriptive of the state of a wicked man after death. The contrast is of the most finished and stri54

VOL. VIII.

king kind. It is impossible to conceive of any thing more so. He was caressed and honored in this world; his friends and flatterers have now all forsaken him. He was rich and fared sumptuously every day on earth; he now begs for a drop of water to cool his tongue. Despair of relief, nay of the very smallest mitigation of his wretchedness, is held up as one prominent seature in his condition. How greatly enhanced is every state of suffering, when that state is known to be completely hopeless of any change for the better! Such is the future condition of wicked men, as described by our Savior. So, when he taught the fact, that men are answerable to God for their conduct, and that this life is a state of probation, with reference to an approaching state of rewards and punishments which is to take place after death,— with what terrific solemnity does he invest this fact by means of the imagery, so replete with the sublime and awful, which he employs! There is something not a little impressive and solemn in the trial of a single individual for his life before a mere earthly tribunal. The majesty of the law, the criminality of transgression, the sacredness attached to the duty of providing that the law be sustained, and the peace and welfare of the community be protected, are there brought home to the mind with a power seldom or never felt under any other circumstances. The fact of an actual trial produces such an impression. So our Savior, to produce a similar one on our minds, respecting the law of God, and the sinner's criminality for breaking it as he does, has arrayed before us, by anticipation, the great actual trial of mankind at the last day. What an impressive transaction is it! How many a sinner has been led to tremble in looking forward to it, and to flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before him in the gospel! In this amazing trial, the universe assembles, and angels are the attending ministers and marshals on the occasion. All the human race is to be tried, and God himself is Judge. The rewards are life eternal and death eternal. When, therefore, an inspired account of that day is given, no wonder, that, as the writer beholds the great white throne and him who sits upon it, the heavens and the earth should seem to him to flee away, and there should be found no place for them! No wonder, that the Judge and the judgment should fill the entire field of vision, and all besides should disappear from the scene, as being lost in the surpassing splendors of those glorious objects! Thus was the Savior, in all his exhibitions of important truth, wont to resort freely to comparisons and illustrations of various sorts, in order to give additional point and force to the sentiments which he inculcated.

3. Directness was another characteristic of our Lord's manner of teaching. He did not, as men often do, go round and round the point, and lose himself and his hearers in a cloud of splen

did abstractions and generalizations. He did not refine and attenuate truth into mere gossamer threads and gauze-work, till the strength and substance of his moral lessons was all refined away and lost. He had solemn and weighty verities to teach, and he taught them as solemn and weighty verities. For example, when he enforced the great duties which man owes to God, he did not, as he might have done, paint out in beautiful picture the exquisite loveliness of religion, and in this way seek to allure men into the practice of its claims. He told them, that they must love God; that they must repent of their sins; that they must believe the gospel; that they must give up the world, the pursuit of happiness from the world, and set their affections on things above: that the only possible alternative, on this subject, was compliance or perdition. When, also, he taught men their duty to one another, he did it plainly and with great directness. He did not inculcate truth and duty upon mankind, arising out of the various relations subsisting among them, by urging merely or mainly the fitness or moral excellence of the thing. He did not descant on the loveliness of virtue and the deformity of sin, as he might consistently have done. When a master in Israel came to him by night to consult him, as a teacher sent from God, respecting his doctrine, he did not begin afar off, approaching cautiously and circuitously towards the point of instruction to which he at length intended to reach, if his pupil would bear it; he came at once to the point, and preached to him the doctrine of a radical transformation of character, as essential to his or any other man's salvation. He might have told this man what a beautiful thing religion was; how easily it might be obtained; and how much good it would do him if he should be so happy as to embrace it. He might have gone into some long and nicely adjusted argument, to show, that this world could not make men happy; that the immortal mind is not to be satisfied with earthly good; that, hence, it was needful for men to seek an interest in the kingdom of God, as the only thing which could make them happy; and thus have sought to prepare the way for something, by and by, more direct and personal. But he adopted a different course. He announced directly a fundamental law of his kingdom, and told this ruler of the Jews, that "except a man be born again, of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." The same directness in his method of instruction is

every where visible. He comes to the point at once, and with all men, let them be who they may,-pharisees or sadducees, friends or foes, ignorant or learned, priests, rulers, or common people. They all have the truth from his lips plainly stated, and unless their own perverseness prevent, they all understand it, and see its intended application to themselves.

4. He addresses the common-sense of men. There is a way of stating truth to mankind, which seems to have nothing to do with their common-sense. It is beautiful, perhaps, as addressed to their taste; profound, perhaps, as addressed to their metaphysical acumen; interesting, it may be, as calling into exercise their classical attainments; and it may not be wanting in logical consecutiveness of premises and conclusions, and so may be a good specimen of reasoning. Still, after all this, it may be such an exhibition of truth as is calculated to do but little good, because it overlooks the plain common-sense of mankind, and only addresses them under some other and different view of their capacities and wants. Suppose, that we enter upon an argument to prove it right to love and obey the infinitely perfect God. We begin by exhibiting his perfections in detail, proceed to his works of creation, providence, and redemption, as illustrating more fully his character, and close by setting forth the creature's capacities to love God, and his indebtedness to him. And then we come to the only possible conclusion in the case, to wit, that man is bound to love such a being as God is. Here is a rigid demonstration; but in general of what use is it? The common-sense of mankind has wholly anticipated us in this argument, and admitted the conclusion before we begin to reason about it. All men know and spontaneously feel it to be right and proper, that God should be loved. They may deny his existence, or misapprehend some points in his character, but, his existence and true character being admitted, the obligation to love him follows of course; and is at once acquiesced in by the natural unsophisticated feelings of all mankind. It is a common-sense principle, also, that there are reciprocal rights and duties subsisting among men, one towards another. It would be altogether superfluous to undertake to prove, that the child is bound to honor and obey the parent, and the parent to protect and guide the child. So, also, were we to undertake to prove, that God required of man a set of duties which man was physically unable to perform,—that is, a set of duties which he would perform if he could, but which with the best disposition towards it, he cannot perform; the common-sense of mankind repels the idea of any such obligation, and denies that the things in question are duties. Should we attempt to prove such an identity to exist between Adam and his race, as that what he did they did, his guilt is their guilt, and that they justly merit death, (not merely in consequence of his actions,) but for what he has done, the common-sense of mankind repels the conclusion as false and monstrous. Suppose we undertake to prove man to be in such a sense dependent on God for his moral exercises, as that (while he is upheld in being,) he cannot put forth any exercises without the help of God enabling him to do so; and suppose this to be