you are living for its purity! And then, what sublimity is there to your eye in that state of glory, in which your soul practically dwelleth among its kindred spirits, pure as they, and all as Christ is pure. These are they that have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

But how little signifies this discourse of purity to very many of my hearers! I well understand the vacant, dreamy sound of such discourses before the concep tion of purity, and the sense of it gotten out of the want and out of Christ the supply, is opened to the soul. What is there so great in purity? who, that is untouched by God's gracious quickening, cares enough for purity to give the word an earnest significance? It has, of course, no greatness to us, because the fact itself is a lost fact. We can not think it, because it is really gone out of the mind's reach and knowledge. But, O, when once the heart feels a touch of its divinity, then a yearning is wakened, then the greatest and sublimest thing for a mortal is the unmixed life! a soul established in the eternal chastity of truth and goodness! O, God! who of this people shall ever know what it is? I can not tell them; thou alone canst breathe into them, and set in their living apprehension a truth so impossible for any mere words to express!

This only I can testify, as God has given me words, (and I pray God to show you their meaning,) that the heaven we are sent here to prepare, is a most pure world, open only to the pure;-And there shall, in nowise, enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the Lamb's book of life.

XV.

LIVING TO GOD IN SMALL THINGS.

LUKE xvi. 10.—" He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much."

A READINESS to do some great thing is not peculiar to Naaman the Syrian. There are many Christians who can never find a place large enough to do their duty. They must needs strain after great changes, and their works must utter themselves by a loud report. Any reform in society, short of a revolution, any improvement in character, less radical than that of conversion, is too faint a work, in their view, to be much valued. Nor is it merely ambition, but often it is a truly christian zeal, guarded by no sufficient views of the less imposing matters of life, which betrays men into such impressions. If there be any thing, in fact, wherein the views of God and the impressions of men are apt to be at total variance, it is in respect to the solemnity and importance of ordinary duties. The hurtfulness of mistake here, is of course very great. Trying always to do great things, to have extraordinary occasions every day, or to produce extraordinary changes, when small ones are quite as much needed, ends, of course, in defeat and dissipation. It produces a sort of religion in the gross, which is no religion in particular. My text leads me to speak

Of the importance of living to God on common occasions and in small things.

He that is faithful in that which is least, says the Saviour, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. This was a favorite sentiment with him. In his sermon on the mount, it was thus expressedWhosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And when he rebuked the Pharisees, in their tything of mint, anise, and cummin, he was careful to speak very guardedly-These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. instruct us in prosecuting this subject—

It will

1. To notice how little we know concerning the relative importance of events and duties. We use the terms great and small in speaking of actions, occasions, plans, and du ties, only in reference to the mere outward look and first impression. Some of the most latent agents and mean looking substances in nature, are yet the most operative; but yet, when we speak of natural objects, we call them great or small, not according to their operativeness, but according to size, count, report, or show. So it comes to pass, when we are classing actions, duties, or occasions, that we call a certain class great and another small, when really the latter are many fold more important and influential than the former. We may suppose, for illustration, two transactions in business, as different in their nominal amount as a million of dollars and a single dollar. The former we call a large transaction, the latter a small one.

But God might reverse these terms. He would have no such thought as the counting of dollars. He would look, first of all, at the pinciple involved in the two cases. And here he would discover, not unlikely, that the nominally small one, owing to the nature of the transaction, or to the humble condition of the parties, or to their peculiar temper and disposition, took a deeper hold of their being, and did more to settle or unsettle great and everlasting principle, than the other. Next, perhaps, he would look at the consequences of the two transactions, as developed in the great future; and here he would perhaps discover that the one which seems to us the smaller, is the hinge of vastly greater consequences than the other. If the dollars had been sands of dust, they would not have had less weight in the divine judgment.

We are generally ignorant of the real significance of events, which we think we understand. Almost every person can recollect one or more instances, where the whole after-current of his life was turned by some single word, or some incident so trivial as scarcely to fix his notice at the time. On the other hand, many great crises of danger, many high and stirring occasions, in which, at the time, his total being was absorbed, have passed by, leaving no trace of effect on his permanent interests, and are well nigh vanished from his memory. The conversation of the stage-coach is often preparing results, which the solemn assembly and the most imposing and eloquent rites will fail to produce. What countryman, knowing the dairyman's daughter, could have suspected that she was living to a mightier purpose and result, than almost any person in the church of God, however eminent? The outward of occasions and duties is, in fact, almost no index of their

importance; and our judgments concerning what is great and small, are without any certain validity. These terms, as we use them, are, in fact, only words of outward description, not words of definite measurement.

2. It is to be observed, that even as the world judges, small things constitute almost the whole of life. The great days of the year, for example, are few, and when they come, they seldom bring any thing great to us. And the matter of all common days is made up of little things, or ordinary and stale transactions. Scarcely once in a year does any thing really remarkable befall us. If I were to begin and give an inventory of the things you do in any single day, your muscular motions, each of which is accomplished by a separate act of will, the objects you see, the words you utter, the contrivances you frame, your thoughts, passions, gratifications, and trials, many of you would not be able to hear it recited with sobriety. But three hundred and sixty-five such days make up a year, and a year is a twentieth, fiftieth, or seventieth part of your life. And thus, with the exception of some few striking passages, or great and critical occasions, perhaps not more than five or six in all, your life is made up of common, and as men are wont to judge, unimportant things. But yet, at the end, you have done up an amazing work, and fixed an amazing result. You stand at the bar of God, and look back on a life made up of small things-but yet a life, how momentous, for good or evil!

3. It very much exalts, as well as sanctions, the view I am advancing, that God is so observant of small things. He upholds the sparrow's wing, clothes the lily with his own beautifying hand, and numbers the hairs of his childHe holds the balancings of the clouds. He maketh

ren.