day, and in every place, outraged by excesses and vices which are spread over the face of the earth?

Paul, at the sight of the superstitions of Athens, struck at seeing that great people, who prided themselves so much in their wisdom, render public and sacrilegious honors to a multitude of imaginary and fabulous divinities, and the only living and true God unknown among them, shuddered with a holy zeal, says the sacred historian; "His spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry ;"* and all the power and majesty of the Areopagus did not prevent this great Apostle, though alone, unknown, without support, mean and abject in his appearance, from presenting himself before that grave and numerous assembly, to preach to them the God whom they knew not, and to represent the vanity and ridiculousness of the idols to which they raised such pompous altars. And though his zeal appeared but foolishness to the most of those false wise men, who were given up of God to a judicial blindness, yet the word of the gospel did not return to him void. Dionysius the Areopagite, Damaris, a holy woman, and many others, thankfully received the benefit of the light and of the truth which the Lord had caused to shine in the midst of their darkness.

Hear what the fire of divine love will produce in a minister of Christ when this love is truly master of his heart; a lively grief at seeing his Lord dishonored, and his holy law violated and despised by a great part of mankind; an ardent desire to avenge his glory, and secure to him the homage which is due to his supreme majesty and incomprehensible goodness; a holy engagedness to give up himself to make his feeble talents useful to sacrifice even his life, to form true worshippers of God-to manifest his name and his glory-and to inspire all men with the same sentiments of fear, love, and gratitude,

* Acts xvii, 16.

with which he himself is penetrated. We cannot love and be insensible to insults offered to the object of our love; we cannot be sensible of these without exerting all our talents to prevent or stop them, especially when, besides the obligation common to all men, our ministry makes this a peculiar and essential duty-a duty which constitutes the principal part of our calling, and which includes all other duties.

And though our zeal should not be successful, though the truths which we preach to sinners should fall upon hard and insensible hearts, we shall always have the consolation of having rendered glory to God, and of having exerted ourselves, as far as in us lay, to cause glory to be rendered to him by those who dishonor him. He does not always console his -ministers with a sudden and visible success, lest man should attribute to himself a success owing only to divine grace; but his word is always secretly working; the holy seed, which appears to have fallen upon an unkind soil, is not however lost, and sooner or later it will bring forth fruit. God has his seasons, and it is not for us to mark them out to his power and wisdom. His Spirit works where it will, and when it will; we see the changes it produces, but the secret and wonderful ways by which it produces them are unknown: these are profound secrets of Providence, which will not be disclosed until the day of revelation. He demands of all, care, labor, culture; the increase he reserves to himself alone. He orders us to teach, to exhort, to reprove; not to retain the truth in unrighteousness; to cause it to sound in the ear; but it is for him alone to open for it an entrance to the heart.

But, my brethren, it is not a fear that the splendor of success will not accompany our labors which induces us to neglect them ;-besides that this fear would be but a fear arising from pride and self-love, which instead of justifying us would render us still more culpable ;-the true reason I have already mentioned; C

it is that we are not interested either for the glory of God, or the salvation of men. And indeed, as an Apostle observes, how can we be interested for the glory of God whom we do not see, while we are insensible to the wants and to the ruin of our brethren whom we do see.* Can we behold those whom we love perishing, without emotion, and without running to their assistance; especially when we consider, that they are our brethren, over whom we are required to watch? Their salvation is, in a sense, connected with our cares; it is a precious deposit committed to us, for which a rigorous account will be exacted of us; and if they perish, their blood will be required at our hands.

Paul wished to be accursed for his brethren ; that is to say, he esteemed as nothing, his labors, his persecutions, his reproaches, every thing that he had endured for them; he was willing, had it been possible, even to suffer beyond this world, if their salvation required it. His consolations, his discouragements, his inquietudes, every thing which passed in his heart, had no other object but their perseverance and progress in the faith, which he had preached to them. His letters breathed an apostolical, lively, affecting, magnanimous tenderness. You are, said he to the Christian converts, the illustrious proofs of my apostleship; I am worthy of the glorious title of minister and apostle of our compassionate Redeemer, only so far as I sufferr—as I expose myself to every evil, to hunger, to thirst, to nakedness, to the most frightful torments, to call you to the knowledge of the truth. And we, my brethren, are worthy of the respectable name of ministers of Christ, only so far as we love the people committed to our charge-so far as we spare neither our cares, nor our pains, nor` even life itself, to recover them from the empire of Satan.

ર્યું.

We are, said an ancient Father, Vicars of the love of Jesus Christ; we succeed to the ardent love with which he was inflamed for men; he has established us its trustees; he perpetuates his priesthood in us only that he may therein perpetuate his love; that tender love which ran with so much eagerness after one single wandering sheep-that paternal love which received, with marks of joy, so sensible and so illustrious, the rebellious child who was lost and found again that indefatigable love which induced him to disregard fatigue, nourishment, all his necessities, to instruct a woman of Samaria-that generous love which shed tears of sorrow over unfaithful Jerusalem, ready to perish without resource, for having refused to receive the peace and salvation which his goodness offered in fine, that inextinguishable love which sighed for the baptism of blood, with which he was to be baptized on the cross, because that mankind would there find a remedy for all their evils, the price of their redemption, and their reconciliation with his Father.

Now do we feel even a single spark of that love in our hearts? Does the ruin of our brethren afflict us? Do we, like our Saviour, shed tears for that frightful dissoluteness of manners which prevails among all ranks? Alas! do we not listen without pain to the history of the most secret, the most afflicting, and the most shameful instances of iniquity? Does not the history of sins, of which the public is ignorant, excite rather our curiosity than our grief? The morals of the people become every day more corrupt, because the zeal of ministers becomes more remiss ; a torrent of crimes and offences overwhelms the face of the earth, because there are few apostolical men to oppose, like a wall of brass, the frightful inundation. The greater part of sinners live tranquil in their sins, because they no more hear those thundering voices, animated by the Spirit of God, which only are capable of awakening them from their supineness. The

world, by having accustomed us to disorders and scandals, has made us insensible to them; we regard the mournful spectacle as an evil without remedy, which began with the world, and which will end but with the world; we think that the manners of the present day have been the manners of all ages; while we do not call to mind those happy times when a single prevaricator, in a numerous Church, was considered as a monster and a prodigy,—and when sins, which we consider as mere weaknesses, were punished by a separation from the assembly of the faithful. The truth is, my brethren, one great reason why Christianity became corrupted was the corruption, the want of zeal, and the indolence of the clergy. The Church would soon recover its former beauty, if we should embrace the faithful spirit of the primitive ministers of the gospel; every thing would change if we should change ourselves. The universality of vice, instead of justifying our unfaithfulness, witnesses against us, and renders us more criminal; it is owing to us that vice has become thus common, and infested so great a proportion of nominal Christians; it is the unfortunate fruit of our defection and remissness; how then can this become our justification and excuse ?

Still, it is but too true, that the openness and frequency of transgressions are pleaded as an excuse to authorize our indifference to the salvation of our fellow men; and this is another source of the want of zeal.

But, in truth, this is but a cowardly timidity which dares not oppose common prejudices, and which regards the frivolous approbation of men rather than their serious and eternal interests; it is a criminal respect for men which renders us more attentive and more sensible to our own present interest and comfort, than to the glory of God; it is a carnal prudence which represents zeal and holy wisdom under false ideas of excess, indifference, and rashness: a new pretence which extinguishes all spirit of zeal in the heart of many ministers.