their piety to stand chiefly in outward observances, who, for all the world would not miss a prayer or a sermon, but who manifest little of the Christian temper in their lives, who seem to leave all religion at the church door when they go away, ready to be taken up when the week is ended, and they enter for the worship of the next Sabbath. I know that there are such formalists in religion, modern Pharisees. But this is not the error which is now the most common. The other is far more so, the error of those who neglect the call to the house of prayer, who allow holy seasons to come and go, bringing to their hearts no blessed influences, the account of whose sins will be hereafter swelled by a fearful amount of lost Sabbaths. The earnest Christian, as I said, is a lover of God's house. And he comes to it with a serious mind, animated by a religious motive, the desire to profit by its exercises as a moral and religious being; and he comes therefore, not bringing his body merely, but leaving his soul behind; comes not to gratify a fastidious taste, to sit at an intellectual banquet merely, to admire mellifluous tones, well rounded periods, a graceful person, or a rhetorical mnnner, comes not for the sake of decorum, or to promote his worldly reputation. No. He comes with humility, and under a sense of need; comes to prostrate his soul before God in penitence for sin, and seek a renewal of his devout purposes, and strength to live a purer and more Christian life. And therefore he is satisfied with plain truth, plainly uttered, and he leaves the church not to criticise, but to apply what he has heard to his spiritual needs. He does not expect, nor ask, always to be entertained with novel ideas, with the efforts of a bril liant imagination, or splendid oratory. He is content, if he can find something which he can turn to the nutriment of his piety, to his own correction or reproof, which will send him away not admiring the preacher, but meditating on himself, on God, on duty, on Christian obligation, that so he may depart a better and a stronger man than he came. Undoubtedly the principle which should animate the worshipper is often lost sight of. Persons go to church in the hope of being entertained, when they should go from a purely religious motive. And this is one reason, no doubt, why the exercises of the place often appear so little impressive. They do not go from the right motive. They do not take with them the right feelings and views, and therefore they complain of want of interest in the services, when, in truth, the defect may be, not in the services, but in their own imperfect preparation for them; in the absence of due seriousness, due earnestness of heart, in themselves. - I have said that we must be earnest in our Sabbath observances and worship, and I have alluded to some of the tokens and effects of such earnestness. Further, we must be earnest in practice. This is the great end of all. an earnest Christian life. I do not mean that onesided earnestness, which concentrates itself on a single idea, a single reform, or a single sin. I mean an earnestness which embraces the whole circle of human duty, acts, and influences- self-reform, and self-improvement, and the duties of benevolence. Every feeling and affection of our nature must be made to do homage to religion. We must take her with us to our homes. She must sit at our firesides with us; watch over the current of our daily thoughts, to secure their purity; go with us to our places of business, to the farm, to the shop of the artisan, the merchant's desk; must regulate our industry, our gains; must render our actions kind, our tempers even and cheerful; must soften every asperity of feeling; check every impatient expression; guard us against every uncharitable judgment and every harsh censure; must make us honest, sincere, truthful, scrupulous not to violate the right of the humblest individual, or inflict one unnecessary pang. We must live out the truth that is in us, live a true life. We must be faithful to the spirit of Christian morality, a morality founded on principle, and flowing out of a heart that reverences and loves the true, the pure, and the good, and finds joy in obedience, and in virtue her own reward. Christ's precepts embody a morality of great strictness and wide extent. To these, the Christian world is yet very unfaithful. If you compare the lives of Christians with the ideal of a holy life presented in Christ's teachings; compare the morality of the world, its temper, spirit, and governing motives, with the precepts given in the sermon on the mount; or still further, compare them with the Saviour's self-sacrificing love, and pure, earnest life, the disparity strikes you at once. How poor seems the morality of the world by the side of those exalted precepts, that heavenly life! When I refer to an earnest, practical religion, I refer to a life in which these precepts are lived out, a true Christian life, not a bloodless image, a mere dry skeleton, but a living, breathing form, full of freshness and beauty, a body animated with a divine soul. Would that we could see a more full manifestation of the Christian spirit on earth. Would that the lives of Christians were more rich in a pure and expansive Christian virtue; that instead of this cold, meagre love, and this imperfect sympathy, we beheld more depth and earnestness of affection, and fewer remains of the selfish principle. When shall we see the Son of Man coming with power in the hearts of his followers? When shall we behold his meek, holy, benevolent spirit, transfused into the lives of the moving mass of beings around us? When shall we see the affairs of the world, business, diversion, social intercourse, politics, literature, criticism, the press, all human institutions, projects, aims, pervaded by the morality of the Gospel? Christians should be more earnest in their religion, and their earnestness should appear in their lives, and in lives very different from those which multitudes now lead. When we look abroad upon the world, and contrast it as it is with what Christ came and shed his blood on the cross to make it, how must we feel rebuked and humbled! The lives of Christians so partially imbued with the disinterested love, the gentleness, the calm, patient, forgiving spirit of Jesus, are a reproach to Christendom. It is time Christians opened their eyes to the work that is to be done, often in their own hearts, and with their own characters, very faulty if viewed in comparison with the perfect standard of Christianity; and often without, among their fellow-beings, whom they are bound to love more and better. I do not mean that nothing has been done, that the world is now where Christianity found it. There has certainly been gain, and great gain on the side of truth and right. Many depths of sin have been explored, and many a pitying eye has been turned upon the obscure abodes of human misery, and the song of gratitude has been awakened in the hearts of many desolate and perishing ones. The world has witnessed many triumphs of Christian principle; many fruits of Christian love; much salutary reform, of which we can say, this is truly a Christian work, this is pure and undefiled reli gion, this is love to man. But how much yet remains to be performed! How many hearts are yet cold! How many tempers are yet earthly, and need renewal! And go where you will, in communities calling themselves Christian, how much sin and wickedness go, if not unrebuked, yet unreformed! An earnest religion Why, must not all religion be earnest, if it be any thing? Religion is either nothing, or it deals with great and solemn realities, and it must therefore be earnest. And have we not need of an earnest religion? Life is earnest. Duty, moral obligation, virtue, kindness, love, - these are earnest words. Suffering is not that real, a word full of deep and terrible significance? And do we not all need an earnest religion? How else shall we meet calmly life's many trials? How see our hopes wither, our brightest visions fade, and things fair and lovely continually perish at our side? What but an earnest religion can give us strength to say, "Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt?" Surely, we need an earnest religion. Am I asked how this earnestness is to be infused into the heart? My reply is, go to the Bible. Read that, and you will every time rise from its perusal a better and a more earnest man. That is the most earnest of books, earnest without gloom. Its piety is healthy and cheerful as that which nature teaches. But in earnestness, in |