tude to the warmth of her imagination, and with that prolific pencil delineate a thousand pleasant and delightful scenes with which she hoped her future life would be diversified; but the rainbow vanished, and the blackness of darkness overspread the arch of heaven!

Pardon me, my brethren, if I detain you so long: I dare not stop; I am afraid to cease; the interests of this charity lie near my heart, and I shall never forgive myself if I omit aught which could further its interests! A year's support is now depending, and many are knocking at the doors of this institution for admittance, and shall we shut them out?

Behold these orphans! were I advocating from this place the cause of a Magdalene asylum, and expatiating on the horrors of the state from which its inmates had been rescued; and had I the flattering eloquence of Tertullus, or the powerful appeal of a Paul calling on you to preserve the streams of living water in this Bethesda-this porch of mercy!―methinks you would listen with feelings of peculiar sympathy; nay, you would think me tedious until the moment arrived when you would have the opportunity of contributing and what a contribution would you not bestow to relieve this case of mercy!

And do I address an audience whose compassion can only be excited by the view of wretchedness and crime? Is it because the lovely innocents for whom I plead have not yet mingled with the impure throng that you will not contribute as liberally to their preservation as to their rescue? Is it because their breath is not yet tainted with the odours of impurity that you will refuse the prayer of their lips entreating you to preserve them in their youth? and is it because I do not bring before you a victim fresh and bleeding on the charger of crime that I cannot excite your commiseration? Is it because no reeking blood sprinkles my petition that it is thrown aside as unworthy of your regard? Where, then, is the milk of human kindness! Where is the mind that can take no delight in the buddings of virtue, and can only be induced to prop up the faded flower!

But I recollect myself. Will not the fragrance of innocence supplicating for relief be sufficient with a Dublin

audience? Yes! I know whom I am addressing; and I have confidence in you in all things.

Finally, then, behold these orphans! these tender plants doomed to spring up beneath your shade; God has blessed you with the means, and shall the dew lie all night on your branch, and will you not shake it off to relieve the violet beneath! See these tender plants, not more abhorrent to the touch of crime than the sensitive plant to the touch of man: they shrink from its very approach! Clothed this night with their own pure vestment, I am the more happy in exhibiting it the longer: I fancy myself on their behalf in the character of a cherub from on high, pleading the cause of those whose angels do continually behold the face of their heav enly Father. If I have appeared clamorous, it was the voice of these tongues crying "mercy, mercy! preserve our bodies and save our souls!"

But I will check myself; I transfer them to you. Oh! that I could cling them round your garments and fasten them there for a few moments; how would they clasp their benefactors' knees, and with a heavenly smile implore blessings on your heads! I know there is a feeling excited; I have caught the fervour from you; I did not inspire it; the pulpit has caught the electric fluid; I know I have your hearts; I see, I feel you are with me! I was afraid!-pardon me for suspecting you that the interference of another charity of a similar nature at this very hour would damp the fervours of the orphans' friend; but now all fear has vanished. It shall never be said that Dublin could not receive two appeals to public benevolence at the same moment of time without impoverishing each other's supplies. No! I have confidence in you in all things; and much as I regret the unpleasant conjunction of a neighbouring congregation of respectable citizens on this subject, yet I entertain no fear with regard to you, but am satisfied you will prove that my confidence was not misplaced.

Follow, then, the impulse of your minds; suffer not your design to be smothered in the birth; give as you feel purposed, and believe me, the sentiment with which I concluded my appeal to you as Christians applies to you equally as to

me: "Do unto these as you would wish they should do unto you."

I again repeat it, I have your hearts! But shall I therefore abuse your trust? No! Father of the fatherless, I transfer them to thyself; the hearts of all this congregation are in thy hands; let thy Spirit perform the essential part of this pleading, and incline this people to join hands with thee in making these orphans live! Thou hast promised, and we believe thy word: "The Lord will provide !"

SERMON XIII.

CHRISTIAN COURTESY.

1 Peter, iii., 8.-Be courteous.

THE apostles are not only careful to lay the foundation, but to build up.

Hence the difference between the commencement and the close of their epistles. How comprehensive this whole verse, "Cherish fervent charity," and discover it in acts of pity or courtesy, according to circumstances.

And what is pity? The sympathizing aspect love wears towards the needy and miserable. Love exerting herself in kind and liberal services; love pouring her oil and wine into the wounds of some poor sufferer whom Providence has thrown in her way; love giving utterance to her feelings in tears of compassion, in words of consolation, or in prayers and intercessions. It is love weeping with them that weep. And what is courtesy but another form of love? It is the varied aspect which she wears when, having quitted the house of mourning in order to attend to the claims of social intercourse, or to transact with mankind the ordinary concerns of life, she wipes away her tears, and endeavours to promote the comfort and conciliate the affections of all around her by a cheerful, self-denying regard to their feelings and accommodations.

In short, to be pitiful or to be courteous is only fulfilling

the gentle guidance of the same internal principle under different external circumstances; and, indeed, there is not any Christian duty which we are required to perform, or any Christian feeling which we are exhorted to cherish towards one another, which, if examined and analyzed, but will be found to have love for its basis, since all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

With respect to courtesy, we cannot have failed to remark that there is much profession and much appearance of it among those who make no pretensions to Godliness; but the thing which passes current by this name in the dominions of the god of this world is a base counterfeit of the true shekel of the sanctuary, a tinselled imitation of sterling gold, a worthless semblance of a valuable reality. Courtesy is, strictly speaking, a Christian grace. It is a plant of heavenly ori- ́ gin: this present evil world, like the ground which the Lord hath cursed, is utterly incapable of yielding anything so excellent and lovely. Courtesy cannot grow in selfish nature's soil. It is never found but in the garden of God. It is a fruit of the Spirit, and not a work of the flesh. It is the offspring of charity; and since it derives its being from Divine grace; since it is made the subject of a Divine command; since it is especially calculated to smooth those little asperities which sometimes hinder even "the living stones of the temple" from being so perfectly joined and so fitly framed together as they should be; since it powerfully tends likewise to remove the prejudices and to allay the enmity so generally entertained by the world towards the church; above all, since, in combination with other causes, it may contribute to win souls to God, we surely ought not to deem it unsuitable to the purposes of the ministry to make it, as on the present occasion, the subject of our particular and attentive consideration. We shall then proceed to consider

The nature and excellence of Christian courtesy.

I shall take care, as I proceed, to distinguish it from that pitiful appearance of the grace which is so commonly exhibited on the stage of this imposing world. Such a distinction is the more needful because, while some professed dis

ciples of Christ seem to have substituted in the place of genuine courtesy a conformity to the manners and habits of ungodly men, which very ill consists with that simplicity of character which should distinguish the remnant of true Israelites, there are others who, through an honest disgust with the impertinent fopperies of the world, and an ill-directed fear of becoming infected with the same spirit of guile and hypocrisies, have even run so far into the opposite extreme of churlishness as to be culpably negligent of the proper forms of civilized society.

By courtesy we are to understand (as intimated above) "a considerate regard to the feelings and accommodations of others, resulting from a principle of Divine love, and discovering itself by a corresponding behaviour in all the various circumstances of our ordinary intercourse with mankind."

Among the several qualities essential to Christian courte sy, I shall mention,

I. Simplicity and Godly sincerity.

The courtesy of the world is an imposing form, a delusive shadow, an artificial mode or fashion which persons acquire under the discipline of their dancing-master. It is the art of adjusting the features of the face and of managing the ges tures of the body, independently of any corresponding affection of the heart; a grimace learned with some degree of difficulty, and for the most part awkwardly performed. It is a hollow, treacherous, unsound appearance; "a bruised reed, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it." Indeed, so palpable is the imposture that none but children and other credulous and unsuspecting persons, who, to use a familiar phrase, have seen nothing of the world, are at all deceived by it. Mankind in general perfectly well understand that nothing is really meant by the punctilious interchange of their civilities; and yet, strange as it may seem, almost every one will at times at least flatter himself that he plays his part so well, as effectually to blind the eyes of his neighbour, though he has too much penetration to be imposed upon himself. In this respect, however, notwith standing all the self-complacency and vanity of the human