developed the true function of the State, as one of the agencies through which the individual mind is to be trained, under God, to full capacity and taste for all its duties and prerogatives, and as having right to exist and to rule, only as it promotes to the uttermost, in all its people, this high culture.

These ideas, when first propounded, met with universal contempt or execration. Slowly but surely, however, they have spread like leaven through bodies, politic and social-charging mind after mind with their sacred influence, and gradually achieving that amelioration which places us this day high above the highest condition ever attained under Pagan or Mohammedan sway. And thus are mankind to be always taught of God. Thus have they been learning for six thousand years-from the Patriarchal to the Mosaic-from the Mosaic to the Christian stage. In the infancy or childhood of the world, it was the absolute regimen of parents-in its hot and fiery youth, it was the fixed and well-defined dominion of law as prescribed in the Old Testament; and in its riper and more thoughtful manhood it is the gospel of the grace of God. First, there is outward truth to make men wise, then there is subjective preparation to receive that truth. There is glory without, hidden from the proud and self-complacent, but revealed to those who in meekness are babes. There are laws for earlier stages, and there are laws again which shall be fully comprehended in all their applications and cordially obeyed, only when society through a larger experience and a deeper moral sense, shall come to see their wisdom and to own their sanctity and binding force.

What an instrument have we here for regenerating universal humanity. Ours is not a religion for a favored family or a preferred people. We are put in trust of the gospel, and we hold it for mankind; for the distant, the benighted, the down-trodden, the afflicted. Nations in their loftiest successes, in their purest forms of civilization, are but traveling toward the ideal presented in Scripture; and as new phases of society appear, that Scripture will be found adapted to each, so far as it may be legitimate, and be calculated to advance each to new glory and perfection. If this book be of God, then it was written with foresight of all coming conditions of the world, and it will be found to have for every one of them appropriate instructions and influences.

But if the Bible be such an educator for nations and for the race, it must have capabilities equally great for the culture and improvement of the individual. And what could we desire in a book, to rouse our dormant faculties or to invigorate and refine them, that we may not find here? Holy Scripture comprehendeth History and Prophecy, Law and Ethics, the Philosophy of Life that now is, the Philosophy of Life that is to come. At one time, it clotheth its teachings in strains of the sublimest or tenderest poetry-at another, in narratives, as beautiful and touching for their simplicity as they are unrivaled in dignity. It has

reasoning for the logical understanding; it has pictures for the discursive imagination; it has heart-searching appeals for the intuitive powers of the soul. There is no duty omitted; there is no grace or enjoyment undervalued. It provides a sphere for every faculty, and even for every temperament and disposition. This many-toned voice uses now the logic of a Paul, and now the ethics of a James-here the boldness and fervor of a Peter, and there the gentleness and sublimity of a John. With one it discourses of the awful guilt and curse of sin, and points us to the only way of escape; while with another it expatiates on the unutterable love of God and the attractions of the Cross of Christ. The Bible is no formal, lifeless system of propositions and inferences and precepts. It is as rich in the variety and vivacity of its methods, as it is in the overflowing abundance of its materials. While it draws some to religion, through the ideal, and some through the real and demonstrable, it allures others by means of the affections and sensibilities, and others it overawes, as a son of thunder, by its appeals to conscience and the dread of an hereafter.

And how is it, if we look to the culture of the intellect merely? How vast is the field which the Bible opens to our inquiries! What rich re sults may we not win, in almost any conceivable line of research! What discipline does not the proper study of it provide for our reason and out faith, for patience and humility, for fortitude and moderation! And in respect to those momentous questions, which pertain to God and the soul's destiny, there is light enough for every humble, robust mind; there is darkness enough for every proud and self-confiding one. To attain to perfect and all-embracing knowledge belongs not to us, who are still in the twilight of our being, and who are called to work our way, through patient and ennobling labor, to that state where we can see even as we are seen, and know even as we are known. That way will open gradually but surely before all who go forward trustfully and manfully with the Bible as their guide. They shall have no infallible certainty, but they shall have unshaken and soul-satisfying confidence. To the question of questions, "What shall I do to be saved?" they shall find an answer on which they can stay themselves in perfect peace. Their assurance will be the gift of no ghostly confessor; it will be the offspring of no sudden and undefinable impression or inspiration. It will be faith well-grounded and settled—an anchor to the soul. It will have the witness within that we love and strive to serve God; and it will have the witness without that they who do Christ's will shall know of his doctrine-that the Holy Spirit will guide the meek in judgment, and instruct them in God's way, and that he who cometh with a faithful and penitent heart in Christ's name, shall in no wise be cast out.

DISCOURSE XXV,

FREDERIC D. HUNTINGTON, D.D.,

THE celebrated Plummer Professor and University Preacher at old Harvard, is yet young in years, having been born May 28th, 1819, at Hadley, Massachusetts. His father, Dan Huntington, is a minister of the gospel, and in early life was settled in Litchfield and Middletown, Connecticut. He was a graduate of Yale College, and a tutor in Williams' and Yale. The son had a "Christian nurture," and can recall no period when he was not interested in religious things. He came first to the Lord's table at sixteen years of age. This was chiefly by means of the special and the constant prayers and example of an excellent and saintly mother. His academic education was obtained at Hopkins Academy, at home, and at Amherst College, where he graduated, with the first honors of his class, in 1839. He afterward studied three years in the Theological School in Cambridge. In October, 1842, he was ordained over the South Congregational Church in Boston; and in September, 1855, inaugurated at Cambridge as "Preacher to the University, and Plummer Professor of Chistian Morals in Harvard College." He also acts as pastor of the church in Harvard College, of about fifty communicants.

He is the author of "Sermons for the People;" "Parables of the Saviour;" and various occasional discourses, sermons, etc., and has edited, several years, the "Monthly Religious Magazine and Independent Journal."

Professor Huntington is not properly a representative of the Unitarians. Though elected by them conjointly with the "Orthodox" Congregationalists, they did not elect him to stand for their creed, and it would be unjust on both sides to make him answerable for their cause. His training and associations have been chiefly, not wholly, among them. His preaching is in Unitarian pulpits, when away from home, but only because asked to preach there rather than elsewhere. He respects their liberty, and prizes and loves many of their men. But he yet refuses to be recognized as belonging to that body. To use his own words (for we have said the above with his authority), "In doctrine and devotion both, I consider the Unitarian body—as a body—radically diseased and defective. My humble position is that of entire independency."

As we understand him, he is an earnest Christian man, seeking to awaken and develop a higher and deeper spirituality, and render less sharp existing outward distinctions between those who hold the essential verities of the revealed word. Whether he is strictly orthodox, in the proper sense of that word, is a question which is much discussed, but which it does not fall within our province to decide. That he is becoming the means of the revival of a more evangelical and earnest piety, in this honored seat of learning, is surely matter for universal and devout con

gratulation, and thousands are looking to him as raised up to be the restorer of a more operative faith to many of the churches, as well as to the university, of Massachusetts; or at least to be the leader in such a restoration, to be perfected in the coming times.

In the pulpit, Dr. Huntington combines dignity with grace; and his whole bearing produces a conviction of the thoughtfulness and earnestness of the man. The tones of his voice are full, firm, and smooth, and well modulated; and his countenance beams with intelligence and benignity. He is said to infuse a full soul into all his discourses, uniting thereto a chastened and buoyant rhetoric. His manner is easy, and half colloquial, and his composition abounds in similes and strong and comprehensive sentences.

The volume of sermons which Professor Huntington has recently published, has already had a wide and influential circulation. The subjects are varied and pertinent, and the discourses are replete with the Christian element, and with fresh and striking thoughts strongly and clearly expressed. Their style is uniformly elevated and elaborate perhaps too much so for ordinary pulpit address. They are also remarkable for breadth and depth of thought, classic gracefulness and terseness, a touching earnestness, the traces of an affluent imagination, and the plain and manly avowal of views sincerely entertained.

The sermon which is here given has been kindly furnished for this work, and appears now for the first time in print. It will increase Dr. Huntington's distinguished reputation, as a vigorous, stirring, and eloquent preacher.

THREE DISPENSATIONS IN HISTORY AND IN THE SOUL.

Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. The law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”—GAL., iii. 6, and JOHN, i. 17.

THE spiritual growth of mankind has proceeded through three great stages. Each of these has been marked by the evolution of one predominating element, or salient principle of religious action. On examination, we shall be able to discover an impressive correspondence between these successive epochs in the history of humanity at large, and the process of life in a well-disciplined, Christianized individual. This analogy is so thickly set with points of interest, as well as so fruitful of practical suggestions touching right religious ideas, and right living, that I shall let it fix the form, and be the subject of the discourse. That subject is: The threefold discipline of our spiritual experience, as compared with the threefold order in the expanding nurture of the human family.

The three Biblical Dispensations are types of three great principies of conduct, or rather three schools of religious culture, under which we must pass as persons, just as the race has passed in history, before we can be built up into the symmetrical stature of a Christian maturity.

I. First, was the dispensation of natural religious feeling. The race was in childhood. It acted from impulse. It obeyed no written code of moral regulations, but, so far as its life was right, it either followed some free religious instincts, or else depended on direct intimations from the Deity, directing or forbidding each specific deed. The man chosen as the representative of this period was Abraham. The record of it is the book of Genesis. That writing is the first grand chapter in the biography of man; and its very literary structure-so dramatic in contents, and so lyrical in expression, so careless of the rules of art, so abounding in personal details, and graphic groupings of incident; so like a child's story in its sublime simplicity-answers to the spontaneous period it pictures. "The patriarchal age" we call it. The term itself intimates rude, unorganized politics; the head of each family being the legislator for his tribe. But, in the absence of systematic statutes, every man, by a liberty so large as to burst often into license, was likely to do very much what was right in his own eyes. If he had strong passions, he would be a sensualist, like Shechem, or a petty tyrant, like Laban. If he were constitutionally gentle, he would be an inoffensive shepherd, like Lot. Such were the first two brothers. Cain's jealousy made him a murderer; Abel was peaceable, kept sheep, and the only voice he lifted up against outrage, was when his blood cried from the ground. Some of these nomadic people, having devout temperaments, “called upon the name of the Lord," we are told, like Enoch and Noah. Others were bloated giants, mighty men in animal propensities, gross and licentious, given to promiscuous marriages; so that presently God saw that the wickedness was so great, and the imaginations of men's hearts were so evil, that he must wash the unclean earth with a deluge. But there was no permanent restraining power; no fixed standard of judicial command; and so, when the flood dried, the tide of sin set in again, streaked only with some veins of nobleness. On the plains of Shinar pride fancied it could build a tower that should overtop the All-seeing Providence; and it had to be humbled by a confusion of tongues, scattering the builders. Even Noah, a just man for his times, so pure in that comparison, that he was carried over on the waves from a drowned generation, to install a new one, had scarcely seen the many-colored splendors of the promise in the rainbow, before he was drunken of overmuch wine. Abraham himself, so full of trust that his trust finally saved him; strong enough in the power of it to lay his son on an altar; at an earlier age stained his tongue with a cowardly falsehood, calling his wife his sister for safety's sake-first pattern of politicians of mere expediency and was rebuked for it by a Pharaoh, who had seen less of the heavenly visions than he. Sodom, with its indescribable pollutions, was not far from Beth-el-house of God. Jacob received a revelation from opened heavens; yet he over-reached his brother to appropriate the family blessing, and defrauded his father-in-law. Through