worship and superstition, and the Church rooted here in weakness has sprung up into strength, the mustardseed has expanded into the tree, the little leaven has leavened a whole mass. The lines are now fallen to us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage. We may worship the true divinity as our instructed convictions of duty prompt, and none dare molest us, when we come up to bow before and praise Him, as we have done this day. The vine of His own planting has taken deep root and put forth countless branches, bearing fruit, and these are increased continually by others, as the dews and rains of divine grace fall from heaven, fertilizing the soil, cheering the vine, infusing fresh vigor into it, and encouraging it to break forth on every side and fill the land.

A new offshoot from this true vine greets our eyes to-day, and we are here to commend it to the care of the good Husbandman, and invoke in its behalf the fostering influences of His protection and love. There are few spectacles indeed more interesting and impressive than the setting apart solemnly a Christian temple reared for the worship and to the honor of the Lord Jehovah. The object is one of the worthiest, I may say grándest, that can occupy the mind or fill the heart of the congregation it calls

together. The edifice reared is not for secular purposes, not to compass any worldly or ambitious project, not to aid in carrying out selfish schemes of temporal aggrandizement, or the amassing of wealth, or the strengthening of mortal influence; but the end is to glorify God by furnishing wider facilities for the proclamation of a free Gospel, in the opening of a sanctuary where the means of worshipping him publicly and statedly may be enjoyed-where the humble poor and the stately rich man, the lowly obscure and the person of mark and position, may equally appear before God, who is no respecter of persons, and sing those praises which God loves to hear when the heart makes melody, and offer those supplications which all men have need to pay, and implore that mercy without which every man is undone, and hear from the lips of the preacher that blessed word expounded and enforced which points to heaven and instructs in every duty.

This is the true end for which the house of worship is reared, and the office to which it is dedicated. It is a house which, as we look upon it, reminds us of a brighter and better world-speaks of the destiny of man as bound to the judgment-seat of Christ— points to the vanities of this passing state, as too unworthy to occupy much that mind which should be filled with immortal aspirations-preaches with still

small voice indeed, but persuasively, the marvellous condescension of Him "who though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich," and sets forth the claims of that religion which His own voice announced with authority and His own spotless life illustrated.

In short, this house, as you look upon it and enter it, seems the Jacob's ladder connecting earth with heaven, on which the eye of faith may see bright angels ascending and descending the latter bringing down to rebels the divinely free offer of pardon; the former bearing up the report of its acceptance or rejection. It seems to stand on the boundary between this world and the next. The rays of the heavenly glory, issuing through the gates of paradise, reach it and play upon it; while the feet of poor wanderers, soiled through contact with this defiling earth, pass its threshold, where the languid and wayworn sit and are cheered with the voice, "Come unto me, ye laboring and heavy laden ones, and ye shall find rest for your souls." Here the voice of angry passion is hushed, and all the clamors, strifes, and acerbities which separate man from man, and proclaim the bitterness of the curse, subside in the awful presence of Him to whom vengeance belongeth. Here all artificial distinctions which divide men into high and low, rich and poor, honorable and base,

vanish before the oracle, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." Here the character, temper, and disposition of the soul is the chief recommendation, and every one that brings the sacrifice that God requires will find his gracious benediction.

This, therefore, is God's house, reared for Him, and to be dedicated to Him. And in the light of these sacred and tender associations, when an assembly meet to consummate the act which sets it apart for ever to these high purposes, the spectacle is beautiful and imposing. We stand as it were with one foot on the earth, and the other on the threshold of heaven. We are beneath God's eye. Holy angels are around us. The glory of the Lord is in this place. What we do is pregnant with momentous and lasting consequences. The act is to be recorded on high, and we shall meet the record and the sentiments which prompt and characterize it, on that great day when the sea and death and hell shall deliver up their dead, and "every man shall be judged according to that which he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” *

The Service for the Dedication, as partaking the nature of a formula, and containing what, in part at least, is usual on similar occasions, it is not thought material to insert. Though the discourse closes abruptly, the coherence and unity of the argument are not impaired.

ENGLISH DICTION A MEANS OF PULPIT

EFFICIENCY.

TAKING up one of the back numbers of the Princeton Review the other day, my attention was arrested by a sprightly article bearing part of the above title. The ground taken by the writer in it is, that the Presbyterian ministry-and the remark may hold good in respect to those of our own Churchthough thoroughly educated, and possessed of an aggregate of talent at least equal to that of any ecclesiastical body in the land, are yet surpassed by some others, having a less carefully trained ministry, in the effect with which their ministrations tell upon the people. He quotes a passage from the Edinburgh Witness, relating to the then recent discussion in the United Presbyterian Synod of Scotland, and in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, of the practice of reading sermons, as a probable cause of crippling the power of pulpit discourse, and infers that the very agitation of the question proves that there is something wrong, for