or accomplished so much for the interests of vital piety.

The office of religious teachers among the Jews was a noble office. Without them, the Hebrew state had been an irreligious, ignorant, disjointed community. If men were converted to God; if, after seasons of deep declension, the interests of true religion were revived, and Zion, that had been long in mourning, put on her beautiful garments; and harps that had hung upon the willows, again sung the Lord's song; their religious teachers were prominent in these seasons of refreshing, and their priests the first to blow the silver clarion of glad tidings. The nation was exalted or debased, as their religious teachers were honored or dishonored, and as they exerted or failed to exert their appropriate influence. For fifteen hundred years they maintained this pre-eminence; and although their power was doubtless augmented by the exterior impressiveness and splendor of their economy, the right arm of their strength was their religious influence. So long as the nation was in its glory, its religious teachers were the glory and strength of the nation. Its darkest period, the four hundred years between Malachi and John the Baptist, was a period when the voice of their prophets was not heard. Yet even in this degenerate and afflicting period, there were not wanting

God's consecrated priests among them, some of whom were like the salt that retained its savor, the lights and guardians of the church, and the adornment of their race. "Salvation is of the Jews." If there be piety in the world; if there be precious hopes and glorious prospects; if there be churches and Christian lands which live to honor God and bless his people; they are to be traced up to those schools of the prophets where Samuel and Elijah taught, and to those holy men who caught their falling mantle.

CHAPTER II.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THESE rites and sacrifices are no more; "neither is there any more prophet." The sacred fire is extinguished on their altars; the Shekinah has disappeared; and the glory is departed from the temple. The tribe of Levi cannot now be distinguished from the tribe of Judah or of Naphtali; every line of demarcation is obliterated in uncircumcised confusion; Judaism is merged in Christianity, and the Jewish priesthood in the Christian ministry.

The greatest of all Christian teachers was the Divine Founder of Christianity, himself. There was an immeasurable distance between him and all who preceded, and all who came after him. None have equalled, or can equal him, in his perfect intelligence of the truth; in his firm conviction of its magnitude and importance; in simplicity and directness; in the pure and glowing affections with which he dispensed it; or in the authority with which he spake,-the authority of truth, of goodness. There are no such powerful and sweet words on the records

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of earth,-words bathed in the fountain of eternal love, as those which dropped like the rain, and distilled like the dew from his unearthly lips. "The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Inspired men, and uninspired, in thousands, have preached the same truths which he preached; yet "never man spake like this man." It was indeed during his humiliation that he exercised the prophetic office; they were days of the "hiding of his power;" the "Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified;" yet never before, nor since, did the Gospel exhibit so much of its native beauty and glory, as when uttered by the lips that tasted the wormwood and the gall.

The power of the pulpit during the apostolic age, is ascertained mainly from that beautiful compend of ecclesiastical history, which is contained in the Acts of the Apostles. They had some peculiar facilities for their work, and difficulties and discouragements that were peculiar. Everywhere they preached Jesus and the resurrection; in the temple, in the synagogues of the Jews, in the forum, in the market-place, in the school-room, in the streets, and in their own private lodgings; "beginning at Jerusalem," and extending their labors throughout Asia and parts of Europe. Imbued with the Spirit of their Master, nobly did these pioneers

of the Christian faith "do the work of evangelists, and make full proof of their ministry." They put their divine armor to the test, and tried the excellency of its power. And what were its conquests? Here we read of three thousand subdued under a single sermon; soon after, and elsewhere, of five thousand more; and then of other thousands, till the kingdom of darkness shook "from turret to foundation stone," and Satan seemed about to "fall like lightning from heaven." It were no easy matter to measure the influence they exerted; nor can it be measured by mortal man. Never were there such exemplifications of the power of the pulpit, as during the apostolic age. With no human helper, and no meretricious adornment, without wealth, standing alone as God's messenger to guilty men, the pulpit of that single age gave the new religion to the world, grounded it upon a firm basis, and established "a kingdom which cannot be moved." Wondrous scenes were they amid which these holy men stood; wondrous words which they spake; wondrous effects which they produced; and which we, at the distance of eighteen centuries, look back upon, when the "rod of God's strength" first went forth out of Zion.

Even a brief historical sketch of the one hundred and fifty years after the ascension of our Divine Lord, is forbidden us in these ob