his life is that which exists in the passing moment. Ours is spread over indefinite spaces and periods. His reward is measured to him in the satisfaction of the existing want. Ours is coextensive with the range of our thought and hope. If we are content to work, waiting God's time for the recompense to be unfolded, whether it be to us, or to those around us, whether to this age, or the next,—whether in this life, or the future, then we act up to the dignity of our nature. But if we are impatient of delay, if we lose heart and courage, when the reward is not instant in the coming, we sink below our proper selves, and approach the level of the brute. We narrow the sphere of our being to the point of time which now is. II. To resist this tendency to the merely material and sensual view of life, is the object of the Apostle in the text. He would not have us limit our desires to the passing moment, but that we should take in the whole field of human activity and interest, which stretches out before us into the future. He would have us, not like the - ox, but learn a lesson from God's care of the ox; -would have us know, that if God regards the brute in his insignificance, and requites him according to his limited and subordinate sphere of toil, He will much more regard us, and make our labors fruitful of appropriate results, according to the higher and broader sphere in which we act. So we should labor on, in confidence,nothing doubting. Let it be, that we cannot see the recompense rapidly developing itself. Let it be, that we cannot see it at all, or have any possible conception of how it is to come, yet it will come; if not soon, at some period; if not to us, to others; if not in this life, in the next. This should be sufficient, simply to know, that no good act can ultimately fail of producing its appropriate fruit. If nore, who have lived before us, had acted from this high and holy motive, we, of this generation, should be in a sad state of barbaric ignorance, and brutal degradation. If the martyrs to religion, and the martyrs to learning and libberty, had refused to shed their blood for the support of principle, preferring personal ease or gain, to the slow unfolding of their actions, in after ages, where now would be the privileges, which their fidelity has secured to us, and the love of the right and true, which their heroism has kindled in the breasts of men, in every intervening period? God be praised for the martyrs! for the men who could be just, not knowing when, or how, but trusting that somehow, their integrity would unfold itself in blessings to mankind! And not for the martyrs only, - for Leonidas and Tell, for Stephen and Wickliffe, for Socrates and Virgilius,-not for these only ought we to be thankful, but for all wise and pure minds in the past, which are as fountains, from which we drink, and are refreshed. Who can estimate how much of what we are, is owing to the fidelity and excellence of men, who have lived before us? — to the heroism of Luther, to the wisdom of Newton, to the patriotism of Washington? Not in their own persons, nor in their own age, were all the rich rewards of their virtues realised and exhausted. They were benefactors to every subsequent age, and remotest nations and races will gather in fruits, which have grown from seeds of their planting. So of every 18* true thought and just deed. Its influence reaches through all time, nor is it lost in eternity. III. It is not, however, in great affairs, or on great occasions, alone, that this view of duty is important; but also in the ordinary actions of common life. Nothing is so trivial, that it needs not to be done with good intent; and no good intent is so inconsiderable, as to be without an influence. It is said by philosophers, that if an atom of matter should be struck from existence, it would produce instant confusion in the system of the universe, so nicely adjusted to each other are the separate forces of nature. God's government of the moral world is not less exact. Every action of the human will has a bearing, remote, as well as immediate, reaching forward through all the intricacies of human being, as the atom holds an influence in the system of nature. No good and true thing, however small, can be lost. Christianity, at the first, was but a trifle, a grain of mustard-seed, cast into the soil, and behold the results, which are even now developing themselves, eighteen centuries from that period! Seventy years ago, a solitary and unknown voice asserted, on this Continent, the truth of Universalism, and the sentiment is overturning the theology of centuries! We cannot estimate the results of actions, trivial of themselves, in their ever-widening and progressive development. A kind word, a cheerful countenance, a cordial greeting, a gift of charity, - civilities not thought of, as reaching beyond the moment, — have, in thousands of instances, given a new turn to the fortunes of individuals, and through them distributed, unnumbered blessings to mankind. We God forbids that the ox, which treadeth out the corn, should be defrauded of his recompense; much less will he permit any human virtue to go unrewarded. For our sakes is this written, that he who labors, should labor in hope. That is the sentiment which should govern us. need it always. There are periods with us all, no doubt, when we become exhausted with the cares of life, when our best calculations are defeated, and our best efforts seem empty of results. We grow sick at heart, and know not how to go on. We would fain give over the contest, and should relinquish it, in a thousand cases, where we do not, if God had not made this sentiment of trust an instinct, as well as a moral |