"How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?"

Jer. iv. 14.

IME flows on! rivers hasten to the ocean, and moments to eternity. Another year has gone down the abysses of the past. We bend over the gulph, and amidst the dying echoes of its downward rush and roar, with feelings of awe and

sadness, we bid it adieu! For all the good it has borne us we would devoutly thank our Maker. Would that our sins were buried with it, and nothing rise from its terrible grave but reminiscences that shall purify, elevate, and bless! Hail to the new year! In the light of its opening beams we begin this "New Series" of our work. Seven years have "sped their flight," since we entered on these Homilistic labors. We have the utmost confidence that whatever true ideas are contained in the seven volumes, now before the world, will outlive generations. True thoughts thrown upon the ages are like corn-seed cast upon the flowing Nile. They may seem lost for awhile beneath the current, but they will find a soil more lasting than the stream itself, and they will appear in lovely life and fruitfulness when "Time no longer is."

Though we were younger and farther from our grave than now, when we began this work, we know that our ideal of

Vol. VIII.

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pulpit excellence is not lower, nor our zeal to reach it less glowing; whilst our experience should be wealthier, our views more chastened, our judgment more mature. We desire that those who aid us in the contribution of thought to our pages, and those who peruse our joint productions— all children of an hour groping our way in haziness to the great eternity, would unite with us in imploring the "FATHER OF THE EVERLASTING AGES" to sanction, direct, and prosper our humble labors.

Our aim being to stimulate and guide sacred thought, the subject which falls for our opening homily is as appropriate to the occasion, as it is intrinsically important.

We will make our way to the subject by two observations: First: It is the glory of man that he can think. What is thought? I know of no definition that satisfies me. Nor do I presume to give one. You may describe it as, The conception which the mind forms of the universe of objects which are constantly making impressions upon it from without, and of the varied instincts and forces which are incessantly working within. Or, you may call it, The mind's reflection of all the phenomena of which it is conscious. Or, you may designate it, The soul's vision. However you represent it, you will agree with me, that the power to think is one of the distinguishing features of our nature. Wonderful things does thought accomplish for man. It brings the outward universe into his own soul, and thus makes it his own. It is more than images and pictures of the outward that thought gives us. It imparts more than a reflection or photograph of external nature and events. What it gives, is to us, the reality. The outward world is a mere shadow to us until thought deals with it, brings it in, and makes it flash and glow upon the mirror of the heart. Our idea of the universe is our universe. Every man who thinks may say with the apostle, though not in the apostle's sense, "The world is ours." Thus we carry within us all that the world has ever been to us since we began to think. All that the world is to the brute is what it is at this moment. Its yesterday's world is nothing to it

Not

now, nay, its world of the past moment is lost for ever. so with us. Thought holds every fraction of it. All the streams and seas, the meads and mountains, the landscapes and skies, and all things that in heaven or earth have ever impressed us, thought has laid up within, and can reproduce at any moment. It can call up the world of childhood; it can spread out the play-ground, re-construct the old family house, bring the father and mother, brothers and sisters, most of whom perhaps are in their graves, into those rooms again, make them talk and laugh, weep and pray, as they were wont. It can open those old paths and roads on which we took our first walks, make those meadows bloom on whose green bosom we sat down to play with the sweet flowers. It can rekindle those stars which used to impress with awe and wonder, our young hearts. In the language of Wordsworth we may say it is thought

"That throws back our life,

And almost makes remotest infancy

A visible scene on which the sun is shining."

Moreover, thought not only brings the outward world into us and makes it for ever our own, but it enables us to subordinate it to our service. We conquer nature by thought. We seize its wildest and mightiest forces, chain them to our purpose, and make them do our work. Thought has made winds and wayes our slaves. They await our behests, ready at any moment to bear us or ours whithersoever we please. Thought has stretched out its hand, reached the clouds, captured the lightning, brought it down, made it stand quivering at our side, ready to waft through mountains and oceans, with wondrous speed, our messages to the ends of the earth. Thus man, who on this earth appears but as an atom, by the marvellous power of thought makes "the stars in their courses," the heavens and the earth, work for him.

Still more, by the power of thought we construct new universes. Thought brings old materials into such new and

strange combinations, that we often find ourselves in a world of our own. The most unpoetic man has some kind of ideal world. This inner world, which thought builds up within us, has more changes even than the outward and the material. It has not only its peaceful plains, and soft zephyrs, and calm heavens, but its volcanic eruptions, its tempestuous winds, and tumultuous skies. Thought gave Milton his paradise, and Dante his hell.

It

To all this we may add, that thought determines our condition. Even our material condition is greatly controlled by thought. It influences our health, it shapes our countenances, it tunes our voice. Many of the diseases of men take their rise in dark thoughts. "A merry heart is better than medicine." The expression of the face, sour or sweet, animal or spiritual, is governed by thought. Thought carves its image on the brow. Spiritually, however, our condition is almost absolutely governed by thought. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he;"-intelligent, free, generous, devout, or otherwise. A thought is mental vaccine. runs through the blood of our souls, and modifies our constitution. He who would write the biography of a thought, give its genesis, expound its relations, narrate its achievements, would unlock the history of the world. The difference between barbarous hordes and civilized nations, the savage and the sage, the sinner and the saint, is all determined by thought. By thought we can pierce the heavens, enter into the holy of holies, hold fellowship with the Infinite. By thought we can break forth from our own little earthly sphere-make God our centre, and run a wider and brighter orbit than the stars.

But, whilst it is the glory of man that he can think, it is:Secondly: The curse of man that he thinks wrongly. His faculty of thought has been perverted. What are wrong thoughts? It is common to say, Thoughts directed to wrong subjects. This is not true to our ideas. The moral quality of thoughts does not consist so much, if at all, in the subjects to which they are directed, as the principle by which they

are controlled. Evil, as well as good, is in the universe, and both force themselves on our attention. We are bound to think upon evil subjects. Sin and crime in all their phases are perpetually pressing themselves on our notice. The soul may often get good from studying even them. Thought is a transmutive force. It can get good out of evil and evil out of good. It is the principle that directs thought, that gives to it its moral quality. Thoughts directed to evil subjects from good principles, are good, whilst thoughts directed to good subjects from evil principles are evil. Christianity is, confessedly, a good subject for thought, but when thoughts are directed to it in order to strengthen infidelity, to bulwark a sect, or to support a prejudice, it is an evil. Aye, even when it is directed to it, in order to compose lucrative books, to procure a salaried pulpit, or to obtain an ecclesiastical "living," it is corrupt.

Now, the text directs our attention to one class of wrong thoughts, called "vain thoughts." John Foster, in a characteristic discourse upon our text, has entered into a very minute description of such thoughts. They are thoughts not agreeing with facts, not true to the subjects to which they refer. As all visions imply objects, all thoughts imply subjects. A true thought is a thought in perfect agreement with the subject. A false, or vain thought, is one which has no such correspondence.

The text suggests two remarks in relation to such thoughts:

I. THAT THEY FIND A LODGMENT IN THE MINDS OF SOME MEN. The word "lodge" implies entertainment. Most men, perhaps, have vain thoughts at times, but all do not harbour them. The good man treats such thoughts, when they enter, as strangers, not friends-as insolent intruders, not as welcome guests he repels them as aliens, he does not embrace them as offspring. His heart is their thoroughfare, not their home. Others, however, (like the men at Jerusalem whom the prophet addressed) entertain them. They board and