PULPIT UTTERANCES.

Evening Star, Issue 3839, 14 June 1875, Page 3

PULPIT UTTERANCES.

WEEK-DAY RELIGION. The course of lectures on the above sublect was continued last night by Dr Roaeby in the Moray Place Congregational Church the subject of last evening’s lecture bfjing Work. ; b The discourse was founded on three passages Ist Thoss., iv 2; Rev. iii. 1; and Rev. xxii. 12! I he lecturer dwelt on the large part of human life taken up with labor, and showed in what sense the Scripture’s declaration about the curse of labor was to be understood. That, howe j/or. was only one side of the question. While they could not doubt that man in his divine estate would have been spared many of the baser and forms of labor, and would Have been altogether free from the revere strain of excessivo toil, it was manifest that labor was not only necessary to man, but whs educational and honorable. It was necessary to individual happiness ; it was necessary to the world’s progress—material, moral, and spiritual. There was no short and easy method of doing good • 1 fc could only_be done by hard work patiently sustained. Labor was also necessary to man’s true well-being. It was a means of grace,; it had tts distinctly religious uses; it aided in the development of patience ; it brought men to esteem God s blessings the most highly when received as the reward of personal diligence: it taught the great lesson of self-reliance The man would loam from it that while humbly resting upop God it was right and honoipblo to take care of himself. It save 1 tnen from that nerveless, flabby, unmanly [ dependence upon others that oharacteiised the polite beggar, the miserable incapable sponge ; it was a means of grace to men, inasmuch m it saved them from mean indirections.

The Jews had a keen scent of this In their proverb; “He that brings up his son without a trade is educating a thief ’’—the very point insisted on by St. Paul; “Let him that stole . steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands.’’ Labor, also, at once provided a fund for charitable uses and opened the heart of the worker, so that he was willing to distribute. There was a generous brotherly instinct in honest toil. The rev. gentleman then passed from dwelling on the necessity *f work to remark that, in all its grades, it was always an honorable thing. The nobility of rank or wealth was nothing in comparison with it. The preacher spoke strongly of the folly and cruelty of bringing up children in idleness. It was a poor thing for a child to be taught to go about the world with unsoiled hands, helping nobody, doing nothing. All grades of labor were honorable, and if a man found that he could not get on with one kind of labor, it would be his wisdom to turn his hand to another. It was a wretched thing for a young man to have no other string to his bow than to be able to add up figures. That occupation was, of course, as honorable as any other, if a man could find employment in it; but he (the lecturer) pitied the poor fellow, and he had met with scores of such who, finding that employment flushed with candidates, had been incapable of turning their hands to anything else. They could not dig, and to beg, alas, they too often were not ■ ashamed. The rev. gentleman next pointed out that Qod’s final judgment of men would be based upon character and work. He showed how even the dispensation of_ the gospel supplied only an apparent exception to this. The unholy man, let him profess what he liked, would Stand no better chance before the judgment seat of Christ than before the law of Moses. Christ’s emphatic declaration in the closing words of the Holy Scripture, was that he would “ give to every man according to his works.” The lecturer closed with an earnest exhortation to work. The opportunity was brief and supreme. They often sisdied for the rest of heaven. Perhaps, after all, there was not much fo choose between earth and heaven• for if heaven was the more blissful sphere, earth was the more useful. One, at least they knew who, caring rather to minister than be ministered unto, gave earth for a season a preference over heaevn. Let them drink deeply into his Divine Spirit and self-sacrificing love.

Be now thy thoughts to work divine addressed, Do something—do it soon—with all thy might • An angel’s wing would droop if long at rest, ’ And God Himself, inactive, were no longer blest. THE LATE MR HAWTHORNE. Archdeacon Edwards, in a sermon which he preached yesterday morning in St. Paul’s Church, having alluded to the death of the late Rector of the High School, went on to say—- “ Death may come to you as it did to the late! rector, after a/ long and painful illness. In his case it Was illness aggravated by much mental suffering; but it was endured > with calm fortitude by him, who bore iin mind that he was a disciple of the Crucified One of Christ who was made perfect through suffering. To you, many of whom knew’jStuart Hawthorne far better than I did, there is no need that I should point out those excellencies in bis character which endeared him to those who admired especially bis unselfish devotion to .duty and untiring industry in the work of his calling. He is gone; but he will not, I think, be forgotten by the pupils, whose interests he ever had deeply at heart, and whose characters he had helped to form for good. Neither will he soon fade from the recollection of those many friends who had learned to love him. We hope and believe that he has entered that unseen abode where trials and troubles are unknown, and where ‘ithe weary are at rest.”'’