AMERICAN POPULAR SPEAKER. 25 25 THE GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY.-JOHN MCLAURIN. CHRISTIANITY communicates a glory to all other objects, according as they have any relation to it. It adorns the universe; it gives a lustre to nature and to Providence; it is the greatest glory of this lower world, that its Creator was for awhile its inhabitant. A poor landlord thinks it a lasting honor to his cottage that he has once lodged a prince or emperor. With how much more reason may our poor cottage, this earth, be proud of it, that the Lord of glory was its tenant from His birth to His death! yea, that he rejoiced in the habitable parts of it before it had a beginning, even from everlasting! It is the glory of the world that He who formed it dwelt on it; of the air, that He breathed in it; of the sun, that it shone on Him; of the ground, that it bore him; of the sea, that He walked on it; of the elements, that they nourished Him; of the waters, that they refreshed Him; of us men, that He lived and died among us, yea, that he lived and died for us; that he assumed our flesh and blood, and carried it to the highest heavens, where it shines as the eternal ornament and wonder of the creation of God. It gives also a lustre to Providence It is the chief event that adorns the records of time, and enlivens the history of the universe. It is the glory of the various great lines of Providence, that they point at this as their centre; that they prepared the way for its coming; that after its coming they are subservient to the ends of it, though in a way indeed to us at present mysterious and unsearchable. Thus we know that they either fulfil the promises of the crucified Jesus, or His threatenings; and show either the happiness of receiving Him, or the misery of rejecting Him. BELIEF IN GOD'S EXISTENCE.-JONATHAN MAXCY. NEVER be tempted to disbelieve the existence of God, when everything around you proclaims it in a language too plain not 3 |