CONCLUSION. GIFTS AND GRACES FOR CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. "Why stand ye here all the day idle?..................Go ye also into the vineyard." -MATT. xx. 6, 7. "Far more valued is the vine that bends SOUTHEY GIFTS AND GRACES FOR CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. CHAPTER I. THE BEST GIFTS. "Covet earnestly the best gifts."-1 Cor. xii. 31. "Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high, So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be. Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky Shoots higher much than he that means a tree. HERBERT. It is difficult for us, who live under the ordinary operations of the Spirit of God, to pronounce upon the extraordinary endowments that were vouchsafed to the early Church, or to characterize fully the gifts which Christians then possessed; but there is, in St. Paul's account of spiritual gifts at Corinth, so much that belongs to every age and to the universal Church, that we may derive from it many valuable lessons for Christian usefulness now. No period limits the operations of the Holy Ghost. His divine influence is exercised in as diversified modes as ever. The endowments of the spiritual man are imparted by the Spirit, who "works in every man severally as he will." But there is a unity in the diversity. Though, as we have seen in the previous sketches, one excelled in that which another entirely lacked, yet the same Spirit was the author of the difference. The diversity is an adaptation to the circumstances of the Church that proves divinity. We have far more arguments for the being and character of God from the adaptations of matter than from its existence. In like manner, the diversified gifts of the Church, employed in the work of God, attest the Spirit's presence and power. We soon weary of sameness in nature. The desert is dreary. Its pathless waste and herbless sand afford no object on which the eye can rest with pleasure. The sea without a shore,-the blue above, around, below, despite its alternations of storm and calm, is wearisome, and encourages as deep a feeling of solitude as the wide Sahara. A continuous plain, though luxuriant in its verdure and regular in its hedgerows, cannot long fascinate the eye; nor can the extensive forest, with its massive trees, though marvellously relieved by its varied foliage; nor the prairie, with its sweep of hunting ground. But we are charmed with mountain and vale, and wood and water, when together they form a prospect. The landscape has then an attraction. Grandeur and beauty conspire to fascinate. You never weary of the view. Thoughts crowd upon your mind, and nature points to nature's God. Sameness in spiritual gifts would have made the Church's character tame. Variety gives it beauty. The adaptation of the peculiar gifts of individual members gives symmetry to the corporate Church, fits each for his special place, contributes to general utility, and attests, in the works of faith and labours of love and genial graces, the wisdom and love of the indwelling Spirit. We do not live under the ministry of the miraculous, but under the ordinary agency of the Spirit, when gifts are as much a cultivation as an endowment. They are obtained in answer to prayer, and as the result of godly exercise. "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal," that he may understand his position and discharge his duty. "For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit." All have not the same faculties in similar degree or activity;—there are the bright, the mediocre, and the dull. All have not the same tastes ;- -one admires the grand, another the beautiful; one is prosaic, the other is poetic; one is passionate, another is stoical. All have not the same fitness ;-one is too blunt, another too sharp for harmony; one is too soft, another too hard; one is too slow, and another too quick for working together. But each has his own talent, taste, and adaptation. None is denied his share by natural endowment and by the grace of God. Each is a creature of God, designed to show forth and enjoy his glory. Every believer is regenerated by the Holy Ghost, and possesses the renewed image of God for the glory of him who saved him. But the great duty is, to ascertain, cultivate, and use these gifts, in a way that will be most useful in the service of God. Endeavour to ascertain what gifts you have. The best attainments are of no consequence to him who is ignorant of possessing them. They are so much waste capital,-an uncared-for estate. In his ignorance, the heir of lands and dignities has lived contentedly in obscurity; and he to whom the secret of his birth has never been disclosed has been satisfied with a common name. So the soul who is ignorant of the trust to which he is executor, the talent which he holds, acts as if existence were his grand idea. Christian reader! you have a nobler destiny. Capital is invested in you. You hold stock of the King; and according to his infallible estimate of its worth are you responsible, and you must render an account. Consider what you are, as made and endowed by God. As man, you are endowed with faculties and feelings, and have a position and a work. As man redeemed, you partake the life of Christ, the spirit of |