have rapidly sketched. She consecrated her rank, her substance, her talents, and her time, to the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom in the souls of men. Has the reader any of these talents? Then trade with them, and do the Lord's work. They will increase in the service, and the experience of well-doing will stimulate new efforts. Lady Huntingdon followed the Lord Jesus during a long, and busy, and fruitful life, and could say, My work is done. I have nothing to do but to go to my heavenly Father." What a joyous welcome would hail her there! "Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 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 SOUTHRY. 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 exerIcised 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 |