here, was my mind deeply affected by exhibitions of his profound humility. From my childhood, I had considered it a privilege to sit at his feet, and learn wisdom. And yet repeatedly did he, with child-like frankness and sincerity, request me to converse with him respecting the nature of his religious exercises. Never have I known an individual whose views of the evil of sin were clearer, and whose sense of personal vileness was deeper than were his. And yet he was a cheerful Christian. He had clear views of the plan of salvation. While he loathed himself on account of sin, he joyfully believed that he could be forgiven, sanctified, and saved by the blood of Christ ;-that "grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ."

After the infirmities, and especially the weakness of his limbs, render it difficult for him to go out, his delight in the services of the sanctuary, led him to make great exertions to attend upon them. None who had the privilege of listening to his addresses at communion seasons, can have forgotten the tenderness and unction by which they were characterized. On those occasions his heart evidently glowed with love to the Saviour and the souls of men.

On the 24th day of September. 1843, (which was the fiftysixth anniversary of his ordination,) he preached his last sermon, on the appropriate text, "Brethren, the time is short." This discourse, though not written, was richly stored with appropriate and striking thoughts, delivered with great earnestness and solemnity, and was listened to with fixed attention and deep feeling. The last time he entered this house was on the 28th of July, 1847, when he was called to follow his eldest son, Addison, to the grave. Bowed down with grief, as he then was, and when years before bereaved of his sons William and David, he acknowledged the hand of God in these deeply afflictive visitations, and bowed in sweet submission to the Divine will.

Dr. Porter was an ardent lover of the Word and people of God. After he was confined to his house, he read the Scriptures with great constancy and delight, and derived great enjoyment from the conversation and prayers of Christian friends, and his brethren in the ministry.

With the thoughts of death he was familiar. For years he habitually looked for his summons to eternity. Deep as was his sense of sin and desert of evil at the hand of God, and solemn as were his impressions of a removal from a world of trial to one of eternal retribution, through Christ, he expected to triumph over the last enemy. On one occasion some four or five years since, when I was alone with him, after he had spoken with great seriousness of the solemnity of dying and appearing in the presence of a holy God, with his characteristic brevity and point, he said, "] am ready." When I approached his bed on Wednesday evening of last week; the stupor induced by his dise

such that I feared he would never again in this world recog nize me. In a short time, however, he did, but was unable to converse. The next morning he roused from his lethargy. When I was about to pray with him, I said, Dr. Porter, have you any request which you wish me to make for you? He promptly, replied "Yes, that God may be glorified." This was worthy of his best days, and would have done honor to any inhabitant of earth or heaven. We rejoice in the belief that the request has been in part granted by the admission of his ransomed spirit into the world of the holy and the glorified. Much as we feel our loss in his death, we cannot wish him back again in this world of sin and sorrow. When I think of my obligations to this beloved man, of the interest which he took in me in my childhood, his kind offices in counselling me and directing my studies preparatory to the ministry, and his friendship to the close of his life, I cannot refrain from giving utterance to the emotions of my soul in the language of Elisha when Elijah was taken from him to heaven: "My father! my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." God in his infinate mercy grant, my dear brethren, that his mantle and a large measure of his spirit may rest upon us.

While we deeply sympathize with you, bereaved friends, we cannot forbear to remind you that there are rich cordials in the bitter cup which you are called to drink. The endeared husband, father, and grand-parent, whose loss you deplore, was spared to you till he had completed more than half of his ninetieth year. Such was his character, that you will ever have occasion to contemplate it with gratitude and pleasure. His memory is fragrant with all that is estimable in human nature, and sactified by the Spirit of holiness. Between you, my venerable friend, and the companion whom God has taken from you, the separation will be short. For almost sixty years, you have traveled the path of life together, and you will soon be reunited. When it shall be the good pleasure of your Heavenly Father to call your spirit to the world of the holy and the blessed, I doubt not that of your departed husband will be first to welcome yours to its pure and blissful companionship and employments, and its sweet and everlasting rest. Could his lips, now sealed in death, give utterance to the most fondly cherished desires of his heart respecting you all, bereaved friends, I do not doubt it would be, that you and your posterity, to the latest generation, might glorify God on earth and enjoy him eternally in heaven.

To this entire community, the death of Dr. Porter is a deeply solemn event. You have all witnesssed his catholic spirit, and benevolent labors among you. You have listened to the words of eternal life as they dropped from his lips, rs which he offered for your temporal and This side of eternity, you will see his

and t

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face and hear his voice no more. He has gone to render up his account, and, through grace in Christ, to receive the recompense promised to his devoted servants. O that by lives consecrated to the service of God, you may be prepared to meet him in heaven!

To those of you who were permitted to sit under his ministry while he was the pastor of this church and congregation, this an hour of solemn and thrilling interest. It is inseparably connected with the remembrance of his faithful ministrations among you. You are witnesses of his ardent desires aud untiring labors to glorify God by training up the members of his flock for usefulness and heaven. His laborious efforts to establish your faith in the great facts, doctrines, and duties of revealed religion, you cannot have forgotten. It was his earnest desire and prayer that you might be established immovably in the belief and love of the truth, and that its blessed fruits might be exhibited in your lives. His public and private labors for these infinitely important ends, and his fervent prayers for your salvation, have not faded from your memories. But the depth of his solicitude for you, and his holy wrestlings with God in secret that you might be sound in the faith, and a united and eminently holy church, you will never know till the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. God grant that the ministry of his servant among you may be a savor of life unto life" to you all.

And now, devoted and beloved servant of God, a short farewell. May the grace that made thee what thou wast as a saint, and as a minister of the Lord Jesus, prepare us to meet and dwell with thee eternally in heaven. Amen.

SERMON DXLI.

BY REV. JAMES M. MACDONALD,

FIFTEENTH STREET CHURCH, N. Y.

INFLUENCE AFTER DEATH.

"He being dead, yet speaketh"-HEBREWS 11 : 4.

AMONG the numerous examples which the Apostles gives in this chapter, to illustrate the nature and fruits of the grace of faith, is that of Abel. By his faith he offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. There was an essential defect in Cain's offering. It was not a sacrifice. It consisted of the fruits of the ground]; it pointed not to the great sacrifice to be made for sin by the Lamb of God; and therefore, instead of being a sign of his faith, it proved that he was destitute of this saving principle. Abel offered the firstlings of the flock, thus acknowledging himself to be a sinner, who could be saved only through the blood of atonement. And when he fell by the hand of his vindictive brother, his soul went to the embraces of that Saviour, whose blood, by the eye of faith, he saw typified in the crimson drops that stained his own altar.

The example of Abel is full of instruction: "By it, he being dead, yet speaketh," declaring that God may be worshipped ecceptably, through faith in Christ; that sin cannot be pardoned without an atonement; that Christ is the only propitiation for our sins; that true faith and repentance are connected with righteousness of life; that such a life, although it may excite the rage and persecution of the enemies of God, whilst it will not be without a glorious reward in tha life to come, will be exerting a silent but mighty influence, after death has done its work on the body.

The influence of good men, in this world, after their death, is the important subject which the text naturally suggests, and to which your attention is invited.

We are too prone to feel that our influence is to cease at death. True, that when we leave the world we shall cease to exert any more influence upon it in the ordinary mode, by

which living men exert an influence upon one another. The voice that was eloquent in defence of the great principles of justice or freedom, or in defending the doctrines and enforcing the truths of the Gospel, is heard no more. The eye that beamed with affection and intelligence is closed in the socket. The hand that was skilful in works of art, or that was held out to stay the tottering steps of the feeble, or to point men the way to heaven, is wrapped in the shroud. But our influence may outlast-the influence of some good men, and of some bad men, too, has outlasted-the marble which affection rears to commemorate their names. Our dust may be blown, and "no mound or stone tell whither," but our influence cannot thus be lost. It can be sealed up in no sepulchre, nor blown away by any wind.

We, my hearers, now feel the influence of those who lived before us, and whose bodies long since furnished their last meal to the hungry worm. Men inherit not merely the possessions of the dead-the houses they built, the fields they cultivated-but to some extent their principles and their habits. We are not only on the same stage on which those who have gone before us acted their parts, but are reproducing the same characters, and acting over again the same parts. Only the dramatis personae have been changed. A century ago, there were here, as now, parents and children, teachers and scholars, magistrates and subjects, pastors and hearers. Could we take a whole view of the past, and compare it with society as it is at present, although we might descry many beneficial and some sad changes, we should doubtless appear but as the representatives or substitutes of the forefathers who slumber in the grave-yard. Death, the great harvester, will continue to put in the sickle; others will soon stand, or sit, in the places we now fill. We shall die but God grant that instead of the fathers may be the children; and that there may never be wanting those who shall contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, and by holiness of life, shall witness a good profession. And when, at the voice of the archangel, the ancient covering of the grave shall be broken, and parents shall meet their children and their children's children, and ministers and people shall stand confronted at the bar of Christ, God grant that it may then appear, to our common and everlasting joy, that we have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. As we feel the influence of those that have gone before us, and rejoice in it, to the same extent in which they were the faithful followers of Christ, so must they who come after us feel ours, and they will rise up and call us blessed, if the silent voice we leave behind us shall plead for virtue and for God. How naturally, then, does it follow that we should live every day, not for the present alone, but for future genera tions. We owe them a debt-the same debt which past generations owed us. The past we are not to despise; it