the Gospel to be received, whilst by the rich it should be re- jected and despised. Nor did our blessed Lord merely affirm this, but lie accounted it a fit subject of praise and thanks- giving : " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes H" And now look around, and see if it be not thus at this day. Who are they that value the Gospel? Who are they that attend it, wherever it is preached with effect? Some, indeed, there are of the wise and rich ; but very few in comparison ; so few, that if a man of wealth and learning shew a decided love to the Gospel, he is regarded almost as a phenomenon ; and that, too, no less by the Church than by the world itself. The great mass of religious people are of the poorer class ; so that at this day, no less than in the apostolic age, when that appeal of the Apostle James is made to us, " Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to them that love hims?" there is but one answer that can be given to it: we must say, It is even so ; it is from among the poor, and not from amongst the rich, that God has formed his Church : it is "■ of unhewn stones that his altar is made'^;" and "of these very stones that he has raised up children to Abraham'."]
Seeing, then, that what we have asserted is an unquestionable fact, let us, IL Account for it —
We might be satisfied with referring it, as our blessed Lord does, to the sovereign will of God : " Even so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight \" should be quite sufficient for us. But we may trace the fact to natural causes. The rich, from the very circum- stance of their elevation in society, are under consi- derable disadvantages, beyond what are experienced by the poor :
1. They are more blinded by prejudice —
[Into the minds of the higher orders of society prejudices are instilled from their earliest infancy. Rehgious people are kept at a distance from them ; religious books are taken out of their hands ; and religious sentiments are branded with every epithet that can render them odious. For one word that would lead them to God, a hundred are spoken to draw them from him. Let them betray a love to earthly things, and no one will offer a sentiment to turn them from such an evil way: but
f Matt. xi. 25, 26. g Jam. ii. 5. i' Exod. xx. 25.
i Matt. iii. 9. ^ Matt. xi. 26.