On this point the Christian Church is very low. The living child has lain so close to the world’s bosom that she has overlaid it in the night, and stifled its troublesome cry. After all our familiarity with the Catechism, we need yet to learn “what is the _chief_ end of man,” and what should be compelled to stand aside as a secondary thing. We need from all who fear the Lord, a long, loud testimony against the practice of heartlessly subordinating human bodies and souls to the accumulation of material wealth. [_May 13._] A CHRISTIAN DESCRIBED.[G] By the REV. W. JAY. Who are they that principally occupy the pen of biographers, and allure the attention of readers? Travelers, painters, poets, scholars, writers, philosophers, statesmen, princes. All these have their respective and comparative claims, which we by no means wish to undervalue. But, my brethren, we are going to bring forward this evening a character often, indeed, like the original, “despised and rejected of men,” but superior to them all, and great where they are nothing,—great in the sight of the Lord,—great in the desolation of the universe, great in the annals of eternity: a Christian. 1. Let us consider the _commonness of the appellation_. We may take _three_ views of the commonness of this name. [Footnote G: “A Christian.”—1 Peter iv: 16. A sermon.] In one respect _the commonness is astonishing and should be convincing_. We may say to an infidel, Pray how came this name to be so common as it now is? The founder (we now refer to his humanity; and the argument requires such a reference)—the founder was a poor man, a mechanic in a village. “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.” He had received no university education; he was trained up at the feet of no Gamaliel; the people therefore said, “How knoweth this man letters, never having learned?” It was said of him, not only that “the common people heard him gladly,” but that “many of the rulers believed on him.” The chief ministers in his new empire were a company of fishermen in the Lake of Galilee; and the kingdom itself was established on the overthrow of every worldly opinion and fashion. When we consider the nature of the doctrines they preached—the difficulties they had to overcome, in the profligacy of the multitude, in the subtlety of philosophers, in the covetousness of priests, in the opposition and edicts of magistrates and emperors,—and when we consider their natural resourcelessness in themselves, what can be more astonishing than that this name should be spread so rapidly from province to province, and from country to country, till before the termination of three centuries it had reached the boundaries of the unwieldy Roman empire. It has since far surpassed them, and is now advancing toward the ends of the earth.... “His name shall endure forever: his name shall be continued