Catalog.

You see, then, how in a variety of ways the fact that every man may set an example generates this other fact, that every man may be partaker of the sins of other men. We allow no man to shelter himself under the plea of insignificance. We deny that a man can be insignificant; he was formed in the image of his God, he is destined to be immortal. We deny yet more strongly a Christian to be insignificant; he is "a city set upon a hill;" penury cannot make him insignificant, lowliness of station cannot make him insignificant; he is a new creature, and as a new creature must attract attention and become a centre of influence. There is not one of you whose actions do not operate on the actions of others—operate, we mean, in the way of example. He would be insignificant who could only destroy his own soul; but you are all, alas! of importance enough to help also to destroy the souls of others; and hence forwards we would have you remember, that whensoever you act you act for a multitude; eyes are upon you, many or few, according to the position that you occupy ; some are either watching to take pattern, or waiting for your halting. Be vicious, and viciousness may go down as an heirloom in half a hundred families; be inconsistent, and enmity to the gospel may be propagated over a parish ; give occasions of offence, and many may fall; those who are entering in the narrow way may be discouraged, and those who have already entered may be made to stumble. Ye live not for yourselves; ye cannot live for yourselves ; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects. Ye sin not for yourselves; ye cannot sin for yourselves; ye are members of a body, and as no member can suffer alone, neither can any be injurious alone. Oh! fearful but unquestioned power which every one of us possesses—the power through the influence of example of multiplying ourselves, so that we may sin in places where we have never been, and in times when we shall not be alive. Example is like the press; a thing done is the thought printed; it may be repeated, if it cannot be recalled; it has gone forth, with a self-propagating power, and may run to the ends of the earth, and descend from generation to generation. So then, my brethren, appear we must at the tribunal of God; judged we must be by things done in the body; but when our personal actions have all been examined and weighed in themselves, alas! alas! there may remain a catalogue which thought itself can hardly measure; and these may be made up of infractions—infractions through example, for example may be justly said to bid God speed to evil doers—infractions to the prohibition contained in the words—"He that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

Reverend Henry Melvill