tried was that of utility--not utility in the low sense
of the utilitarian, who measures the value of a thing by its
susceptibility of application to the purpose of this present life, but
a utility whose measure was love, charity. The apostle considered
_that_ gift most desirable by which men might most edify one another.
And hence that noble declaration of one of the most gifted of
mankind--"I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I
might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown
tongue."

Our estimate is almost the reverse of this: we value a gift in
proportion to its rarity, its distinctive character, separating its
possessor from the rest of his fellow-men; whereas, in truth, those
gifts which leave us in lonely majesty apart from our species, useless
to them, benefiting ourselves alone, are not the most godlike, but the
least so; because they are dissevered from that beneficent charity
which is the very being of God. Your lofty incommunicable thoughts,
your ecstasies, and aspirations, and contemplative raptures--in virtue
of which you have estimated yourself as the porcelain of the earth, of
another nature altogether than the clay of common spirits--tried by
the test of Charity, what is there grand in these if they cannot be
applied as blessings to those that are beneath you? One of our
countrymen has achieved for himself extraordinary scientific renown;
he pierced the mysteries of nature, he analysed her processes, he gave
new elements to the world. The same man applied his rare intellect to
the construction of a simple and very common instrument--that
well-known lamp which has been the guardian of the miner's life from
the explosion of fire. His discoveries are his nobility in this world,
his trifling invention gives him rank in the world to come. By the
former he shines as one of the brightest luminaries in the firmament
of science, by the latter evincing a spirit animated and directed by
Christian love, he takes his place as one of the Church of God.

And such is ever the true order of rank which graces occupy in
reference to gifts. The most trifling act which is marked by
usefulness to others is nobler in God's sight, than the most brilliant
accomplishment of genius. To teach a few Sunday-school children, week
after week, commonplace simple truths--persevering in spite of
dullness and mean capacities--is a more glorious occupation than the