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
highest meditations or creations of genius which edify or instruct
only our own solitary soul.


II. The spiritual unity of the Church--"the same Spirit."

Men have formed to themselves two ideas of unity: the first is a
sameness of form--of expression; the second an identity of spirit.
Some of the best of mankind have fondly hoped to realize an unity for
the Church of Christ which should be manifested by uniform expressions
in everything: their imaginations have loved to paint, as the ideal of
a Christian Church, a state in which the same liturgy should be used
throughout the world, the same ecclesiastical government, even the
same vestments, the same canonical hours, the same form of
architecture. They could conceive nothing more entirely one than a
Church so constituted that the same prayers, in the very same
expressions, at the very same moment, should be ascending to the
Eternal Ear.

There are others who have thrown aside entirely this idea as
chimerical; who have not only ceased to hope it, but even to wish it;
who if it could be realized, would consider it a matter of regret; who
feel that the minds of men are various--their modes and habits of
thought, their original capacities and acquired associations,