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 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, infinitely diverse; and who, perceiving that the law of the universal system is manifoldness in unity, have ceased to expect any other oneness for the Church of Christ than that of a sameness of spirit, showing itself through diversities of gifts.  Among these last was the Apostle Paul:  his large and glorious mind rejoiced in the contemplation of the countless manifestations of spiritual nature beneath which he detected one and the same pervading Mind.  Now let us look at this matter somewhat more closely.

1.  All real unity is manifold.  Feelings in themselves identical find countless forms of expression:  for instance, sorrow is the same feeling throughout the human race; but the Oriental