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moral harmony. When the musician tunes his violin, he he links: fixes one string at concert-pitch, and then tightens the others up through all the flats and sharps, and even through the lower harmonies, until they strike the right fifth below and above the key-note. The magnificent tone that it gives out when the strings are at the right tension, is the symbol to the master's quick ear that his fairy-shell is in tune and ready to strike out a perfect tone in answer to his nicest touch. So a soul passes through all the flats and sharps and lower harmonies of wrong-doing until it strikes the harmony of right, and then it rings in unison with the key-note of God's will, to which the morning stars sang together and in which all the sons of God do shout for joy. The happiness of goodness is the ring of the instrument in

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Let this be thy purpose, O friend! to observe the law of right and to do it. Then the sunshine and the storm, the night and the day, the heat and the cold of life's discipline will foster and mature the grain for garners in the sky. This is the great hope of a nation which puts itself on the side of right. It is then bound to the train of providential purposes and influences. This is the ground of my hope in the proclamation of freedom. It is simple obedience to a law, as much as sowing wheat in the spring. It is clasping the extended hand of God. It is putting ourselves in a condi

e must not tion to be ripened by all the moral and spiritual elements

with pur

through winter or summer. If the seed does not blossom and fruiten a hundred fold, it will be either because it has

him as fallen by the way-side of party prejudice; or on the stony

t we ar

ss show choke it.

places of selfishness, where there is no depth of earth; or among the thorns of office-seeking, which will spring up and

There is still a subtler relation of man to God in the laws of the spirit, through love, and prayer, and aspiration. It is possible through these spirit-graces to enter into perfect union with the infinite. This, too, is but the perception of, and obedience to, transcendent law. It is the spirit which unites the father and the child. Though the child in its weakness may not be able to take the father's right hand extended in power and in truth, it may meet him in love. The pure in heart will see God, for perfect love casteth out all fear. We quickly forgive a child who loves us dearly his mistakes in trying to understand our law, and his errors in trying to comprehend our thought. And God comes out to meet man even when he is a great way off, if his face is bright with love. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he first loved us, as a mother loves her unborn child. Through affection, through love to our brother whom we have seen, through the love of beauty everywhere, we enter into secret fellowship with the " divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." It gives us a glance behind the curtain; we feel the pulsations of the central heart and enter into sympathy with the central law. We get near the living centre where the swift wheel of our mysterious fortune seems to stand still.

"We become a living soul;

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things."

The great worth of Jesus' life to the world lies in this: it is a practical illustration of the way to live so that what we bind to our minds, our hearts, our souls, on the earth, shall be bound in heaven. He is a living witness to the way,

the truth, and the life.

And the great beauty of this law

is, that we may enter into perfect harmony with it anywhere in the smallest corner of life where present duty has planted us. The one practical lesson taught by this law is the duty of self-surrender; not in weakness but in strength; not waiting passively to be played upon by the infinite powers, but by bringing our entire energies into concord with them. Self-surrender is the practical duty wherein the two extremes of speculation meet-the fatalist from the one hand and the mystic from the other. The latter would feel his will swallowed up in infinite love. The former would feel his will lost in inevitable law. The difference is speculative and not practical. Law is God's working, and love is God's feeling. His love and labor are identical. So should our love and labor be. For then our feeble lives might so be bound to the infinite life that whatever they secured to themselves here would be secured everywhere.

O the everlasting faithfulness! how it works when we wake and when we sleep, when we weep and when we rejoice. We can not flee from its presence. We would not,

but would hide ourselves in a cheerful self-surrender beneath its overshadowing wings, and live forever in its beautiful pavilion.

"Like warp and woof, all destinies

Are woven fast;

Linked in sympathy, like the keys
Of an organ vast.

Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar;
Break but one

Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar
Through all will run."

O restless spirit! wherefore strain
Beyond thy sphere?

Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain,
Are now and here."

V.

THE JOY OF JESUS.

THE men of the New Testament were men of joy. They differ from those of the Old Testament only in this: their joy is too deep for words; too quiet and all-pervading to be wholly spoken, even in worship; for a great joy, like a great sorrow, craves silence and mocks at words. All the higher emotions require a still and quiet heart for their home; else they stay but a short time in one place.

Some people use joy all up at once in a grand illumination of impulse that leaves the night cold and dark-so do the Methodists. Others use it as we do coal-put it in the heart of the furnace, and silently warm the whole house with it-so did the Quakers. Such is the New Testament joy-a silent, all-pervading gladness, which warmed into life every noble and manly quality. A joy hid in the very roots of the tree of life; but making all its sap sweet, its trunk firm, its boughs graceful, its leaf green, and its fruit rich and mellow.

Do you think that Jesus was never glad nor happy ; never felt his whole soul thrilled with holy joy? He whose soul was all music; whose lips poured out melody like wine; whose spirit played on every string of the human heart; whose eye missed no touch of beauty, from the lily that glorified the grass to the lightning that leaped from one part of the heaven unto the other! Is it possible for a soul

to be so entirely in harmony with the universe and its God, so sensitive to the touch of spirit-fingers, and yet be nothing but a "man of sorrows"? I think not.

You say

that he sorrowed for sin as none other, and felt the wickedness of the world as none other. True; but did he not also see more virtue and moral beauty than ever blessed a mortal eye? We should have mourned over Magdalene as only a lost one; but he saw so much good in her to rejoice in, that he said, "Neither do I condemn thee." We look upon prodigals as objects for our tears only; but he heard the music and dancing which would celebrate his return, even while he was feeding on swine-husks. We should have lost all patience with the vacillations of Peter and the rest; they seemed only to endear them to him.

I tell you that no man can look upon this universe as Jesus did and not be happy. His biographers have naturally given only the severe, missionary side of his life. But there was another side, a rich, sunny side, to it, which we would as gladly know. He certainly enjoyed social life. He went to a wedding of his friend and countryman, and made him a present of the best wine. He was often asked out to dine, even with the Roman officers and sinners, and he always went. At evening, when the day's teaching was over, he walked out to Bethany, to spend the night with Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus. Was there no rejoicing there? No recounting the experiences of the day? No real human enjoyment of the home circle? No real friendly talk, as between men and women? It would be a libel upon him and his doctrine to say so. And besides, we have conclusive evidence that he wore a smiling face in this-that children loved him and went to him, and he took them up in his Now, children know who love them and who do not,

arms.