and they know a happy face from an unhappy one. Those children who wanted to get near to Jesus, and sit on his knee, couldn't have been hired or whipped to go to John Calvin, or Jonathan Edwards, or Dr. Emmons. Think of a little child wanting to go to such ministers as we knew when we were children, and especially when they were in the very act of teaching, with all their church members around them; when their faces were strung up to the tension of infant damnation; "knitting their brows like gathering storm"! Jesus was no such man. There was no glare of awful dogma in his eye, no tone of vengeance in his voice, else he would never have been the children's friend. They felt drawn to him, and he to them. We can just guess with what a yearning he pressed them to his heart, rejoicing in spirit that, though God had hid the everlasting truth from the wise and prudent, he had revealed it unto babes. He must have loved children, or they would not have loved him. If he did love them, he must have been happy as often as he saw their bright and trustful faces greeting him like a fresh "Good morning" from God.

VI.

REJOICE IN THE LORD.

Sadness Joy is the ring of health in any man or woman. and melancholy come to us all in a personal way, and we must yield as the tree bows to a tempest. But it is not the normal condition. When the storm is past, the tree rights itself, and stands straight and handsome. So ought a soul to rebound from sorrow, and not cherish it as a thing to be loved. It will not please the dead we grieve for, to see us sad. Paul enjoined the Corinthians expressly upon this matter, that they must not sorrow as others who have no hope, lest the heathen should think that the Christian religion was not so cheerful and hopeful as their own.

And

that is the right frame of mind to cherish; the habit of looking at the bright side, and hoping for the best. It is best for ourselves; it is most helpful to others, and it shows a more perfect trust in God.

It is best for ourselves, because it is the condition of all kinds of growth. Every thing that grows is cheerful in its growth. The mind grows best when the heart is hopeful. It is then in the same mood in which the creation was made. God made the universe in a loving mood, and hence, as we put ourselves into the same frame of mind, we get hold of its secrets, and comprehend its truths. If you want to enjoy a piece of music fully, you need an argument or libretto, which puts you into the author's mood; then.

the spirit and life of the music runs from his soul into yours, and you sigh and smile, and love and hate with him. So it is in our relation to this life. God ordained it in a mood of love; a love, indeed, which often rises into the higher and grander offices of discipline, under which generations sometimes bend and break; but still, as each long-hidden purpose comes to light, it is hailed as a token of a love grander than we had dreamed, more beautiful than we had hoped. I will listen to a cheerful teacher, for he is in the way of truth; but away with whine and snivel in theology as in science. Why, out of all the moods which human beings are capable of, they should have chosen the grave and mournful alone for worship, I know not. You may talk with a man upon all other subjects in a bright, cheerful way, and natural tone, as if there were grand things to live and hope for; but the moment you touch upon religion and the good God who gave all, and the good soul that may inherit all, you are amazed at the change which comes over him. His chin drops, his words are drawled, his tone changed; he stops laughing and wants to cry, as if you had referred to some delicate family matter which had broken his heart. The old Jew would have been disgusted with such performances before the Lord, and washed his hands in token of purification. If there is any one thing for which I respect Beecher more than another, it is for the merciless war which he has waged upon the whole tribe of pious croakers and snivelers, and the way in which he has insisted upon manly and womanly speech upon this as all other

matters.

There is a sublime trust implied in calm and conquering cheerfulness. The soul seems to have such an understanding with the universe; such a childlike confidence that its

Father will do all things well. That a being so frail as man,
with such a destiny at stake, in a condition so grand, walk-
ing amid forces whose rage he is impotent to control-that
such a one can be cheerful and happy, shows an inborn
conviction that God holds them all in the hollow of his
hand. How sublime is such a trust! How it contrasts
with the fearful gloom of guilt! How thrillingly Robert
Browning brings the two into contrast in "Pippa Passes!"
In the palace of the murdered Cenci are Ottima and her
paramour, hating the light and all living sounds, and mock-
Un-
ing at all the wealth which crime has brought them.
der their window, the little factory-girl passes to enjoy her
one holiday, and sings as she goes,

"The year's at the spring; the day's at the morn;
The morning's at seven; the hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing; the snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven; all's right with the world."

Oh! that cheerful, childlike trust, which believes that all is right with the world because God is in heaven; which believes that whatever storms shake earth or heaven, the everlasting pillars are not shaken. Is it not sublime?

ering tand

VII.

THE LIFE WHICH NOW IS.

THE true condition of growth is fixedness and fidelity in the present condition. The best way to become a perfect man is to be a perfect child. The only hope of being able to think, and speak, and understand, as a man or a woman, lies in our first understanding, thinking, and speaking as a boy or girl. This thought is getting to be the conviction of the world more and more. It is the undertone of morality in all the best moods of the day. It is the direct teaching of the best poetry. Tennyson, the Brownings, Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow, and the rest unite in a grand resolve that,

"Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more

For olden time and holier shore;

God's love and blessing then and there
Are now, and here, and everywhere."

And I believe that the pulpit-teaching of all live men was never so harmonious as at the present hour upon this subject that the true way of possessing the future is through fidelity to the present; and that the old method of teaching men to spend this life in looking away from it, either forward or backward, is simply mischievous. Concerning the old dogmas, the live and inspired men of all sects are saying, as Jesus said to the disciple, "Let the dead bury the