the world in glory; but while he lives, thirsting for a drop of cordial love, the world will say, "Art thou this man's friend also ?" And how many shameless ones will swear they never knew him, and then sigh for the former times, which were better than these.

"Thus we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,

Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the

This is all false reasoning and false sentiment, which emasculates society. It is inquiring unwisely. It is missing the meaning of the past. What has come out of the former times was in them as a tree is in an acorn; but it was not visible to such men as now sigh for those times.

The Jews made much of being Abraham's children. Jesus tells them they are not Abraham's children, because they slay him; this did not Abraham. The heroes of any time are the men who see the promise of a great future in the dull routines of the present, and live and labor for them. Their labor is foolishness to the merely comfortable men of all time; but to the right-minded it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, the lesson this should teach us is, not impatience and disgust with the present, but the opposite. It should teach us that all the issues of the future are sprouting in the germ-cells of this hour, strengthened by all the nurture of the past. Oh! there was never such a time as this. All that has gone before us is emptied into the lap of to-day; and all that comes after us must issue from to-day. I have often wished that I had lived in this period or that of the past; but I would rather

live now than at any time since God said, "Let there be light!"

"'Tis an age on ages telling;

To be living is sublime!"

All our delays, and disappointments, and fears of complication; all our pecuniary distress and domestic sorrow, are but the birth-pangs of a higher civilization. Those who live after us will think of us as glorified by the issues which follow-as being above all murmuring and complaint. If we inquire wisely, we shall say, "No time was ever better than this time; but, O God! give us the wisdom to see and feel thy purposes in all this trial, and sorrow, and loss." Every age which is glorious in the past is pleading with us to make this age sublime. May we count every thing as dross when weighed against the possibility of freeing civilization from the thraldom of a great iniquity!

And once more. The church does not inquire wisely when she holds up a remote past as the only age of inspiration, and light, and miracle. To do this, is to judge the Christian era itself unjustly. That was its infancy, it is stronger now; that was the day of its poverty, it is richer now; 'that was its beginning, now we have its development. Why should we judge this religion by its childhood, when its manhood is before us? If the result proves that it has not accomplished all that was hoped for it, and promised of it, the truth should be frankly confessed. If it has accomplished more, the fact should be just as frankly admitted. At all events, it is unwise to judge it only by its promise. Christianity has accomplished more than it promised at first; but very differently than it promised. It did not become a theocracy, as was expected, but a republic. It did not close up the world's affairs, but it gave them a new

career.

It did not remain a distinct and separate influence, but became absorbed in the great natural forces of society, and now works in a thousand unanointed ways, where it is not seen nor felt as Christianity. Its efforts to raise men above their condition, and show them the Father, have been aided immensely by all the independent developments of science, of art, of literature, and all the social enterprises and reforms. These are not the fruits of Christianity so much as its natural helps. And so the religious facilities of today are a thousandfold greater than they were at the introduction of Christianity. God is in the world as he never was before-in the thought of the wise and the goodness of the good.

XVI.

THE PURE IN HEART.

BUT most important of all is a pure heart as a condition of right thinking. I do not mean by this that the affections may or can do the work of the practical understanding, to which alone belong all the processes of forming an opinion or pronouncing a judgment. But no man can observe the sources and the strength of error without seeing that it is oftener due to the heart than the head; to false feeling than wrong thinking; to reluctance or proneness of affection than to weakness or limitation of reasoning. And, on the other hand, it is impossible to deny that the success of research depends closely upon the singleness of aim with which it is undertaken, and the fearlessness of purpose with which it is pursued. No man can hope to see God in truth-that is, to find the absolute truth—if his heart is continually casting side-glances at his personal interests. This clear on-looking of the heart is so essential to the perception of truth, that God seems to have secured it to genius by a certain obtuseness of sensibility concerning the consequences of fearless, aggressive thought.

There is no protection for us against the refractions of false affection but in the love of God, which occupies the entire mind, heart, and will. That is, unless we love the absolute and seek it; unless we are always willing to believe

that we have as yet seen but a small part of the whole truth; unless we keep the windows of our souls open to the ever-increasing brightness of the rising sun of truth, it is impossible that we should not warp our minds to do the work of justifying our prejudices and excusing our prepossessions. A great deal of what is called reasons for belief is merely excuses for belief already formed. There is no infallible action of truth upon the understanding which secures it against these biases of the heart. It is impossible for a mind to justly comprehend the testimony of the rocks when the heart is determined that they shall testify to the correctness of the Mosaic account of the creation. The mind can not understand the relation of the earth to the sun, if the heart is preoccupied by Jewish astronomy. No critical understanding can determine what the Bible actually teaches so long as the heart adores it as an infallible fetich. You remember the controversy between the dissenter and the English bishop upon the right of the Established Church to tax dissenters. The bishop was unable to see the injustice of it, and the dissenter, in despair of convincing him, took out a piece of paper and wrote on it the word "God," and said to the bishop, "Do you see that?" "Yes, to be sure I do." He then took a guinea and put it over the word, and said, "Now can you see it ?" "Not through that piece of gold," was the indignant reply.

How constantly one comes upon that piece of gold between the eyes of men and God! In despair, you see the clearest arguments fly off from the fore-closed mind like hailstones from a slated roof. The bias of the heart admits only that kind of light to the mind which will make the whole world appear red, green, or blue, according as the emotional medium is. It is not always right to say that