to speak of the charities, the industries, the humanities, the reforms, in church, city, and nation, which he organized, or helped to organize, and became the heart and soul of. In everything that he attempted the advocacy or advancement of he was, or soon became, by the persistent wish and will of all, the man.

As a reformer, in church, society, or state, one sentence as applied to him may express it all, "Nobility is insensibility to opinion." He invariably sought not the praises of man, but the praise of God; and though no man could be more tender of the feelings of others than was he-as tender as the fondest mother of her dearest child-yet such was his loyalty to Truth and Right, that he spared the feelings of no one; nay, mortified, wounded, crucified his own feelings, if circumstances required, in order to stand by what his intellect assured him was true, or to defend what his conscience pointed out as right. From his pulpit, and from whatever position, public or private, he assumed, in other language he continually exclaimed-"Aloft on the throne of God, and not below in the footprints of the trampling multitude, are the sacred rules of right, which no majorities can misplace or overturn." And this is why he was never the preacher, teacher, or leader of the masses; was never in any way or sense, what we call popular. His head and his heart, his intellect and his conscience, his theories and his principles were too lofty for the masses to reach; and he was too God-like, for the sake of mere popularity, to abandon them and come down.

It is without doubt providential that among the teachers of the world, especially among religious teachers, both intellect and conscience are so graded as to constitute a sort of Jacob's ladder, whose bottom rests on the earth but whose top at the same time touches Heaven. Upon the uppermost rounds of this ladder stand a few of God's most highly favored and endowed, whose mission it is to take directly from Him revelations of truth and duty and hand them down to a succession of less highly favored and endowed, grade by grade, until at length they reach the earth. In their transmission they become, of necessity perhaps, per

haps providentially, less and less heavenly,-more and more of the earth, earthy; so adapting themselves to the less and less heavenly, more and more earthy-mindedness of the dif ferent grades of teachers and of men; until finally, in some diluted form, they reach and are received by the masses. The preachers, teachers, leaders of the masses must of necessity be more or less like the masses, of the earth, earthy. "From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will ye also go away?"

This modern Prophet-Priest was one of the chosen few, one of the Anointed of God, whose station is appointed to them upon the topmost round of the ladder of Heavenly Revelation. To desert that station and come down would be not only to leave a gap in the line, but also to debase and degrade the sublime endowments wherewith God has providentially, and for providential purposes endowed them.

Why did he not resort to the tricks and devices of the ministerial trade, to fill his church, Sunday after Sunday, with an applauding multitude! Why did he consent patiently, nay even submissively, to speak his best words-which, to those who had ears to hear them, were the words of God's highest angels-much of the time to half-filled pews; or even, at times, as did Jesus at the well of Samaria, to a single listening auditor? Why did not he, endowed as he was with so large a measure of the wisdom of Plato, the eloquence of Demosthenes, the piety of David, the faith of Paul and the tender, glowing heart of love of the Master himself—why did not he, thus endowed, grow envious of some of the great congregations which thronged the churches about him, and enter the list as a rival of ministers whose name and fame were upon everybody's lips?

"Then the Evil One taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me; and Jesus said unto him, get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."

He loved men and the approbation of men, but he loved God and the approbation of his own conscience far better; this is why he did not, why he could not descend to become either the idol or the mouth-piece of the masses. He knew that it was his mission to be a teacher of teachers;-to teach and charm those who were to teach and charm others, which others were in the end to teach and charm the multitude; and true to his mission he was; though all his life long it caused him to stand comparatively deserted, and at timeswith God-alone! And yet, what a band of the very elect, small in numbers though it was, he gathered and held ever about him.

New York city directly, and indirectly New York state, and all the states in this union of states, owe more, in intellectual, moral, social, and political influence, of the highest leadership and type, to the past half-century's personalities, words, and works of the congregation of the church of which this Prophet-Priest was pastor-than to any other half-dozen churches combined in New York city or Brooklyn, we may venture to affirm.

Distinguished names might be mentioned as confirmations, and many facts might be adduced to strengthen the confirmation; such as the leadership which he himself and his prominent parishioners had, and have, ever bravely assumed and persistently held, over almost every organization, project, or movement which had in view the radical remedy and reformation of public affairs.

The Sibyl of ancient times wrote her prophecies on the loose leaves of trees, and made the winds her messengers, to bear them everywhere. Such, not in fable but in fact, is the influence which this modern Prophet-Priest exerted for more than forty years upon his city, his country, the world.

May similar priests-similar in spirit and method if not in endowments and power-in ever increasing numbers— arise to lead and feed the flock of Christ, and to hasten on that Renascence of Christianity which shall be a glorious fulfilment of his prophecy, who said, "There shall be one fold and one Shepherd."

LI. OUR RECENT PROPHET-BISHOP-SENTENCES SELECTED

FROM HIS SERMONS.

"I shall grow so that I shall be able to understand vastly more of what God is and of what He is doing. God also will be ever doing new things. Therefore each year

grows sacred with wondering expectation. . . . Be ready for any overturnings, even of the things which have seemed most eternal, if by these overturnings God can come to be more the King of His own Earth. . A universal Commerce is creating common bases and forms of thought. For the first time in the history of the world there is a manifest, almost an immediate possibility of a universal religion. Our ordinary life so hangs fast in the dull middle regions of conventional propriety and selfish expediency, that it becomes, not the fountain, but the grave of individuality. Let us put aside everything that hinders the highest from coming to us. . . He who takes any new word of God completely gets both a new truth and a new duty-is continually seeing new truth and accepting the duties that arise out of it. Oh, if you could only know two things about yourself: first, that you are a different creature from any that the world has ever seen; and second, that you are a real utterance of the same Spirit of Life out of which sprang Isaiah and St. John. God has been here, and God is here still. That miracles have ceased is a sign of increasing spirituality. and inventory Deity. believers and weary, dreary workers, how we need the Holy Spirit! The power of the Holy Spirit—an everlasting spiritual presence among men! What but this is the thing we want? Insist on having your soul get

It is not for us to catalogue Oh, in this world of shallow

at God and hear His voice. Be profoundly honest. Never dare to say, through conformity to what you know you are expected to say, one word which at the moment when you say it you do not believe. Seek great experiences of the soul, and never turn your back on them when God sends them, as He surely will.

Revelation is not the unveiling of God, but a changing of the veil that covers Him. For man to accept the pattern of his living absolutely from any other being besides God in all the universe would be for him to sacrifice himself and lose his originality. Because

no other being ever was or ever will be just the same as you, and because precisely the same conditions never before have been and never will be grouped about any other mortal life as are grouped around yours, therefore for you to do and be what you, with your own nature in your own circumstances, ought, in the judgment of the perfect mind to do and be, that is originality for you. There is an Atheism which still repeats the Creeds-a belief in God which does not let Him come into close contact with the every-day life. Many who call themselves Theists are like the savages who, in the desire to honor the wonderful Sun-dial which had been given them, built a roof over it! Break down the roof; let God into your life. This has always been true, that the new idea has been born of the old,-not by flinging their nets out into the heavens in hopes to catch a star, but by digging deeper into the substance of the earth on which they stood, and finding there a root. . And that is

What

what we have to look for in the future. You and I cling to the old historic statements of our faith. is our feeling as we hold fast there? We stand expecting change and progress, new truth, new light. We believe that the new truth must come out of this old truth, the perfect truth out of this partial truth, some day. Only he who consents to enlarge his own conception of the possibilities of faith with God's can calmly watch the everlasting growth of Revelation and see the old open into the new. To discriminate between the eternal substance of Christianity and its temporary forms; to bid men see how often forms have perished and the substance still survived; to make men know the danger of imperfect and false tests of faith, and to encourage them to be not merely resigned but glad as they behold the one faith ever casting its old forms away, and by its undying vitality creating for itself new

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