lines of the crystal, or the waving outline of distant hills, tremulously visible through dim vapors; the minute petals of the fringed daisy, or the overhanging form of mysterious forests. It is a pure delight to

see.

But all this is bounded. The eye can only reach the finite Beautiful. It does not scan "the King in his beauty, nor the land that is very far off." The Kingdom, but not the King; something measured by inches, yards, and miles-not the land which is very far off in the Infinite.

Again; it is perishable beauty a sight to sadden rather than delight. Even while you gaze, and feel how fair it is, joy mingles with melancholy, from a consciousness that it all is fading, it is the transient, not the Eternal Loveliness for which our spirits pant.

Therefore, when He came into this world, who was the Truth and the Life, in the body which God had prepared for Him, He came not in the glory of form; He was "a root out of a dry ground: He had no form nor comeliness; when they saw Him, there was no beauty that they should desire Him." The eye did not behold, even in Christ, the things which God had prepared.

Now, observe, this is an Eternal Truth; true at all times; true now and forever. In the quotation of this verse, a false impression is often evident. It is quoted as if the apostle by "the things prepared" meant Heaven, and the glories of a world which is to be visible hereafter, but is at present unseen. This is manifestly alien from his purpose. The world of which he speaks is not a future, but a present Revelation.

God hath revealed them. He speaks not of something to be manifested hereafter, but of something already shown, only not to eye or ear. The distinction lies. between a kingdom which is appreciable by the senses, and another whose facts and truths are seen and heard only by the spirit. Never yet hath the eye seen the Truths of God; but then never shall it see them. In Heaven this shall be as true as now. Shape and color give them not. God will never be visible. Nor will his blessedness. He has no form. The pure in heart will see Him, but never with the eye; only in the same way, but in a different degree, that they see Him now. In the anticipated Vision of the Eternal, what do you expect to see?-A shape? Hues? You will never behold God. Eye hath not seen, and never shall see in finite form, the Infinite One, nor the Infinite of feeling or of Truth.

Again; no scientific analysis can discover the Truths of God. Science cannot give a Revelation. Science proceeds upon observation. It submits everything to the experience of the senses. Its law, expounded by its great lawgiver, is, that if you would ascertain its truth you must see, feel, taste. Experiment is the test of truth. Now, you cannot, by searching, find out the Almighty to perfection, nor a single one of the blessed Truths he has to communicate.

Men have tried to demonstrate Eternal Life, from an examination of the structure of the body. One fancies he has discovered the seat of life in the pineal gland; another, in the convolution of a nerve; and thence each infers the continuance of the mystic principle supposed to be discovered there. But a third comes, and sees in it all nothing really immaterial: organiza

tion, cerebration, but not Thought or Mind separable from these; nothing that must necessarily subsist after the organism has been destroyed.

Men have supposed they discovered the law of Deity written on the anatomical phenomena of disease. They have exhibited the brain inflamed by intoxica tion, and the structure obliterated by excess. They nave shown in the disordered frame the inevitable - penalty of transgression. But if a man, startled by all this, give up his sin, has he from this selfish prudence learned the law of Duty? The penalties of wrong-doing, doubtless; but not the sanction of Right and Wrong, written on the conscience, of which penalties are only the enforcements. He has indisputable evidence that it is expedient not to commit excess; but you cannot manufacture a conscience out of expediency. The voice of conscience says not, It is better not to do so; but "Thou shalt not."

No; it is in vain that we ransack the world for prob able evidences of God, and hypotheses of His exist ence. It is idle to look into the materialism of man for the Revelation of his immortality; or to examine the morbid anatomy of the body to find the rule of Right. If a man go to the eternal world with convictions of Eternity, the Resurrection, God, already in his spirit, he will find abundant corroborations of that which ne already believes. But if God's existence be not thrilling every fibre of his heart, if the Immortal be not already in him, as the proof of the Resurrection, if the law of Duty be not stamped upon his soul as an Eternal Truth, unquestionable, a thing that must be obeyed, quite separately from all considerations of punishment or impunity, science will never reveal

these observation pries in vain - the physician comes away from the laboratory an infidel. Eye hath not seen the Truths which are clear enough to Lovo and to the Spirit.

2. Eternal Truth is not reached by hearsay. "Ear hath not heard the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him."

No revelation can be adequately given by the ad dress of man to man, whether by writing or orally even if he be put in possession of the truth itself. For all such revelation must be made through words; and words are but counters - the coins of intellectual exchange. There is as little resemblance between the silver coin and the bread it purchases, as between the word and the thing it stands for. Looking at the coin, the form of the loaf does not suggest itself. Listening to the word, you do not perceive the idea for which it stands, unless you are already in possession of it. Speak of ice to an inhabitant of the torrid zone, the word does not give him an idea, or, if it do, it must be a false one. Talk of blueness to one who cannot distinguish colors, what can your most eloquent description present to him resembling the truth of your sensation? Similarly, in matters spiritual, no verbal revelation can give a single simple idea. For instance, what means justice to the unjust, or purity to the man whose heart is steeped in licentiousness? What does infinitude mean to a being who has never stirred from infancy beyond a cell,- never seen the sky, or the sea, or any of those occasions of thought which, leaving vagueness on the mind, suggest the idea of the illimitable? It means, explain it as you will, nothing to him but a room; vastly larger than his own, but

still a room, terminated by a wall. Talk of God to a thousand ears, each has his own different conception. Each man in this congregation has a God before him at this moment, who is, according to his own attain ment in goodness, more or less limited and imperfect. The sensual man hears of God, and understands one thing. The pure man hears, and conceives another thing. Whether you speak in metaphysical or metaphorical language, in the purest words of inspiration or the grossest images of materialism, the conceptions conveyed by the same word are essentially different, according to the soul which receives.

So that apostles themselves, and prophets speaking to the ear, cannot reveal truth to the soul-no, not if God Himself were to touch their lips with fire. A verbal revelation is only a revelation to the ear.

Now, see what a hearsay religion is. There are men who believe on authority. Their minister believes all this Christianity true; therefore so do they. He calls this doctrine essential; they echo it. Some thousands of years ago, men communed with God; they have heard this, and are content it should be so. They have heard, with the hearing of the ear, that God is Love that the ways of holiness are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace. But a hearsay belief saves not. The Corinthian philosophers heard Paul; Pharisees heard Christ. How much did the ear convey? To thousands exactly nothing. He believes truth who feels it. He has a religion whose soul knows by experience that to serve God and know Him is the richest treasure. And unless Truth come to you, not in word only, but in power besides,authoritative