and applied to the whole race of man as subjects of an eternal kingdom.

The witness of nature and the witness of the Law he will receive, confirming them by a spiritual faith and an enlightened conscience, and saved from the superstitious nature-worship and the lifeless legalism which have been the bane of so many nations and souls. He will not, like the Oriental, so often imitated by the dreamers of our time, he will not lose nature and man in God, nor, like the Greek and certain hero-worshippers now, will he lose God in nature and man. The God of nature and of man he will adore, taught by his works, taught by his law, taught above all by Jesus Christ, his manifested Word, and by the Spirit, Christ's own witness within the breast.

To each soul, let the subject so specific as well as enlarged make its appeal, and from each win its response, a response at once individual, as corresponding to each experience, and universal, as confirming the faith of the Church for ages. The witnesses of God are before us in nature, so fair with vernal beauty each year, as when the Pentecost came, — in the divine law declared by Moses and fulfilled in Christ. Is there not another witness within us, speaking in the name of all that is best in our own faculties and affections, all that is most winning and august in the revealed Father, of a realm not seen by mortal eye, and of a peace not of this world. Who is utterly a stranger to this experience? Who has been true to it as he ought, and kept the heavenly visitant ever in his soul? Who is there who need not still crave more of the peace of the Comforter, and

deem no lot dark that is enlightened by such presence and no condition tolerable that is unsolaced by such grace?

Consult every variety of Christian experience, look to each of the great divisions of the Church, and do we not find proof of the same indwelling Spirit? With some, the chief reliance is in the authority of the priesthood, and the Church is their favorite watchword. But they who boast of having St. Peter's successor on their central ecclesiastical throne have furnish ed noble examples of a faith less doubtful than their priestly pedigrees, and their worthiest men have been conspicuous examples of that interior piety whose indwelling witness Peter so felt and so proclaimed at the great Pentecost. Others, a vast company, who ́make small account of the priestly authority of the Church, identify piety with dogmatic belief, and their rallying-cry is the doctrine as set forth by their Augustines and Calvins, nominally after the manner of St. Paul. Among these, too, there has been proof of a spiritual presence less disputable than any theological theory, and far more deeply pervaded with that Apostle's living faith. Others, a perhaps vaster company, of every name and nation, have made the Spirit the first element of their religion, and, following the disciple whom Jesus loved, have sought the Spirit in and through the life. To them belong a choice band among the great thinkers of the early Church, and a great and increasing host of modern theologians. In quarters strangely diverse in name, the same views of the interior life have prevailed, and a churchman like Fénelon and a leveller like George Fox, a philosopher of nature like Swedenborg and a champion of

humanity like Channing, are found uniting their influence in lines gradually approximating, and under the leading of Providence raising the new Church, which promises to be the mother of all by consecrating all true uses by a divine faith, and by opening a path for the Divine Spirit throughout all life.

Not alone, not timidly, then, does the Christian urge the promise of the witnessing Spirit. An innumerable company join in the appeal, confirming Christ's word by their own experience. The hymns and prayers of faith for ages swell the testimony. And above all and in all, a voice from the unseen realm completes the sanction, and the Spirit saith, "Come." Let him that heareth say, Come. Come to us with our first thought of religion and abide with us to the last breath. Thou Heavenly Comforter, come in our childhood, and, before we know what it is to reason upon spiritual things, give us in every Christian sentiment and prayer an assurance of heavenly truth deeper than any reasoning. Come to us nearer still in our youth, and, when the passions begin to develop their force, subdue them into peace. Come in our manhood, and, with the sad experience of worldly care, mingle a rising and deepening sense of the interior kingdom where dwells the solace for all weariness. Come in our declining age, and, as earthly light fades, brighten within us the uncreated light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Abide with us ever, the living witness that Immanuel is an imperishable power and that God now is with men.

XV.

THE THEOLOGIANS AND THE WORLD TO COME.

No fact is more obvious in the history of mankind, than the recognition of an invisible world and invisible powers. The form of the recognition may vary, but the fact always remains the same. The benighted heathen who bows down before a stone, and the enlightened Christian who adores the Father of spirits, both acknowledge their own dependence and insufficiency, both recognize the existence of an unseen realm. The grandest and most enduring monuments which have come to us from former ages, whether in literature or architecture, whether Shaster, Koran, or Bible, whether pagoda, temple, mosque, or minster, bear witness to the same truth, and through all ages make the same great confession.

The commanding minds of our race join with them in their testimony. Not one in the front rank of men can be mentioned who has denied the invisible power or the relation of man to the invisible world. As we close these discursive essays upon God's providence in the religious training of mankind, how can we help feeling the force of all this testimony? We cannot believe that God has ever left himself without a witness in the world, much less can we believe that

the Christian Church has ever been wholly bereft of the light of life. We do not indeed ask, and cannot expect, that the same kind of supernatural illumination should be continued during the established rule of the Divine kingdom as attended the creative age of its miraculous foundation. Yet in a serious and profound sense, all history is the book of Providence, and the Church in all ages is a witness of the Word and the Spirit of God. I do not propose in this essay to enter into an elaborate argument upon the authority of the Church, or the merits of the leading theologians who characterize its various parties or dispositions. I am content. at present with taking a very cursory survey of the leading views that have been held by theologians and churches regarding the way of peace with God, or the method of salvation.

What is the true relation between man and the invisible world? What must we be or do in order to stand upon true terms with that unseen realm whose existence none can deny? How shall we win the present favor and future welcome of the great Invisible Sovereign? How shall we shun the pains and woes which our own experience here below teaches us are not limited to the body, but may attach to our spiritual nature, and therefore continue in a spiritual world? Questions like these we have all at some time asked, and shall probably ask them still more earnestly in emergencies that are to come. They have been asked by all who have gone before us, and by none have been considered with more solemnity than by the gifted minds whom Providence has raised up to be masters in theology and guides in the Church. What light can they give us? Wherein do they differ,