LECTURE I. THE BASIS OF THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM. ON a Saturday afternoon, in the midsummer of last year, I found myself by chance on the southern shore of Otsego Lake, looking northward on a scene which for quiet and soothing beauty can hardly be surpassed. Before me lay the mirror of the Glimmerglass; warm lights threw a flush upon the skies; the day was going away; the omens of the evening were already in the clouds; a breeze, scarcely strong enough to ruffle the water, came from the western hills; the woods were reflected in their native colors along the silent shore. But below was more than what met the eye. Through and under this exterior beauty, voices could be heard, speaking of the mystery of the natural world. It has been said of the study of nature, "that it is hardly profane to characterize it as a means of grace to man.” * * See an article in Garden and Forest, August 12, 1891. The words are words of truth; in nature is a tonic for mind and heart. Here are depths which no man has yet sounded, not philosopher nor poet; here is a mystery which thus far defies our search-whence, and how, came this wondrous, beautiful world; when it was made; and why it was made "subject to vanity;" how long, before man appeared on the earth, his destiny and doom were foreshadowed there; how he, in his fortunes, is linked to what he calls "nature"; by what bond and to what extent it is so related to him as to sympathize with him in his sorrows, and partake of his hope-what poet, what philosopher, what theologian has told us the whole truth on these points? Of them might one readily be led to muse, while looking upon the lake, confronted by forests and hills, and the perspective of point, bluff, and mountain; for at such times and in such places men become aware of some unspeakable strangeness in their life, and, keeping silence before mysterious and dimly indicated presences, they know that it must be possible to draw its hidden meaning from God's world, from hill and plain, from deep, still waters and shadowy woods, from the currents of the evening breeze and the outstretched shadows of ebbing day. Hard by that lake stands an old church, shaded by tall pines and other trees, and keeping watch and ward over the surrounding resting-places of the dead in Christ. On the following morning I found myself at the early celebration in that venerable fane. Here another mystery confronted us, like the other, too deep to search out; the mystery of the Coming of our Lord, in Holy Communion. The church also, like the lake, was held in the stillness of a holy peace. The voice of the priest, as he recited the office, was the only sound that broke upon the ear; the words of Christ were repeated; and then, to the eye of faith, "came Jesus and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." Both the mysteries of which I have been speaking were of God; one in the order of nature, the other in the order of grace. And at that time it occurred to me-remembering an accepted invitation to speak to you on some sacred theme—that the subject had been assigned, on the shore of the lake in the evening, and in the church in that consecrated morning hour. Is there not a parallelism, a correlation, between these two mysteries? May there not be, to other, larger eyes than ours, points at which they touch or interpenetrate? May not the mystery in nature pass on |