shoulders out of the flames of Troy, or as the angels hurried Lot from Sodom. Fourthly: Perseveringly. The earnestness must not be spasmodic but continuous, so long as there is one in the fire. How Christ persevered. He did not fail nor become discouraged. How Paul persevered; for three years he warned every one with tears. He was willing to spend and be spent. IN DIVINE LOVE. "Keep yourselves in the love of God."-Jude 21. "love of THE expression God," stands for two very different things. Sometimes it stands for God's love to man. It is our happiness to know that the Infinite is not a being of mere intellect, but of emotion as well;-that He can love, and that He does love man with a love eternal, unconquerable, and compassionate. Sometimes it stands for man's love to God. It is the glory of man that he can love the Infinite, and that, in thousands of instances, he does it. This is his perfection. The latter is the idea which we attach to the words of the text; and they lead us to consider two things. I. THE HIGHEST STATE OF BEING. "Love to God." (1) Man is made for a supreme love. The deepest hunger of his being is for an object on which to place his affection. (2) Man is the creature of his supreme love. His love is the queen of his intellect, the lord of his every power. It is the impulse that sets and keeps all his faculties a-going. As are his loves, so is he. (3) The only supreme love that can perfect his being, is that which is directed towards God. First: Supreme love to God alone can satisfy the reason. Intellect is bound to hold, as an axiom, that He who is supremely good should be supremely loved. God is the Supremely Good. The command to love Him, with all our heart and being, is founded in the truest philosophy of human nature. Secondly: Supreme love to God alone accords with conscience. Conscience utters her protest against the soul giving her chief affections to any other; hence the inner contentions of the soul from age to age. This contention is the battle of the race; the battle of the centuries. Thirdly: Supreme love to God alone fulfils the conditions of happiness. This we have frequently shown; nor can it be too urgently enforced on the attention of the world.* *See "Crisis of Being," "Philosophy of Happiness." II. THE HIGHEST CONCERN How small the world, with OF BEING. "Keep yourselves." all its pomps and pageantries, This injunction implies-(1) will appear to the soul that Being in it. Heaven is in it. looks down from the love of All good men on earth are in God. It is indeed the obserit. It is in truth the very vatory of the universe. Seessence of true religion. (2) condly: It is the best condition Possibility of leaving it. Were for enjoying. Gratitude, adthere no possibility of falling miration, benevolence, are all from it, there would be no elements of happiness, and virtue in continuing in it. these enter into the very Angels did fall from it. So nature of this love of God. did the first man. Agents and Thirdly: It is the best condition circumstances on this earth for growing. It is just that are constantly at work to temperature of the soul in displace men from this sub- which all the faculties can lime state. But why try to rise into their full strength keep in it? Because-First: and stature. Fourthly: It is It is the best condition for the best condition for working. observing. (1) It secures the It is that which gives muscle best medium of vision. The to the soul, and makes it affections of the soul are the mighty through God. media through which the soul looks on all outward things. They are the glass through which it gazes at creation and God. The only affection which gives it a clear atmosphere, is supreme affection for God. All other affections so stain the glass, so darken the atmosphere, that its views are limited, indistinct, and distorted. "He that loveth, knoweth God." (2) It affords the best position of vision. So much in obtaining a view of the landscape depends not only on purity of atmosphere, but the stand-point of the observer. How little your great cities appear from the brow of some lofty mountain. VOL. XIV. FAITHFUL SAYING. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."-1 Tim. i. 15. THE truthfulness of this saying I. ALL TRUTH IS WORTHY OF ACCEPTATION. First: Because it gratifies man's thirst for knowledge. "What is truth?" is the expression of a longing, which increases as it is gratified, and can never be satiated. Secondly: Because it expands and ennobles his BB 2 mental nature. God knows all things, and the more we know the nearer do we approach to Him in this aspect of His nature. Thirdly : Because it enables him to judge more accurately in all the affairs of life. We must know the truth before we can act the truth. II. DIFFERENT KINDS OF TRUTH DEMAND DIFFERENT KINDS OF ACCEPTATION. First: Theoretical truth requires only | the assent of the understanding. The theorems of Euclid excite no emotion, and lead to no course of action. Secondly: Esthetic truth demands more than this, viz., a corresponding emotion. By æsthetic truth, I mean harmony, symmetry, beauty, sublimity. These are true in their adaptation to our mental nature, and the more true they are, the more they adapt themselves to our constitution; in the same degree they call forth our admiration, wonder, pleasure, delight, ecstasy. But they go no further; they do not excite to action. Thirdly Practical truth is only accepted when acted upon. Action is the test of belief. Faith without works is dead, being alone; as the body is dead, being alone, being separated from the soul. We cannot be said to have accepted, e.g., the truth that we should love our neighbour, unless we are ready to act upon it. III. THE MORE COMPREHENSIVE A TRUTH, THE MORE ENTIRE IS THE ACCEPTATION IT DEMANDS. The truth of our text is worthy of all acceptation; that is, as I read the text, of all kinds of acceptation. Because it is all-comprehensive, appealing to every part of man's nature, it is worthy of the reception ofFirst: The intellect. It gratifies man's thirst for knowledge. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God," is the cry of the intellect, as well as of the heart. God reveals Himself in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself; and the cry is answered. Besides, this faithful saying is in the highest sense rational. Because of its adaptation to human need, it is the grandest exhibition of Divine reason; and as such, appeals to the reason of man. It transcends all reason; and yet the reason can see in it a wondrous fitness and propriety. Philosophies, falsely so called, may sneer at its simplicity; but it contains a philosophy which dwarfs them all. Secondly: The feelings. As an exhibition of wisdom, it is calculated to command our admiration. As an embodiment of the morally sublime, it excites our wonder. As the tale of the woes of the Man Christ Jesus, it evokes our sympathy. As a mighty outburst of Divine love, it calls forth all that is tender and grateful in our nature. "We love him, because he first loved us." Thirdly: The will. It is essentially a practical truth, and is really accepted only when acted upon. To accept this faithful saying, we must not only believe that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, we must give to Him our HEARTS and our LIVES. We are to "live to him who died for us." As the "faithful saying" appeals to every part of our nature, it is worthy of reception by the intellect, heart, and will. As it appeals so mightily to our nature, it is worthy of entire, unreserved, hearty reception; and as it embraces the interests of all the human race, it is worthy the reception of all men. CHARLES CALLAWAY, M.A. The Pulpit and its Handmaids. CONCERNING ANECDOTES. The critic says, "Anecdotes are among the luxuries of literature;" and he is fearful that the mind should be accustomed to them, and reject severer diet. I rejoice, however, to be informed, in the same paragraph, that "they stimulate the appetite for reading, and create it where deficient." I will not deny that anecdotes are to be placed among literary luxuries. The refinement of a nation influences the genius of its literature; we now require not only a solid repast, but a delicious dessert. A physician, austere as Hippocrates; a critic, rigid as Aristotle, are alike inimical to our refreshments. We will not be fooled into their systems. We do not dismiss our fruits and our wines from our tables; we eat, and our health remains uninjured. We read anecdotes with voluptuous delight; nor is our science impaired, or our wit It is not rendered less brillant. just to consider anecdotes merely as a source of entertainment; if it shall be found that they serve also for the purposes of utility, they will deserve to be classed higher in the scale of study than hitherto they have been. History itself derives some of its most agreeable instructions from a skilful introduction of anecdotes. We should not now dwell with anxiety on a dull chronicle of the reigns of monarchs; a parish register might prove more interesting. We are not now solicitous of attending to battles, which have ceased to alarm; to sieges, which can destroy none of our towns; and to storms, which can never burst upon our shores. We turn with disgust from fictions told without the grace of fable, and from truths uninteresting as fables without grace. Our hearts have learnt to sympathize, and we con When Xerxes saw the whole Hellespont concealed beneath the ships, and all the coasts of Abydos full of men, he held himself happy; but soon after he burst into tears. This being observed by his paternal uncle Antabanus, he, understanding that Xerxes was shedding tears, addressed him thus :-"Sire, how very different are your present actions, and what you did erewhile! For then you declared yourself happy, and now you weep." The king answered, "Yes, for when I consider how short is human life, pity enters my heart; since of these, many as they are, every one will be dead before a hundred years." sult the annals of history, as a son A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. and a brother would turn over domestic memories. We read history, not to indulge the frivolous inquisitiveness of a dull antiquary, but to explore the causes of the miseries and prosperities of our country. We are more interested in the progress of the human mind, that in that of empires. A Hearne would feel a frigid rapture, if he could discover the name of a Saxon monarch unrecorded in our annals; and of whom as little should remain as of the doubtful bones of a Saxon dug out of a tumulus. Such are his anecdotes ! A Hume is only interested with those characters who have exerted themselves in the cause of humanity, and with those incidents which have subverted or established the felicities of a people. D'ISRAELI. Theological Notes and Queries. OPEN COUNCIL. [The utmost freedom of honest thought is permitted in this department. The reader must therefore use his own discriminating faculties, and the Editor must be allowed to claim freedom from responsibility.] PROPHECY AND GOODNESS. REPLICANT. In answer to QUERIST No. 19, p. 297. The case of Balaam is more remarkable than any of those you have mentioned, and it seems decisive on the point. He was covetous, and would, had he been able, have prostituted his gifts for gain. Yet he was compelled to utter Divine predictions against his will. Therefore, although what a man speaks under Divine inspiration is the authoritative Word of God, yet the fact that he has been thus inspired, does not necessarily render his ordinary course of life, or his character irreproachable. THE JUDGMENT DAY OF MEN AND REPLICANT. In answer to QUERIST No. 20, p. 297. We think that such an inference is legitimate. With regard to your second question, we may refer to Matt. xxv. 41. where the fire which is everlasting, το πυρ το αιώνιον, is said to have been prepared for the devil and his angels, ἡτοιμασμενον τῷ διαβολῳ καὶ τοῖς αγγελοις αὐτοῦ. A CHILD IN SPIRITUAL ARMOR. REPLICANT. In answer to QUERIST No. 21. p. 297. The writer is here |