dinances, and feel themselves at home, it may be, in doing so; but, so low and mean are the views of church members themselves, and even of ministers sometimes-and what could be expected under these circumstances of those without?-that no special concern is felt in the case. Now, if church relations are of such small account that persons may assume them or not, let it be proclaimed. But, if an awful hazard hangs upon the obedience of men in this particular, nothing but the most stolid indifference can complacently look upon these things. This state of affairs is increasing. It seems to be the reaction upon the cold formalism that preceded the vortex of new measures, into which the Reformation churches were in danger of falling a few years ago.

There are cheering indications in the liturgy movement that seems to be springing up in all the churches, and hopes are beginning to be entertained that the services of the church will again be clothed with flesh and blood, and that the church will address itself to the world as the only ark of safety, in which men may ride above the troubled waters of the world, and escape the wrath

to come.

THE ECHO.

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE.

A horseman through the mountain pass
Proceeds in silent gloom;

"And haste I to my love's embrace,

Or to the dusky tomb!"

The mountain voice replies-
"The dusky tomb."

And onward still the horseman rides

With gloomy thoughts,

"And shall I reach the grave so soon!

Well in the grave is rest."

The voice again replies

"The grave is rest."

The tears fall from the horseman's eyes,
And on his pale cheek rest;

"Since only death can comfort me,

For me the grave is best."
The hollow voice replies-
"The grave is best."

HEAR ME BUT ONCE.

HEAR me but once, while o'er the grave,
In which our love lies cold and dead,

I count each flatt'ring hope he gave

Of joys now lost, and charms now fled.
Who could have thought the smile he wore,
When first he met would fade away!

Or that a chill would e'er come o'er

Those eyes so bright through many a day!

"MY ANGEL LOVE."

There is a poem, written by one of our foster-children of genius, of which I am reminded by this question of angelic aid to our moral imperfectness of reach. I am not sure that it has ever been published. "Fanny Forester" wrote it, and it has been among my manuscripts till I have learned its inspired harmonies by heart. If it be found elsewhere in print, however, it will not be unrefreshing to read-for a change-a bit of the old-fashioned poetry that had in it both meaning and music. The widowed heart of the gifted one-with her apostle husband just gone before her into heaven-thus exquisitely tells the story of their earthly love and still lingering "hold of hands:"

I gazed down life's dim labyrinth,

A wildering maze to see,

Crossed o'er by many a tangled clew,
And wild as wild could be,

And as I gazed in doubt and dread
An angel came to me.

I knew him for a heavenly guide,
I knew him even then,

Though meekly as a child he stood
Among the sons of men-

By his deep spirit loveliness,
I knew him even then.

And as I leaned my weary head
Upon his proffered breast,
And scanned the peril-haunted wild
From out my place of rest,

I wondered if the shining ones
Of Eden were more blessed.

For there was light within my soul,
Light on my peaceful way,

And all around the blue above
The clustering star-light lay;

And easterly I saw upreared
The pearly gates of day.

So hand in hand we trod the wild,
My angel love and I-

His lifted wing all quivering

With tokens from the sky.

Strange my dull thought could not divine

'Twas lifted but to fly!

Again down life's dim labyrinth

I grope my way alone,

While wildly through the midnight sky
Black, hurrying clouds are blown,

And thickly, in my tangled path,

The sharp, bare thorns are sown.

Yet firm my foot, for well I know
The goal can not be far,

And ever through the rifted clouds
Shines out one steady star-

FOR WHEN MY GUIDE WENT UP, HE LEFT

THE PEARLY GATES A-JAR.

In those last two unsurpassed lines-lines in the golden cadence of which lay the lark-song of her own then dawning morning in heaven-EMILY JUDSON has

-SPIRIT-VISION ACROSS THE GRAVE.

expressed the faith for which the imaginative world is now zealously contending I should be reluctant to relinquish my own hold, instinctive rather than philosophical though it be, of faith so precious. -N. P. WILLIS.

THE JEWISH IDEAL OF CHRIST.

BY THE EDITOR.

THERE are many saints in bliss now who lived and died under the Old Testament dispensation. The number of those who died in faith not having received the promise, but who saw it afar off and embraced it, is like the stars of heaven and the sand on the sea-shore, innumerable; these now are represented as bending down, like the spectators in an amphitheatre, around us, to witness our conflicts and triumphs in the Christian race. These all, now clothed in white, washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. These all were saved by Christ as well as we, for there is no other name given under heaven whereby men may be saved but the name of Jesus. Abraham saw his day and was glad, and all the patriarchs, and prophets, and saints were saved believing on him who should come.

If these saints believed in Christ unto salvation they must have had him before the eye of their faith. The Saviour promised and expected, in some form, moved before their minds and lived in their faith. Some representation of him floated continually before them in prophetic vision. It becomes a matter of interesting inquiry what was this IDEAL Messiah which they loved and upon which they rested their faith with such ardent and saving firmness? Our minds are so constituted that they give form to every unseen object upon which they are intensely directed. As the poet, painter, and sculptor desires to give form and tangible existence to their conceptions, so do our thoughts seek to corporealize themselves. The word became flesh. There is nothing hid that does not reveal itself. The inner world always struggles towards a manifestation. It is only natural, then, that the saints under the Old Testament should clothe their conceptions in flesh and blood, and place this created ideal before their faith as their hope and consolation.

To the formation of this ideal Messiah, all the hints of him, made through Divine revelation at sundry times and in divers manners, contributed. "To him give all the prophets witness." All their revelations, indistinct and fragmentary as they were, aided in painting the image of him who should come as Israel's consolation. If we hear of a person whom we have never seen, but whom we expect to see, we immediately represent him to ourselves, and everything we hear of him afterwards seems to modify and perfect

the idea we first formed of him; so in the case of the Jews in reference to Messiah, every new truth and promise concerning him revealed by the prophets had its influence upon the ideal Messiah, as he stood before the faith of pious Jews.

Our ideas of an unseen person will be erroneous or correct according as the representations are obscure or clear which we have of him, and according as we are able to apprehend these representations in our minds, and form them into the conceptions of a harmonious ideal. We are often disappointed when we see a person of whom we have previously heard; this is because either his character was vaguely represented to us, or vaguely apprehended by us. So, many of the Jews had been so dull and obtuse to prophetic announcements of Christ, and had permitted their own subjective and selfish ideas to enter so largely into their conceptions of him, that he for whom they looked was quite another Messiah than the one which the prophets saw and which actually came; and when he came they crucified him in their ignorance, not recognizing in him the "Holy One and the Just." He came

to his own, and to those who looked for him and desired him to come; but so far did the actual Messiah differ from the ideal of him in their minds that he was as a root out of dry ground, and they cried, away with him, not this man, preferring that a murderer and a robber should be granted to them rather than the Prince of Life. This, however, was their own fault. Had they carefully looked upon the prophetic canvass they might have seen his portrait more clearly drawn. All the prophets, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke of him, and drew his portrait before the Jewish people. They spoke of him in the animated inspiration of prophecy; he was revealved to them in his true character in types, shadows and ceremonies of the law. Many stupid souls, however, stood before the altar in dumb amazement, looked upon the significant ceremonials of the tabernacle as empty forms, and listened to the announcement of prophetic visions as a relation of pleasant dreams. Or at least these things were considered merely as serving the purposes of present devotion, instead of being a shadow of good things to come, the substance of which was Christ.

Others there were, however, who had studied the character of the promised Messiah to some effect. They had such correct views of him that they knew him immediately. Such was old Simeon; he was a man just, devout, full of the Holy Ghost, waiting for the consolation of Israel. He came by the spirit into the temple, at the time that Joseph and Mary brought the holy child to be circumcised. Long and ardently had he waited for a sight of him who should come; and now, though the Messiah appeared before him in the form of an infant, so correct were his views of him that he immediately recognized the divine babe, took him into his arms, and blessed God that he could now die in peace because he

had been permitted to see with his own eyes the salvation of Israel. Such, also, was Anna, a devout prophetess, who departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. She coming that instant into the temple, gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spoke of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Such was also Andrew and the other disciple who immediately followed the Saviour when John pointed to him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" "We have found the Messiah," he exclaimed to Simon, "which is, being interpreted, the Christ." Such was also Philip. Jesus said to him: "Follow me," and he did, and soon he said to Nathaniel, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathaniel, a little dark in his ideas of the promised Messiah, thought at first that no good could come out of Nazareth; but one sight of him, and one or two questions to the Saviour, and as many answers from him, were sufficient, and he exclaimed: "Rabbi, thou art the son of God; thou art the king of Israel."

How quick their conceptions! What a difference between them and those dull Jews whose ideas of him were so distorted by carnal fancies, and so unenlightened by the prophetic revelations concerning him, that all the mighty works which he did in their midst, and before their eyes, could not open their eyes to his true character. Those who had heart-wants, received him as naturally as a wound receives the healing balm. He comes, thought the carnal Jews, to restore at this time the kingdom of Israel, and to put his foot upon the neck of Cæsar, and his hand upon the Roman yoke now galling the necks of Abraham's freemen, who were never in bondage to any man. No! exclaimed the blind, he comes to open the blind eyes. No! exclaimed the dumb, he comes to loose our tongues. No! said the possessed, he comes to destroy the power of the devil and to cast out legions. No! said weary and heavyladened penitents, whose sense of guilt the cold ritual of the Scribes and Pharisees, and the teachings from Moses' scat could not remove, he comes forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin; he comes to heal the broken-hearted, to preach to the poor, to give deliverance to the captives of sin, and to be wounded, pierced, and to receive stripes that we may be healed. Thus there was a division among them. The one party knew him not, and therefore crucified him. The other knew him and exclaimed: Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he that cometh according to the testimony of Moses and the prophets as the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

All wrong conceptions of the Saviour were grounded in a partialand fragmentary view of him. All wrong conceptions of him among the Jews harmonized themselves in the central and prevailing notion that he should be a great temporal deliverer. Around