in the light of God." And if "our life is hid with Christ in God," our knowledge must be there too. True, we now see through a glass darkly; but the time is to come when we shall see face to face," when we shall "know even as we are known." That is, we shall see truth at its centre, by a direct intuition, as God sees it; and so, in our sphere and measure, "know God," even as แ we are known of God."

There is a wide apparent difference between a savage, like Africaner, and a philosopher, like Sir Isaac Newton; but the distance, after all, is not so vast as is generally supposed. Africaner knew God, and used often, as Moffat tells us, to stand gazing, in devout wonder, at the starry heavens. He knew nothing of gravitation-of parallaxes and occultations; but he knew God, and saw that eye of love looking down upon him from every star, as it burned in beauty and glory in the depths of night. Thus the distance between two such minds is not one of kind, but of degree; and the savage has only to be educated long enough and thoroughly enough, in order to reach the point at which the philosopher arrived, when in this world. The savage may never make this attainment in his present circumstances; but who can doubt that, in the world to come, he may not only reach it, but far, very far transcend it, if redeemed by the love of God, and brought to dwell with angels, amid the light of heaven? He has in him the capacity -the slumbering and undeveloped germ of all possible knowledge; and, starting towards the central sun, may keep advancing nearer, and nearer, and nearer, through eternal ages. At any rate, if scientific knowledge will not result from conversion to God, something higher and better will. "For this is life eternal to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

O! it is this consideration which gives such worth, such inestimable worth and dignity to every man, whether he be a Milton, whose majestic thoughts wander through eternity, or a Krishnu Pal, sitting under the shadow of the banyan tree, and singing, in his native Hindoo, the song written by himself:

"O! thou, my soul, forget no more
The friend, who all thy sorrows bore;
Let every idol be forgot,

But, O! my soul, forget him not."

The world, indeed, seems to contain a vast amount of rubbish; but there lie embedded in it numberless priceless gems. India, Africa, Burmah, China, Ceylon, are full of just such gems; obscured, indeed, by ignorance and lust, but only needing to be drawn from their obscurity, to be polished, and

set in the crown of the Redeemer, to shine with a lustre more resplendent than the stars. They are of more worth by far than all the suns which ever shone, and all the worlds, which revolve in beauty around their central orbs.

2. Another high distinction of man, which proves his unity, and links him to God, is conscience. This universal attribute or power lurks in the deep tissues of our moral constitution, and can never be eradicated. Every man, whatever his character or country, must recognize the fact of accountability. Perverted or unperverted, he instinctively feels, contrary sometimes to his speculative theories, that there is an immutable distinction between the good and the bad, the just and the unjust; and such a feeling he betrays whenever he says, that such a thing is right, or such a thing is wrong. He has the thought, the intuition, the impulse, in his own bosom, which compels him to acknowledge his responsibility to law; and if to law, to a Supreme law-giver. Conscience, indeed, may be mutilated and suppressed-nay, killed and buried in the ruins of the soul, but it will rise again and assert its dominion. There are men without eyes and limbs-there are men diseased and ruined, body and soul; and so there may be men who seem without a conscience, or whose conscience is locked up by the triple bolts of infidelity, selfishness, and lust, in the prison of the heart's ungodliness; but conscience is an attribute of man, as much as thought and feeling are attributes of the mind, or the eyes and limbs parts of the body. He feels, therefore, as by a resistless impulse from God, that he belongs to a system of moral government, and that there awaits him, both here and hereafter, a joyful or a dread reward. This sense of right and wrong, this feeling of accountability to justice, this premonition of reward or punishment-now brooding over men, like an angel, . with dove-like wings, now like a demon, or Nemesis, with wings of death-exists in all times, and among all nations. The intellect often errs as to what is right and wrong,-now imagining it a holy thing to murder a heretic, or cast a little child into the sacred Ganges, a mother's most precious gift to the river-god, whom she dreads and would pacify; but conscience never loses sight of the abstract and immutable distinction itself. Over all broods the everlasting thought of a rewarding or avenging power. "Cast your eyes," says Rousseau, over all the nations of the world, and all the histories of nations. Amid so many inhuman and absurd superstitions, amid that prodigious diversity of manners and characters, you will find everywhere the same principles and distinctions of moral good and evil. The paganism of the ancient world produced, indeed, abominable gods, who on earth would have

been shunned or punished as monsters, and who offered, as a picture of supreme happiness, only crimes to commit or passions to satiate. But vice, armed with this sacred authority, descended in vain from the eternal abode. She found in the heart of man a moral instinct to repel her. The continence of Zenocrates was admired by those who celebrated the debaucheries of Jupiter. The chaste Lucretia adorned the unchaste Venus. The most intrepid Roman sacrificed to fear. He invoked the god who dethroned his father, and died, without a murmur, by the hand of his own."

Our very guilt, so deep, so universal, though hidden and palliated by all, is a proof of our unity. "I also am a man," we may sometimes exclaim, with pride and exultation; but we must as often say it with profound humility and regret. All over the world, blood flows from ten thousand heathen altars. And for what, if not for sin? So intense, indeed, is the sense of guilt, that the burden, in some cases, is relieved only by death. If, in his pharisaic pride, some one should separate himself from his fellows, and, practically denying the unity of the race, should claim that he is free from sin, the race, true to its moral instincts, will repudiate that man as a hypocrite, and unite to drag him from his supremacy. You cannot persuade them that a perfect man exists. A sinless child, or a sinless angel, they can admit; but a sinless man they cannot even imagine. Infidels and atheists themselves, except when theorizing or debating, acknowledge this great fact, and occasionally feel its influence with tremendous force. Unconsciously they admit their moral nature and their consequent guilt, and, in certain great exigencies and extremities, tremble with unspeakable horror in the prospect of final retri bution. It is on this ground we explain the horrors which invaded the death-beds of Voltaire and Francis Newport. Their very nature, long abused, asserted its dominion, and inflicted the premonitory stings of eternal remorse.

"In such indexes

-There is seen

The baby figures of the giant mass
Of things to come at large."

This is the great principle on which God "commandeth all men," high or low, bond or free, Pagan or Christian, everywhere to repent; and it is this which gives the truth of the gospel such immense power over the heart. Despised and rejected, times without number, it comes back again, and speaks to the conscience in thunder tones; so that it often

happens that, all at once, as by the hand of the Almighty, the hardened skeptic feels himself converted and subdued. "I heard it, but I heeded it not," said a man of a lofty and indomitable spirit. "I heard it again, but I hated it, as if it were death. And yet once more I heard it, and my spirit melted. It was as if God himself, with the resistless might of his infinite love, spoke to my inner spirit. I was transfixed. Wonder-fear-hope-shame-grief-love-joy-sprang up in my soul. I wept like a child; and kneeling down before my Saviour and God, with a trembling awe, I confessed my sins and sought His forgiveness." "Remorse! remorse !" exclaimed the dying Randolph of Roanoke, to his physician-" You know nothing about it: you cannot know. But I have looked upon the cross of Christ, and hope I have obtained mercy." "Ah me!" cried the departing chief of the South Sea isles, in reply to the inquiry of the missionary, touching his spiritual state-" as I lay here alone, all became dark before me. My sins rose up between me and heaven, mountains upon mountains-mountains upon mountains. But, all at once, one drop of the blood of Jesus Christ fell upon them, and in a few minutes the mountains vanished away!"

*

*

*

What an inconceivable importance does such a fact attach to the moral destiny of man! On his conduct here, hang everlasting things. Every motion of his every thought, word, and act, touches a string which stretches into eternity, and

vibrates forever.

3. A third, and most peculiar characteristic of man, in proof of his unity, is his capacity for religion.

All, we presume, admit the fact of adaptations. The internal nature of man is adapted to the external; the soul is adapted to the body, the body to the various objects which affect it. Our whole constitution and framework imply the existence of the external world. The eye is adapted to light, and implies its existence; the stomach is adapted to food, and implies its existence; the social feeling is adapted to society, and implies its existence; the moral sense, or conscience, is adapted to a standard of morality, a law and a law-giver, and implies their existence. Thus, one thing is set over against another, and makes the existence of that other absolutely necessary; because all these are parts of a great whole, into which they are fitted and adapted by an infinite hand. Hence the principle of analogy or similitude which runs through the universe, by which one thing not only suggests, but actually proves, the presence of the next, and that again of the next, and so on, through the circle of being. Thus, the sentiment of veneration, the feeling of worship, the love of the ideal, the

perfect, the illimitable, are adapted to the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, and make religion a necessary element of our being. Man is as much distinguished in this respect as in any other. He is as much a worshiping being, as he is a thinking and reasoning being. Doubtless, there are men without religion, as there are men without reason, and yet both reason and religion are peculiar to man. Neither of these may be visible in particular individuals, or even communities, any more than the cerulean color of the ocean is visible in drops, or insulated masses of water, though sufficiently obvious in the great whole. Man, too, may worship falsely, as he may reason falsely. His gods may be puerile, and his worship superstitious, but the instinct is universal and resistless. Society is always organized around some divine idea. No other element can hold it together. Agitated by change and revolution, it uniformly settles back, and, so to speak, gravitates to this mighty centre. Hence, in every com munity there may be a few infidels and atheists, persons who, as exceptions to the general rule, have violated their nature, and extinguished within them the sentiment of worship; but a nation of such men does not exist, cannot exist. For the same reason, infidelity may spread like a wave of death over a community, but it will soon retire, and the feeling of worship spring up again from the germs which were hidden beneath the surface, and apparently lost in the tide of unbelief.

Man was made for God, for perfection, illimitable and immortal. Therefore, he never finds his true position nor his true felicity, till restored to God, he revolves, like a star, around the centre of his spiritual nature. And society itself will never be truly organized till, pervaded by a divine affec tion, it recognizes the full supremacy of God, the true and sacred brotherhood of man. Thence is Christianity a system of reconciliation and reunion. This is its vital, all-pervading idea this its single and sublime purpose, "God is in Christ reconciling, reuniting the world unto himself." He feels after them, that he may find them; speaks to them in the language of remonstrance, warning, and pity; nay, more, comes to them, in Christ, that by a miracle of mercy, transcendent and wonderful, he may subdue their enmity, and take them to his bosom. It is evident, that man has fallen from his original state, that by the abuse of his free agency he has wandered from God, and so darkened and debased his noble nature. After all, that nature, dark and ruined as it is, has something in it celestial and immortal, like the beautiful ruins of an ancient, and not altogether extinct fountain in the heart of some deserted city. It belongs to God, and yet bears the traces of its