My friend, if you and I ever reach our Father's house, we shall look back and see that the sharp-voiced, rough-visaged teacher, Disappointment, was one of the best guides to train us for it. He gave us hard lessons. He often used the rod. He often led us into thorny paths. He sometimes stripped off a load of luxuries; but that only made us travel the freer and the faster on our heavenward way. He sometimes led us down into the valley of the death-shadow; but never did the promises read so sweetly as when spelled out by the eye of faith in that very valley. Nowhere did he lead us so often, or teach us such sacred lessons, as at the cross of Christ. Dear, old, rough-handed teacher! We will build a monument to thee yet, and crown it with garlands, and inscribe on it: Blessed be the memory of DISAPPOINTMENT.—Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, N. Y.

SPIRITUAL DYSPEPTICS.

There is a class of weak-handed and feeble-kneed professors in Christ's church who are self-made invalids. Their spiritual debility is the direct result of their own sins and short-comings. In their case, as in the physical hygiene, disease is the inevitable punishment of transgression against the laws of health.

Is not the inebriate's bloated and poisoned frame the immediate legacy of his bottle? Is not a shattered nervous system the tormenting bequest which a high-pressure career of sensuality leaves to the transgressor? The indolence which never earns its daily bread cannot earn the appetite to enjoy it ; the gluttony which gorges the stomach is but fattening an early banquet for the worms. Dyspepsia is only God's appointed health-officer, stationed at the gateway of excess, to warn off all who approach it, and to punish those who will persist in entering the forbidden ground. In like manner spiritual disease is the inevitable result of committed sin, or neglect of religious duty. It requires no profound skill to detect the cause of Mr. A.'s dyspepsia, or Deacon B.'s spiritual palsy, or poor Mr. C.'s leprosy. How can a Christian be healthy who never

works? How can a man's faith be strong who never enters his closet? How can a man's benevolence be warm who never gives? A want of appetite for giving always brings on a lean visage in the church; but I do like to hear my neighbor M. pray at the monthly concert, for the fluency of devotion is quickened by his fluency of purse. He dares to ask God's help in the salvation of sinners, for he is doing his own utmost too. And I have known one resolute, sagacious, Christ-loving woman to do in a mission-school what Florence Nightingale did in the hospitals of Scutari; that is, teach the nurses how to cure, as well as the sick how to recover.

If this brief paragraph falls under the eye of any spiritual dyspeptic, let us offer him two or three familiar counsels. My friend, your disease and debility are your own fault, not your misfortune. It is not a "visitation of God," but a visitation of the devil, that has laid you on your back, and made you well-nigh useless in the church, in the Sabbath-school, and in every enterprise of Christian charity. Having brought on your own malady, you must be your own restorer, by the help of the divine physician.-T. L. Cuyler.

THE FULLNESS OF GOD.

What a transcendent idea that is in Paul's prayer for his brethren: "That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God!" When, therefore, we meet with a man or woman who almost never disappoints us; who is always "abounding" in the work of the Lord; who serves God on every day as well as the Sunday; who is more anxious to be right than to be rich; and who can ask God's blessing on the bitterest cup;—when we meet such a one, we know that down in the clefts of the soul is Christ, the well-spring!

In a thousand ways will the inward fountain of Christian principle make itself visible. We see it in the merchant who gives Christ the key of his safe, and never soils it with a single dirty shilling. We see it in the statesman who cares more to

win God's smile on his conscience than a re-election to office. We recognize it in the minister who is more greedy for souls than for salary. We see it in the young man who would rather endure a comrade's laugh than a Saviour's frown; in the maiden who obeys Christ sooner than fashion. I sometimes detect this well spring of cheerful piety in the patient mother, whose daily walk with God is a fount of holy influence amid her household. I know of poor men's dwellings in which grows a plant of contentment that is an exotic rarely found in marble mansions. Its leaves are green and glossy; it is fed from the Well.

In dying chambers we have often heard this spiritual fountain playing, and its murmur was as musical as the tinkle of a brook

"In the leafy month of June."

Ferfect love had cast out fear. Peace reigned. Joys sparkled in the sunlight of God's countenance. There was a well there which death could not dry-the "well of water springing up into everlasting life."-T. L. Cuyler.

THE NEW RELIGION.

The great word of religion has always been piety. To feel right towards God, and to worship Him in the acceptable way, have always been considered the chief if not the sole duties of man. Docrines have been set forth and emphasized as the quickener and support of sentiment. Rituals have been elaborated as the most fitting language and gymnastics of devotion. Fast and penance, gorgeous rites and pomps and paraphernalia have been invoked to deepen and give emphasis, volume and articulation to the soul's worship of Deity.

It has been almost universally held that God was infinitely better pleased with prayers addressed to Him than with silent discharge of duty, sweet resignation to the inevitable ordinations of nature, or the tender and helpful service of men. Grace at meals, an exhortation in the conference-room, an hour

in church, a subscription to some mission or pious enterprise, have always been held and thought more acceptable in the sight of heaven than honesty in business, fidelity to private and public trusts, personal culture, and consecration to the noblest human interests and aims. Consequently Christian ethics and exhortations have chiefly run in pietistic grooves. The face has been turned skyward. The world has been looked upon as merely a point of departure, and the duties of man to man, and the sweet and holy charities of life, have been ignored or forgotten. This is the old religion, of which not a little still remains.

Those who study carefully the significance of Christ's teachings and example, reading between the lines of the gospels and feeling the spirit that still animates the words that were written in sympathetic ink, will find that with him religion was chiefly if not entirely philanthropy. He did not ignore Deity, he identified the Father with the child, and made loving service of the child the truest and most acceptable worship of the Father. Justice, mercy, kindness, charity, forgiveness, selfsacrifice these are the supreme Christian virtues. He did not ignore piety, but made the motive and soul of philanthropy. He does not forbid worship, but gives it a new and sublimer form in human helpfulness and uplifting. And whatever is done to alleviate the distress, ameliorate the condition, improve the morals, educate and elevate any and every class of men everywhere on earth, is in accordance with the principles and spirit of true Christianity, and part of the new religion whose essence is philanthropy, and whose love for God is the inspiration and result of helpful service of men.

The old religion has kept the ground and had things pretty much its own way hitherto. But within fifty years what is truest and most central in Christianity has got expression, and now utters itself with new clearness and force every day. The community has breathed in the new spirit, and its lungs dilate and its heart expands with the quickening influence. The age is beginning to glow with an enthusiasm for humanity. Never

before was there so strong an interest in, and so deep a sympathy for, the poor suffering and the wronged. Never before was the work of humanity so highly prized, so honored by the world. No characters are so revered and loved, and have so strong a hold upon the hearts of the people everywhere, as those who have toiled and sacrificed for the good of their fellowbeings. The world is fast opening its eyes to the fact that philanthropy is the other and larger half of piety, the visible human side of religion, and that without it there can be no healthy spirituality, no saving faith, no communion with him who spent his life in doing good and died for his fellow men, nor with Him who gives Himself to his children in the bounty of the world and in their every breath. The faith that does not blossom into love of man does not spring from the Christian vine; the form that does not kindle a flame of pure sympathy for mankind is a worse than encumbrance to true worship; the sect or church that does not forget itself in sheltering the homeless, befriending the outcast, saving the lost, and inciting and inspiring its members to noblest efforts in behalf of their fellows and for human good, has yet to prove its right to the Christian

name.

And evermore this new religion must increase in power and influence. Already it has invaded the sects, crept into the churches, put a new face upon the old beliefs and liturgies, and extemporized methods of activity that grate upon the old sanctities as secular and strange. It is this new religion-which works outside of churches, which makes churches of its own, calling them reforms, charities, hospitals, asylums, societies, com missions and clubs-which is undermining the old faster than any of our modern infidelities, and supplanting it with a shorter, happier, holier, and more helpful faith. The church of the future will be the church of the Good Samaritan. The saints our children will canonize and enshrine in blessed memories, will be the helpers and healers of humanity. And whosoever giveth a cup of cold water to one athirst in the spirit of love, shall be counted a follower of the Son of Man. This religion,