devotion pretends to know. It has come face to face with God, it says, and loves. Vain dream! It has rather created an image out of its sanctified fancy, and for that burns with passionate desire.

And yet, we must be just. There is a truth in this imaging of God in the mind. It is not altogether a false representation of Him which the mind creates for itself. The elements out of which the representation is made, are true, so far as they go. Have you ever seen the canvas intended for a great picture, after the artist has worked two or three days only upon it? That is like our sanctified imagings of God. All the right colours laid on, all the lines in the right direction, but what resemblance, nevertheless, is there to the perfected work? The sun is imaged in a dew drop; but who could learn by looking in the dew drop what are the majesty and glory of the sun? They are, then, divine properties which the soul loves in its image of God, but divine properties limited and reduced to created patterns. When the soul takes what is noble, pure, beautiful, glorious in man, intensifies and exalts it, forms out of it an ideal conception of God, gives itself up to the passionate love of and desire for this ideal object, no doubt it is loving and desiring things that are of God -is loving and desiring God. For all these properties in man are of God-are the manifestations and work of

His Spirit in man. The good, the true, the beautiful in man are rays of God's truth, goodness, and beauty; the passionate love of them is therefore the love of God. And no doubt God creates them in man, that our passionate love and desire may be called forth towards Himself manifested in them. Herein, then, seems to me to lie the error of those who give themselves up to these extatic forms of devotion-they limit the glory of God to the boundaries of their own imagination, and then, lavish upon the circumscribed image the affections which were

created to be bestowed upon the manifestations of His nature in man. With truer conceptions of God, such forms of devotion would become impossible. The fault does not consist in being too much absorbed by God's glorious nature, in admiring, loving, adoring, His marvellous truth, goodness, and holy beauty too intensely; but, in limiting these in a degree which makes them capable of entire appropriation. Let God's infinitude come out clearly before the mind, let His glorious nature be exalted above the limits of our conception, and immediately the soul becomes too much awed, filled with too profound a reverence, too humbled to dare to think of appropriating to itself the fulness of His being the passion becomes calmed under the influence of His majesty, love utters itself only in trustfulness and tremulous adoration.

But, you will understand, this does not mean that, when we rightly think of God, there are no love and desire after Him. It merely discriminates between the love and desire proper to His infinite nature, and that which we rightly give to His creatures in proportion as they manifest that nature. Those who know God and think of Him as the omnipresent Spirit, the all-efficient power whose operations extend through, and whose nature is manifested in, all creation, cannot but adore and love as they contemplate His nature in these created manifestations. To them He necessarily is the one, all-sufficing, all-efficient God, the one joy and blessedness of all creatures. And, knowing Him thus, they cannot but desire to know Him more fully, to share more largely in the communications of His nature, to come into closer union with Him. For, to put it in another form, this is nothing more than desiring to share in, and partake more and more of, whatever is true, beautiful, and good in the world, to enter more and more into the blessedness of all true, beautiful, and good thoughts and feelings. For, not

in His inmost being is God known or can He be enjoyed; but in these manifestations of Him,-in all His glorious and beautiful works, in all the glorious and beautiful thoughts He creates within us. And it is in keeping with this that the Psalmist tells us in the text that his soul and flesh long for God, to see His power and glory so as he had seen them in the sanctuary. He did not dream that he, the finite, could appropriate to himself all the glory and power of the Infinite One. There is, therefore, no extravagance of language, transferring the passionate feelings awakened by human love to the Creator; but, what he prays for, longs, thirsts for, is to see more of God in His manifestations-more of that power and glory which he had already discerned as he heard the Levites chant His holy praise, and had joined in the sacrifices, the prayers, the worship of the temple. Whatever brought to him truer and more beautiful thoughts, purer and more ennobling feelings, that would fufil the desire and satisfy the longing of his soul.

I think, therefore, wherever there is the spirit of true devotion, there will be this longing and thirst for God. But, in proportion as we know God, will it take the quiet, yet fervent, form of the text, rather than the impassioned form it often assumes in our hymns, and which it constantly assumed amongst the mystics. God's glorious nature is such that, it necessarily excites the profoundest love when once it is discerned by the soul. But the greatness of God overawes all passion, and keeps the soul quiet and humbled in its love, when that greatness is recognized. Not the less, however, does the soul desire to appropriate as much of that glory and greatness as God may see fit to bestow upon her. She therefore looks to Him and waits upon Him, day and night, for the revelation of His grace. And every blessed influence from without, every ray of light which falls upon her from God,

every object which reveals anything of His truth, His love, His holy beauty-every human being that brings her in part any manifestation of what He is, fulfils, and in a measure satisfies, her desire. God through these, day by day, answers her cry and communicates Himself.

But, then, let us remember, the measure of the communication, for the most part, depends upon our preparedness for its reception. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Let the soul search for God, and she will find Him-find Him in the world, in man, in history, in Christ above all-find Him in her own spiritual being, find Him in everything real and good. He is everywhere around us, putting forth the energies of His nature, and revealing His ideas. Blessed are the eyes which see, the hearts which feel. More and more shall

they find of Him, more and more their longings shall be satisfied, until at last they themselves shall be filled with all the fulness of God.

DIVINE WORSHIP.

"How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."—Psa. lxxxiv. 1, 2.

MEETING together again in this house of God, after some weeks of separation, it seems not unfitting that we should direct our thoughts to the benefits and blessedness of public worship. We get attached to the place we are accustomed to assemble in, and to the people we are accustomed to assemble with; and although other buildings may be grander or more beautiful, and other people may seem to possess more of culture or more of devotion, let us wander whither we will, and worship with whom we may, our thoughts still revert to our home, and it is seldom we can enter into the services of others with the same sympathies as are awakened in the congregation of which we regularly form a part. And thus, our divine Father beneficently binds the hearts of His children closer and closer together, and forms circles of loving worshippers united to each other by their common delight in His service.

Upon reflection, we soon discern the attachment of Christian people to their respective places of worship is determined by one of two elements-by their appreciation of the preaching, or, by their sympathy with the worship. And the difference in the elements which determine the attachment gives rise to the most important