cord, no biting intonations which fall upon us like a sudden. blight. We feel that the higher sentiments of our nature are enthroned here, as in their native sphere; that the finest spiritual and social culture is diffusing its humanizing influences around us, softening what would otherwise be hard, harmonizing what would otherwise be conflicting interests or tastes, and with the glow of religious emotion transfusing into it the purer satisfactions which come only to souls living in harmony with God.

Without this faith in what is unseen men live selfishly. No matter what show of eternal refinement there may be, there is grossness and coarseness of sentiment. Nothing so refines the character, or so fits us for what is best in all our relations, as faith in Christ, - that is, a vital, practical faith in the divine ideas, the thoughts, affections, acts, which find their purest and fullest expression in him. Without this, men become narrow, hard and selfish as they advance in life. Side by side with them are people of a different sort. They seem at first to be interested in the same things. They are educated in the same schools and churches, and apparently have the same ideas and principles. But they live in a different world. The ruling motive of their lives keeps them under the influence and control of a different realm. And so, with advancing years and experience, they go on deepening and ripening in all the finer elements of character. Their religion is one which goes down to the fundamental principles of holy and divine living. Their convictions, accompanied by a larger charity for others, grow firmer, and become more and more vital and vitalizing energies. Their affections are strengthened, while they are purified and mellowed by time. They gain in influence and honor by the progress of thought and life. You fear no failure for them. Whatever else may fail, their characters cannot fail. They may change their occupation, places of abode, associates. They may grow richer or poorer. But their principles of religious faith, their habits of moral rectitude, their life of love to God and love to man, can never change.

When we find such elements of truth and security, of hap

piness, and of power, in the divine thought and life of Jesus, why should it be so hard to induce men to place themselves under his influence? Where else do we find truths so great and so shining in their own light? Where else do we find so grand an idea of the capabilities of our nature? Where else do we find examples of a manhood so strong and at the same time so filled out with humane and generous affections? Moral purity is mightier far than any outward force. Faith in what is holy and divine is an invincible power in the soul.

And shall these visions of truth, of holiness and love, be confined to martyrs of distant ages? Or shall this faith lend its encouragement and strength to all who enter the walks of life? Our young men and young women, in their earliest. training, in the first preparation and devotion of themselves to the duties of the day, -will they not place themselves under the guidance and influence of this divine spirit? It will exalt the most common duties, making the dusty ways of their pilgrimage holy because associated with holy thoughts and trodden by saintly feet. It will turn their victories into higher triumphs, and their defeats into victories. It will throw around them a holier atmosphere. It will quicken a deeper and more lasting enthusiasm. It will give wings to their loftiest aspirations, and fill out the various departments of activity with a fruition answering to their noblest desires. The beauty of a divine idea is needed to give its fitting illustration to the happiest life.

Thus may they go on in the Infinite Presence, living in harmony with the divine laws, partaking more and more of his spirit, till they are filled with all the fullness of God.

"THE religion of Jesus Christ is altogether a practical thing. Just consider how we are taught anything else that is practical. It is not by hearing or reading about making shoes that a man becomes a shoemaker, but by trying to make them."-A. W. Hare.

A SYMPHONY IN FOUR PARTS.

SOMETIMES our friend, the experienced and maidenly S., together with uncle Hamilcar, is with us at our Sunday dinners. It was so last Lord's day. At such times the meats are pretty sure to be accompained with other dessert than fair hands have provided in the pastry, or red-cheeked Will, in apples of the same family resemblance which he has brought along.

There is a wonderful connection between discussion and dinner, that is, after the latter is eaten. The dinner, got up in a smoked and steamy kitchen, with much baking and boiling, seasoning and compounding, is the proximate cause of the utterances upon high and heavenly themes which often follow. Let it be conceded to the materialist that the muscle of ox and lamb is pressed by the cook into that service which fights battles, builds republics, and writes "Paradise Lost." The most ethereal and the gross come, considering their nature, a great way to meet each other; they shake hands and agree to work together as long as the world stands.

Cheerful viands, we have all not unfrequently seen, are goodly pioneers, beckoning on the spirit of a man or woman to do its best. This excellent fact connected with our being was exemplified on the occasion just noted. It was after our one religious exercise at church had taken place, when we were all seated at the board, and when, be it remembered, the hungry animal every heir to immortality shows himself, two or three times each twenty-four hours, was getting over the fierce and ravenous part of the meal. The experienced and maidenly S., when she appears, is quite a central figure with us; or rather she is one centre and uncle H., when he comes, the other, in the social ellipse.

Some older members of the family casually tossed up the fact before our eyes, that, as our years increased, we lost the keen appetite of children (the young lions tugging at their mothers skirts and roaring to be fed). The reason was plain,

and we were all mouth-piece to the explanation, that, when little, the material part of us stretches forth its neck for food with double eagerness, that is, to provide for the coming man and to meet present needs; while, in maturity, the latter object alone asks for cakes and joints. This casual notice of what was, and what is along our march, paved the way for a fine reflection or two of S. "Providence," says she, "has in store so rich and varied resources that times and things, in life and history, cannot be matched, cannot be put into the same measure, that is, after you have got beyond such insignificances as two peas in a pod, two churchmen holding straight to the same cast-iron creed." Now that the servitor of pans and dishes, like a common-place and officious herald, had passed by, some of us thought we could, at this point, see the head of the royal procession coming into sight.

Uncle H. said he liked the remark of S. just made; and, getting a little animated, he declared that he felt like singing the praises of tea. That sort of cup, he hesitated not to affirm, in a lower tone of voice, to the next sitter, was with S. as a John the Baptist, the forerunner of the good ideas she always had on hand, waiting no doubt the opportunity and the inspirations of tea. In spite of the allusion (which she did not hear) to her weakness, or in confirmation of the strength of that side remark, our clear-headed and respected guest proceeded in what she had to say. "Well, no two things are alike, especially entities of a highly organized make. If you all chattered like me, and we four like four noisy magpies, or we all said the same thing, as, 'O Baal, hear us,' for above an hour, or, 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' or all constantly urged, 'The world is round and like a ball seems swinging in the air,' and each of us held it as an article of his faith, that the commas and semicolons in the Bible are inspired of heaven, what senseless monotony would be these moments of elegant ease and sociability!" As, continued he of the sacred profession, inert and perfunctory performances in the pulpit, on successive Sundays, evince different degrees of dulness. All seemed willing that the people whom it concerns should have this bit of comfort. "This fact of difference is,

God be praised, the sure pledge of repentance and improvement, and is the hope of glory." This slipped from the clergyman's mouth very easily, as it was in his line of busi

ness.

"Yes," resumed the learned and amaiable S., "this law of diversities is the foundation of sweet and not sweet, true and not true. Beautiful is beautiful because of the contrast with that which it is not agreeable to look upon. Florence Nightingale occupies a noble eminence because it is so far down from her to the numberless Flora McFlimsies who never think of being a devoted Sunday-school teacher, sitting down patiently to the making of garments for the wretched, or serving in a sick-room. Now and then, in the past and present, a poet flies high, like the eagle, towards the source of light and poetry, because so many writers of that kind are only able to poise themselves upon a much less noble wing. Did Shakespeare ever think that he would be seen from all sides of the earth, because he stood on the shoulders of men who could just put a wedding or a horse-race into indifferent rhyme and nothing more? In this principle of comparison is founded the possibility of progress, — ah, and the pleasure of progress, which is so much greater than that of sitting upon a goal, however soft the seat. Though there be hierarchies of souls, the upper ones and the lower, yet is not there a ladder placed for each of the less favored to ascend by, and for the joy and animation of the climbers, as well as for the pitying and loving descent of those above?"

They were all edified at seeing the reason of differences brought out so happily at last. "It is well," added H., "that all things are not on one easy-going, unimpassioned plane. It is plainly meant that we enter into the more abundant life, by going up the stairs of the universe, to speak in a heroic and valiant way. What a high, dull, dead level should we stand upon, in this world, or in the next, if we were all up to the same degree of goodness, teach, and teach all were saintly,

if all could

equally well, and none needed to be taught,

and not a single sinner to try the edge of one's saintliness upon?"