separate and lifeless, and has no sphere to expand itself into. So with everything in matter, and the purely mechanical forces which affect that. The law of Construction, not that of Development, is there all-pervading.

But the moment we enter the sphere of life, we meet the disposition to progress and growth. The flower-germ expands by regular advancements into leaf, and stalk, and calyx, and petals, the flushed, symmetric and consummate corolla. It is the law of its structure. The embryo animal is unfolded and matured, under the steady and usual laws that frame and govern the system of the creation, into the compact and powerful growth, or the lithe and delicate yet complex organism, which science admires and explores with her analysis, and in which she confesses a trophy of the Creator. And the human child, so weak, dependent, and exposed at the outset, not surviving if the wind but visit it too roughly, not enduring either heat or cold, or moisture, the smallest accident, the lightest compression that little and frail, but living child, grows up by degrees to the stature and power of a majestic manhood, or is developed into the symmetry and clothed with the grace that invest with teir charm the peerless woman.

The destiny of Progress, in other words, through development, toward perfection,-toward the thorough and evident realization of all that is possible in their conditions of being,-is upon living creatures from the start of their history. It shows a more wonderful operation of God in them. It separates them from matter; marks them out as elect to nobler offices; establishes their place on a higher level of existence. manifest sceptre of life.

It is the

Of course, then, the same great law accosts us, in only a higher and more imperative exhibition, when we enter the department of spiritual existence. For here life comes to its fullest expression, as enthroned, full-orbed, in the conscious soul. In this the supernatural blends with the physical. A microcosm it is, but also an avatar. With intellect to apprehend truth and its relations, a conscience to feel the obligations of duty, affections to arise and encompass the Infinite, and a will possessing liberty, that finite omnipotence,-it evidently involves, in its personal unity, transcendent forces. Man derives responsibility and immortality from this structure of the soul. He is shown to be the rightful possessor of the world. And in the expansion of his perfected nature, while he touches the brute, and finds strange analogies to its instincts in himself, he aspires toward the angel, and catches the echo of far and high songs. He can root himself to the earth, in the grasp of

his desires; or he can ascend, in the uplift and flight of his exulting hope, to the golden and sapphire sceneries of Heaven.

As life, then, in the soul of man attains its highest terrestrial expression, the aptitude for development which we elsewhere discern in it must exist in that, and must seek the largest and most powerful expression. It does so exist; and often mutely but always really it is felt and revealed. In each faculty we discover it.-That power, for example, which seeks to comprehend the relations of things, and to penetrate phenomena to the principles beneath them; which would collate the similar, and distinguish the unequal, and generalize the individual, and encompass the distant in a principle of order, and which would thus frame theories and scientific explanations, for the comprehension and exposition of all the system of being around us; that power, which we call familiarly the Understanding, our truly constructive and systematizing facultytends continually to expansion, and a visible progress. Having learned one particular, it is eager for others. Having formed one hypothesis, it either establishes and finally confirms that, on a still securer basis of induction and argument, or it supplants it by another, more adequate and just. It takes at the outset the discipline and culture of some other understanding as the limit of its hope. But when that is reached, another reinspires it; or the intellect measuring itself against absolute Truth, and feeling the movement of great original capacities that tend to the search and mastery of that, is moved to vaster effort by its immensity. So everywhere and innately, in its normal activity, it approximates the ideal. "Excelsior" is the

word breathed above it at its birth; which, according to the ancient and natural magic, has the power to prefigure and determine its career. The instinct of its being is advancement; ascension; higher, and further, toward perfect day.

The same is as evidently true of the Reason; that intuitive and almost impersonal power, which scans and investigates the absolute and impalpable; which gives methods and inspiration to the constructive Understanding; and which, as the teacher of the Imagination, presents to it ideals, informs it with the eternal laws of beauty, and makes it the interpreter of their mysteries to men, the Seer and prophet of invisible realms. This, ever aspires toward clear intuitions; a more intimate sympathy with the reason which is eternal. It would have all the greatness and marvel of Being, expressed, as beneath the seraph's eyes, to its eclaircised and regal gaze. No mystery short of that one, all-encompassing, the relation of the infinite

to the finite and the transient; no obscurity that lies lower than the level of incarnation; is the claim of the Reason.

So the Conscience and the Will aspire each toward perfection, in their natural impulse. Except as they are depressed by malign inward influence, or are detained and debilitated by adverse circumstances, so far as the forces that naturally inhere in them are allowed to have play, they ascend toward entire development and dominance; till the conscience shall be sensitive, clear-sighted and undaunted, as a power of perception, and perfectly authoritative as impelling to duty; till the will shall be superior to circumstances and the Past, and as the true architect of fortunes and the Future shall mould all before it into plastic consent. There is not an instance of historical heroism, in which the conscience, informed of duty and enforced by its spirit, has been allied with a will sublime and calm, and so has revealed its divinity to man-not an instance like that of the reformer before his princes, or of the incorruptible judge withstanding temptation and hostile authority, or of the poet, in blindness, poverty and age, beneath the frowns of royal power, still pondering Paradise and quarrying from it his diamond palaces, or still breathing out in sonnets and in psalms his praise to the Creator, as if exalted from all contact with the world, and made superior to its every opposition-there is not such an instance, for which the soul, attentively considering it, may not find in itself the original capacity. It is this which makes all such histories impressive.

Everywhere in our nature, save at one point only, in all our appropriate human powers, we discern a central life, with its tendencies toward progress; the aptitude for development, unto mastery and perfection. Everywhere, save at one point. And at that point we touch the chasm in our nature, which for ages has arrested the thoughts of philosophy. Men like Pliny or Plutarch-the thoughtful, contemplative and intuitive minds, who have felt themselves related to invisible systems, and have turned from the bustle and pomp of circumstances to study the secrets and the destinies of the soul-have felt that here was a singular mystery. At the centre of our being, where this tendency to development should be deepest and strongest, because the relations of the soul to its Author become most intimate, at the point that is of the moral affections, aspiring toward God, we meet a want. The life-element is not there. We have arisen step by step, in the survey of our nature, toward this summit and sun of it; and this is absent. The taste for beauty, in nature or in art, abides unchanged. The taste which is gratified, in its sterner demands, amid the

hoarse severity of storms, beneath the weird and sleepless forest, under the glory of stars at night, or on the wild outreach of ocean, this remains undiminished. But the principle of affection toward Him who has framed all, and before whom all stands in the crystal immensity, as the signet on the hand of his constant Omnipotence, this we do not discover. On the other hand, we discern self-seeking, and its tendencies. At this point, therefore, the Christian demand of a regeneration confronts philosophy. Christianity expounds the occasion of this want, and would furnish its supply. As quickening man's will to new activities, or as calling down an energy from above upon the soul, the Church has always professed to meet this; and she has in this function the ground of her permanence. She claims to be more than a civilizing power. She asserts another office than of outward reform. Through the truth, by the Spirit, distributed through her, she would renovate the heart. The splendid or the simple forms, hierarchies or brotherhoods, ordinances and rituals, annals illustrious with the heroism of martyrdom, archives bounteous with the learning of generations, litanies pealing and aspiring to God with the penitence or the ecstasy of confessing hearts, cathedral building their rocky oratorios as the scene of Divine revelation and action, all these are the drapery of the power of the Church; the gorgeous or sombre robes, around that queenly yet ministering form which would ally the soul with its original again.

But when these affections toward the Infinite are enkindled, the tendency with them also is to development. They grow up with meditation. They are nursed to new strength by each survey of the universe. The telescope gathers light from far systems upon them. The eye of the microscope leads them forth to new range, in its revelation of interior worlds. The whole material organized system, as disclosed to our study, in its secrets and its breadth, in its harmonies and its stability, in the vivid evidencings of its maker throughout it, becomes a temple and home of these affections; instinct with the forces of a continuous culture. And the Scriptures assemble for them revelations and theophanies, the mission of angels, the discoveries of the future, the Incarnation of God. They never can tarry, therefore, in their proper development, they never can rest, in fulfillment of their law, till they flame to seraphic ardor and height; till they sing and are glad before God's face!

Of all the powers inherent in our being, then, in their harmonious and appropriate action, the tendency is to enlargement and progress. As the insignificant germ works up toward

the fragrant and free-swaying flower; as the seed advances toward the tree, whose affluent and majestic cope shelters the sod; as the embryo of the egg is perfected in the eagle, that soars and sails in the immeasurable azure; so the powers of the child, all callow and inconsiderable as they are at the first, tend naturally and steadily toward the stature of the man's. It is the law of their being. It gives mystery, sublimity, divinity to the child, and makes his life momentous and august. It is a proof of God's authorship; it is a pledge of his immortality. The forces within him transcend the Present. They overleap attainment, the moment it is made. They aspire to an ideal, which imagination itself can scarcely define; which history has not realized; which only the Future shall open fullcircle.' That Future itself takes reality and a presence, it grapples our deepest philosophical convictions, when we ponder the child; since only amid its immeasurable scope can the powers that are in him find their full evolution.

In this development, then, and spiritual progress, this unfolding of the powers which God has placed in us unto the measure which they prophesy, is found the first element of true human Success. The accomplishment of this should be the aim of every educator. The accomplishment of this should be the goal of every youth. Man's end is not the accumulation of outward conditions of enjoyment or influence; of wealth, or power, or fortunate circumstances, or pleasant social relations and prospects. It is not the acquisition of the means of self-improvement; or, even, the attainment of positive knowledge. Knowledge is good; but Development, to new greatness and symmetry of power, is larger and is better. Attainment ought always to be auxiliary to such development. If not, it crushes, like Tarpeia's shields. "Studies are to serve,' as Lord Bacon has said, "for delight, and for ornament;" but also and chiefly, "for ABILITY." We are to grow up upon them, to an ever newer fulness and proportion of power; till all that we have been is merged and completed in a larger capacity; till the aspiration of the Past is the possession of the Present; till our manhood is perfected.

This development, too, must accord with the bent of the original constitution, in order to be really complete and thorough. It must carefully accept, and not traverse or resist the tendencies of nature. This law is obvious.

Varieties adorn, we might almost say distinguish, the operation of the creator. There is no machine-work in his system. Every product is individual. And so is expressed the perfect power and the absolute ubiquity of the will that frames all.