earnestly looked thereon. The work of genius embodies the idea of the greatly conceived original; it is a stroke of intellect "the Tempter holds the plucked apple." He has not cultivated his higher powers, who sees not in the visible present thing a wonderful and invisible thing; a mental and moral reality that pervades the past, and colours all the future.

Our mental acts show that the world is far richer in other things than in those which are physically displayed. Every sense goes beyond itself; that which is vital, or organic, goes beyond the organic; that which is mental rests on the material, but exceeds it; that which is spiritual in us has basis in the natural, but goes further than the natural; and all nature indicates something that is above nature. The specialities of this knowledge are not yet clearly arranged, they are significant of progress, but their condition is rudimentary. Points of contact, and openings for vision, are everywhere. Conceptions, feelings, forces, mingle. Matter, in all forms, is so associated that we think there is one essential Substance; forces are related as the radii of one Centre; all life, organically connected, speaks of one living Principle. Natural sequences are so ordered by universal Influence, not less intellectual than powerful, that the utmost exertion of our intellectual faculties leads to the unerring certainty that everything is being formed anew for further processes in worlds to come.

The arrangement of down on the wings of a moth is on the same mathematical principles as those which prevail in the constellations. The child's sensations and thoughts, vague as they seem, are of the same order as those which are possessed by the best and greatest

men; and these thoughts are, by intelligible arrange

ment, even as are the powers of the universe. Human intelligence, observing those powers, constructs of the earth, the wood, the metals of our planet, those instruments by which to experiment on the worlds' mechanisms; and obtains responses which guide and develop the exactitude and power of reason. This reason discerns that consciousness, in personal unity, and continuous identity of individuality, is the highest known form of existence. Then, this reason, using the microscope, finds that an insect whose life is for an hour, whose universe is a leaf or a dew-drop, affords conceptions to genius not less grand and wonderful than the gorgeousness of suns, and the vastness of space; that the great God, in His Majesty, enthrones Himself everywhere, yet transcends everything, and all; contained only by His own consciousness.

"To Thee, O Holy! I direct mine eyes;

To Thee my hands, to Thee my humble knees;

To Thee my heart shall offer sacrifice ;

To Thee my thoughts, Who my thoughts only sees;
To Thee myself-myself and all I give ;

To Thee I die, to Thee I only live!"

Ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh.

If it be said, "Had these thoughts any real counterparts, whether in or beyond Nature, they would be general, prevalent, and render atheism and unbelief, as to future life and worlds, impossible;" we reply, "The laws of gravity, of conservation of energy, of differentiation in the distribution of matter and force, are undeniable; yet not a man in ten millions is more than slightly acquainted with them." High art, accurate science, are possible to very few; even those who strive with all their heart do

not always attain great skill. How can we expect knowledge of the noblest things in men whose habit of mind is diseased with that worst disease, unbelief? Only to the believer are all things possible. It is said that David Hume, having witnessed the beauty of sanctity and its joys in the venerable La Roche's family, confessed with a sigh, "there were moments when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophy and the pride of fame, he wished that he had never doubted." Descartes and his followers failed to explain what happens in the universe; but men, like Newton, with better facts and better arranged, showed that things happen as they do because every piece of matter pulls every other piece. with a force which, for twice the distance, is a quarter as great. Most persons have an instinctive sort of sense that the great and good of past ages "are all gone into the world of light;" but it is not in the nature of things that those who seldom think accurately, or to any good purpose, of immortality, shall obtain intellectual conviction of a happy future;

"And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep."

Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans.

Place yourself in the sunshine; do not look at the sun, but downward; now the sunlight falls on your eyelashes. There is a maze of beautiful colours: the eyelashes, being bent and crossing one another, cause the mingling. Take a single hair, hold it in front of your eye, an inch or two away, so that the light falling on it is reflected: you will see the prismatic colours in

regular little short stripes across the hair. Adam might have seen this in Eden; how few of the many millions have so looked as to see it! The evidences of immortality, and the many proofs of glorious worlds to come, are open to every man who cultivates his higher powers; but when we do wrong, the taint of that grovelling stains backward all the leaves that we have turned over in the book of life, and blots the page we now are turning. Darkness comes in those shades and degrees that mark unbelief; then the day-visions, and nightomens, make us afraid; and we are glad to shake off the fear. If some gleam of immortality breaks in again upon us, it is a surprise, as an unwonted thought; and, once more put away, we settle down and stifle what, otherwise, were an ever-growing happiness. The smooth piston, and almost noiseless motion of that strong steamengine, at the Mint, lays, so to speak, its finger on a piece of metal; and, without an effort, stamps it as a coin. The force of habit goes as far: the thought, the feeling, the act, is minted, moment by moment, for our King's heavenly treasury; or stamped with sharp impress of evil-then it is no royal coin. Divine Love has been plentiful as a shower to thee; is thy return but as a dew-drop-a drop stained with sin? the end thereof?

What will be

RESEARCH IV.

THE REPRESENTABILITY OF PHYSICAL TRUTH APPLIED TO THE PRESENTATION OF SPIRITUAL THINGS.

“Things are of manifold and wide signification. The highest meaning of a thing expresses its great use and purpose, and is a Divine Word. Were the whole working of any one operation revealed at once, we should be hopelessly confused. The durations and variations of the Schools of Human Thought are phases of some universal truth—imperfectly understood."—An Old Father.

“All things that are discovered are made manifest by the light; for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.”—Eph. v. 13, with marginal reading.

THE degree in which any physical fact, or statement, can be made manifest to our thought, is the test and proof of physical verity. Physical things are reckoned amongst our greatest certainties because we are able, at any time by repeated experiments, to show their reality.

To most heads and hands it is easier to take and receive proofs by means of a physical fact, than by mental demonstration; but, certainly, the more intelligent we become the more heartily shall we adopt Professor Tyndall's words, "The facts of religious feeling are to me as certain as the facts of physics."1 We make a twofold investigation.

1 "Address before the British Association at Belfast," Introd., p. vi.