being. Yet none the less is it the Law of God which speaks in Duty. The paradox meets us once again. It is now that 'perfect law of liberty.' Duty, once so hard a word, so stern, so ready to start up as the opposite of privilege, now shines out as the privilege supreme.

How all this is pictured for us in perfect lines when we read in the Gospels of the Transfiguration of the Lord. We see one ascending the steep of Duty's path, knowing not whence arises that strange claim to which he is yet so grimly loyal; with face set like a flint, eyes averted from every primrose path of dalliance that would lead aside from the way, effort in the straining limbs; knowing not why, still must he do the right. But lo, he reaches a height where a bright cloud rests. Nay, the heaven. above opens; and a voice not of earth greets him: a hand omnipotent, yet tender, grasps him. The Father of his spirit is there, and he is in His embrace. The Brother and Lover of his soul claims him. The Spirit, Lord and Giver of Life,

breathes life and peace into his heart.

the meaning of all is at length revealed.

Then

Duty

is privilege indeed. The hardness and stern

The very

ness that repelled have passed. garments, worn and travel-stained, have now become raiment that is white and glistering ; and the face is as of one who, without cloud, communes with God.

Here then, we must bring to a close this brief and imperfect outline-brief and imperfect indeed, compared with the breadth and length and height of what has been included in its survey. Yet here and there, it is hoped, through all this confessed inadequacy, some bright pregnant glimpses may have been obtained of the perfect round of what Christ our Life has made the possession of a believing soul; and some aid at least afforded to those whom it has been especially desired to help.

If indeed it be, that in an absolute trust and in an infinite progression we may all recognise elements that constitute our ideal of a perfected human life; and if it be that in fellowship with persons this life finds its highest mode and form: then, as we look up to those far-off points of light in the spiritual firmament above, to Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Right those stars, that in the best of mankind have

always attracted and stirred the soul to its purest enthusiasm-it can never surely be our final word, that these ideal points of human aspiration and endeavour, with their strange power to attract, and claim, and rule, shine down upon us, as separate stars, from some heaven of abstractions. They must, surely, ultimately be found to be but modes and aspects of a Unity as Real and as Personal as that which constitutes the identity of those whom they thus claim: there must be, holding them together in one, a Personal synthesis, corresponding to that which holds together in a unity and identity which cannot be infringed, our own several human capacities and powers.

Thus it is, that these converging lines of reflection, which we have been occupied in tracing, cannot but lead at last to a Supreme and Central Person-One who shall be revealed at length as at once the Highest and yet the Nearest: the Holiest, and yet the One who Loves us best. And in this all-inclusive Fellowship with Him will be found the heart of a Religion which, while it gives due place to creeds and polities and ritual, must find its

throbbing life in none of these, but in a perfected Communion with God and with one another. Then indeed, will those rapt words of St. Paul, which for the most part escape our narrow, shallow thoughts, come at last to find a natural home in our souls, and be full of meaning when we venture to take them up into our lips: All things are yours, whether the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's,'

NOTES.

LECTURE I.

NOTE 1, PAGE 8.

WHEN we consider the tide of silent influences which has now for half a century been sweeping up against these rocky barriers of dogma, it is no matter of surprise that there has come about, in almost all quarters, a gradual depreciation of formulated statements of doctrine or belief. These influences have sprung naturally from the Scientific Spirit in general which has for so long given its tone to our modern thought, while they have been accentuated by that special mode and manifestation of it familiar to us under the name of the Higher Criticism.

This so-called 'retreat from dogma' is, indeed, sometimes construed simply as one symptom among many of the superficiality and levity of the age in which we live, but it is at least susceptible of quite a different interpretation, and one which in my opinion is much nearer to the truth. My conviction is that there exists and is operative amongst us a more eager and even passionate desire to get at the truth of things than has ever prevailed before.

This would seem to be the inevitable result of the diffusion of the scientific temper which characterises our time, and is