man may know this side the grave. He has told us what God is, and what we must do. Nay, He has shown us God, and He has shown us a perfect Man. We know now that God is love, and that the highest privilege of man is to love God with all his heart and mind and soul and strength. We know now, as man never knew before, what those words mean, "All souls are Mine, saith the Lord God." We scarcely speak now of God, for He has bidden us call Him "Father." We meet His eye as we look upward; we feel His arm round us; we look onward to the day when He will take us home, and we shall know even as we are known.

And now, with all this light and with these high hopes, how shall we live? How do we live? If our souls are His, does God reign there; are they kept for Him? Let us put away generalities and stand face to face with God; for men and present circumstances and things created pass away, but God and the soul remain.*

* "The deeper we go into science the more certain is it that all the realities of nature are in the region of the Invisible, so that it is literally true that the things that are seen are temporal, the unseen eternal."-Duke of Argyle.

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CHAPTER II.

THE ADOPTION OF THE SOUL.

"Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."-ROMANS viii. 15.

"Father and Lover of our souls!

Though darkly round Thine anger rolls,
Thy sunshine smiles beneath the gloom,
Thou seek'st to warn us, not confound,

Thy showers would pierce the harden'd ground,

And win it to give out its brightness and perfume."

"Fathers may hate us or forsake,
God's foundlings then are we;
Mother on child no pity take,

But we shall still have Thee."

"Father to me thou art and mother dear,

Christian Year.

Christian Year.

And brother too, kind husband of my heart; '

So speaks Andromache in boding fear,
Ere from her last embrace her hero part:

So evermore, by faith's undying glow,
We own the Crucified in weal and woe."

Christian Year.

IT has been said of the discoveries of modern science that they tend to remove God further

So,

from us. The power of second causes, the operations of fixed and self-acting laws, have been wonderfully elucidated, and what in other times men ascribed to the direct interference of God is now seen to result from the operation of causes more or less under the control of man. For example, the laws of health and disease have been patiently and successfully investigated, and much has been discovered by which epidemic disease may be prevented or mitigated and its spread arrested. also, in every department of science. The Creator's hand is believed to have given far-reaching impulse to His works, and to have set in motion powers of chymical development-powers of life evolving itself ever upwards. And, as is always the case, men revel in their new discovery, push their theory to extremes, and are impatient with anything that seems to oppose their last darling acquisition. So it is that religion suffers, and from putting God further off, men go on to denying Him altogether.

So then, in an age such as ours, the Church needs. especially to oppose herself, not to the discoveries. of science, but to inferences too hastily drawn from theories set up very often upon most unstable foundation, and conclusions adopted without reasonable and satisfactory grounds. The worldly and the ungodly are always seeking weapons to wield against the Church and the godly; and in these days there are none so handy and so telling as those which charge them with ignorance, and assert that they have reason and facts against them; and thus

they turn round and cry, with a triumphant sneer, "Where is now thy God?"

It was once asserted in the same way, that the discovery that the earth revolved round the sun, and that the earth was a globe, had upset the old faith; and subsequent glorious triumphs of science have by some been seized upon and prostituted to the same unworthy purpose; but more knowledge and patient thought have always left the Christian's faith just where it was, and shown that real science cannot injure, but rather strengthens faith. We wait, therefore, with patient confidence if any new theory seem to tell against our dearest hopes, knowing that time and more perfect knowledge will demonstrate that there has been too hasty dogmatism, and that it is not the wise, but the fool, who comes to the conclusion, "there is no God." And so to-day, though we acknowledge what seems to be proved respecting the laws of nature, and listen with deepest interest to what is still further surmised, and what may some day come to be received as true, we still from the bottom of our hearts join in that collect which ascribes to God's "never failing providence the ordering of all things," and asks His aid against things hurtful, and His gift of things profitable to us; and we cling tenaciously and most thankfully to those words of St. Paul, "Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

The world is very wonderful; the universe is vast, its laws overwhelm us as we gain more and

more insight into them; our mind delights to investigate and be amazed; it is greedy of yet wider and deeper discoveries; but there is also our religious instinct, as real and active as our mental powers. God must be very great, very mighty, very wonderful, utterly incomprehensible, and yet we love Him and desire to draw near to Him and nestle in His arms. We have read of mighty monarchs, at whose nod vast armies muster and march, whose frown means death, disporting themselves, like children, with their children. We recall to mind a picture of the great Napoleon, at the height of his power, sitting motionless, lest he should disturb his baby boy, who sleeps using his mighty father's knee for a pillow. What if God be great? He is our Father; He loves us; we love Him, and "love casteth out fear." There is a time for all things. At the time of worship we bow down in most profound and awful reverence before His infinite majesty, with angels and archangels we tremble and adore; but there are other times when, in the quiet familiar hour, we draw near without fear, and know that we are the sons of God. God's perfections are infinite; His creation is an inexhaustible mine of wonder and beauty; the creatures of His hand are without number; and yet His perfections enable Him without distraction to give His whole attention to each one of us, His most lowly creatures. It is by His will that we exist; there is no chance or accident; His providence ordereth all things. There was no necessity that we should exist, but God