carries the hearts of all in his hand, turning them whithersoever He will to accomplish the ends of his wisdom in the mysterious or apocryphal government of the world. Without such a basis to rest upon, no dramatic structure could be erected. Even the Atheist when he constructs a drama builds it upon the Everlasting Rock, and all the while that his heart and his head are both denying the very being of a God or any intelligent universal agent, he is writing his apocryphal play upon the very fundamental principle of all religion, that the eye of God is always upon us, neither slumbering nor sleeping, and that He interests Himself in all the pantings and longings of our tiny little hearts."

"The Temple of Faith to be sure it is," said Edward. "The second Temple is more beautiful than the first, as woman is more beautiful than man. It comes closer to the heart, like woman herself. She is the second Temple, formed after the man. At present she is suffering the curse pronounced upon the woman by holding a place of inferiority, subject to the scorn and contempt, oppression and persecution, of her sanctimonious but equally corrupt husband."

"True," said Benjamin, "but the curse will be removed, and the marriage will be consummated between the Church and the drama. But this is only the first of the four important unions. The next is the political law, or state, represented by Rome, the liberty of regulating society by human laws. The next is the saloon, which embraces the whole question of social liberty, chivalry, etiquette, and good-manners, represented by France; and the fourth is the exchange, which embraces the whole

question of commercial faith and probity, the liberty of commerce, represented by England. These are the five mountains of society, each of them has a faith peculiar to itself, upon which the peace of society and the happiness of individual life depends. The first, the third, or the fifth, according as you happen to count or modulate, is a husband to all the rest, for it involves the idea of Divine supremacy or absolutism. The other four are human, female, and free, involving the principle of human liberty in harmony with law."

CHAPTER LXXXII.

"YOUR

MORE MYSTERIES REVEALED.

JR idea begins to assume a definite form," said Edward," and I can see the possibility of its being realised. The probability is also great. But its very nature forbids any attempt on the part of man to realise it alone. It is a Divine and human work."

"That is just its character," said Benjamin. "Faith sees it and believes it, and looks for its realisation. But it does not attempt to realise it alone. There must be the Divine manifestation, before any human effort in the matter can be legitimate. All great institutions have been founded by this two-fold agency. It is now fashionable to smile at it; but the more men smile and sneer at sacred truths, the more ephemeral their laws and their constitutional governments are. We live in an age of infidelity, materialism, ephemeralism, and decomposition. Our humanity wants divinity, and therefore it has no life, no permanency in it. Moses and Aaron must both appear again. These are the two principles, or living heads, of Church and State. They not only personify the two great principles, one of which is one-fold, the other four-fold, but all their recorded works or doings are mythological types of what must be done for human society to accomplish its restoration."

"It must be so," said Edward, "if the restoration of the Jews be the hope of the world. But the mode in which the work will be done has always puzzled me. I firmly believe that it will be in a way very different from what we expect, and much more simple than we are apt to conceive, for there is a propensity in human nature to seek the complex and the difficult in preference to the simple."

"I do not presume to say how the work will be done. But every man has a right to judge from the anagogue when once he perceives it. Now we have already seen human nature personified on a great scale in the history and constitution of human society. I think I could show you a similar personification in the work of Moses. But I shall merely give you one specimen at present as a sample of all the rest. Let us take the ark, the most mysterious of all. "Jeremiah was ordered to hide the ark in the mount of Moses till the day of its restoration. There it remains, and there it is preserved. But St. Paul says Sinai is Jerusalem-the capital of the Holy Land. It is therefore the head of man, for man's body is the Holy Land. We shall therefore find the ark in the human head. The ark was four square. These are the four external mountains of the face-the nose, chin, two cheeks, and brow. On the face of the ark (it is called a face) stood two mysterious cherubim of glory with wings. These are the two eyes with their eyebrows and eye-lashes."

This mount of Moses is Sinai.

"Most complete," said Edward; "all but the Shekinah, which stood between the cherubim. This is a difficulty, I should imagine."

"I should regard this as an insurmountable difficulty," said Benjamin, “were there not a nose on the human countenance, between the two cherubim of glory, and were it not the office of that nose to do just what the Shekinah of the ark did-smell the sweet-smelling savour of the incense that was offered. It may seem irreverent to compare it to the nose; but it is a fact that the Lord is represented as smelling the sacrifices, and being sensuously delighted with them-metaphorical, of course; we are on metaphorical ground entirely; we must keep up the metaphor. But of all the senses there is none so pure, so sensitive of evil or of good, and so mysteriously sacred as the sense of smell. The nose, when pure and comely, is a noble organ; when otherwise, it is a ditch between the cherubim. It is therefore clothed with a peculiar shame and dignity, which render it unutterable as well as inviolable. It must not be touched. It may not even be wantonly or irreverently spoken of. Amongst all nations an insult to the nose is an unpardonable offence. Besides, the smell perceives more deeply the evil of corruption than any other sense. It hates it with a perfect hatred. The eye can look at corruption and the ear can hear of it without much pain, perhaps even without any positive pain at all; but the nose turns from it instantly, with profound abhorrence. It is therefore the great representative of perfect purity; in fact, the only representative of purity that the face contains. With this explanation you see at once how beautifully complete is the analogy of all the parts of the ark and its contents, not even excepting the Shekinah itself, which is, perhaps, the most perfect of all, although