pretation, but remains prophecy still.. What would men have? Would they have a spiritual vision to interpret a spiritual vision? If a vision has reference to any preceding vision, we may be assured it is in the way of enlargement or illustration, and not interpretation. The vision of the four hundred and ninety days given to Daniel in answer to his enquiry-"How long, "&c. &c., affords us an instance of the kind; for, whilst it was a direct answer to his prayer, and did contain a true key to its interpretation, yet, until properly understood, would leave him still unenlightened as to the actual fact.

There seems still to remain in the Church a notion that true spirituality cannot exist except apart from all that is rational or material; so that spiritual things are as much excluded from the visible creation of God as the most dreaming etherialist could desire. Spiritual things are now invisible--not because of their essential invisibility-but because the Head of all the spiritual world is Himself absent from the visible creation; but when He shall again appear upon the stage of this material world, it will be found that all spiritual things find their proper expression only through things which are seen. When that which is in part shall be done away, then that which is perfect shall come. Granting that the understanding of man stands in a lower scale in his

creation than his spirit, it is still a creature of God, and consequently redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. The understanding of man is as susceptible to right impulses, and as open to the illuminations of the Holy Ghost, as is his spirit, according to its capacities, and hath its peculiar prerogatives and functions as any other portion of man's being; and when a part is taken for the whole, or that portion is elevated out of its place and held in inflated estimation, derogatory to other parts, which in their respective places are equally essential, it implies an unhealthy and therefore a dangerous condition of that portion of the Church which may have been betrayed into such a schismatic and sectarian course.

It has been well remarked that truth is manysided; but there seems to be a contraction in the spiritual discernment of some men that renders them incapable of maintaining one principle of truth except at the expense of others.

There are two forms through which God communicates light to man; and, though diverse in manifestation, they derive their existence from one source-namely, the Holy Ghost, who is the communicator of that light which abides in Christ as the light of the world. The one mode of manifestation is light communicated to the spirit of a man by direct and supernatural inspiration of the

Holy Ghost; the other is by light communicated to the understanding of a man, likewise supernatural: the former, we would, by way of distinction, call the extraordinary and infalliblethe latter, the ordinary and fallible. The former

was the mode by which revelations were made to the prophets of old, under the action of which the understanding was kept in a condition of abeyance, and could probably only exercise itself upon the vision in the same manner and to the same degree as other men; but, on the contrary, in the latter case, the understanding takes an active and enlightened part, and the degree of light which it receives is proportioned to the activity of its agency, though it is not necessarily less supernatural light, though, from the circumstance of its transmission through and by the understanding of man in active operation, it is not from this cause infallible. The latter form of obtaining light was accessible to all; the former was exclusively confined to those who were under the energetic inspiration of the Holy Ghost, whose spirits, yielding to the impulse, were capable in that state of receiving a perfect transmission of the divine mind; and, by recording the revelation under the supernatural guidance of the same spirit, transmitting the vision pure and undefiled to man. The prophet Daniel exhibits in his own person both these methods of receiving

divine light; for he was not only much used as an inspired prophet, but he also derived knowledge of the future purposes of God by the exercise of his understanding upon those prophecies which had been given to other inspired men; so that it is evident that, whilst the higher form of inspiration is, correctly speaking, an ordinance of God, and properly belongs to the prophet, the latter is open to every diligent student of the sacred volume. Now, the reason why the highest form of inspiration should be addressed to the spirit and not to the understanding-and, moreover, why the prophets themselves rarely, if ever, understood their own prophecies. —is, in order that such revelations of God should be conveyed to the Church pure, undefiled, and uncontaminated by the channel through which they were communicated; and the reason why divine light is also imparted to the intellect is for the express purpose of its transmission, through the understanding, to the understanding of man; and which, as already noticed, by reason of the activity of an imperfect agency, becomes necessarily fallible; and it is for this reason that no enlightened interpreter dogmatizes upon unfulfilled prophecy. Still it is to be maintained that the exposition of prophecy properly belongs to the mind and intellect, enlightened and informed, to this express end, by the wisdom of

God, through the illumination of the Holy Ghost. The enigma of the number of the beast is not presented for solution to any particular class of men, but to him that hath understanding; and the revelations of the mystery of this wondrous being is given to all those whose names are written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.

Let us not deceive ourselves by imagining that the same spirit is not in us that was exhibited in our forefathers. Alas! it is to be feared that we too plainly testify that, whilst we say with our lips, "if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets;" yet we exhibit by our acts that we are "the children of them which killed the prophets." If the spirit of Elijah, Isaiah, or Daniel, were to appear, embodied in a man of this generation, what would be his inevitable fate? Imagine his appearance upon the arena of some of our religious platforms, or it might be rising into notice from the bosom of some section of the Church! He would probably be at first courted-flattered-idolized-until his insensate worshippers would recoil with disgust from the object of their own adulation; and the first unwelcome truth which shocked their prejudices, or wounded their self-love, would ruthlessly consign him to the stake, or to the extremity of aversion and contempt. It is therefore in mercy