joice that they who are dear to him are, with him, destined to a world where all hindrances to free and perfect love shall be done away.

Thus it seems to me, that the very reasons which we naturally urge for desiring a more protracted existence on earth, are in themselves reasons why we should look forward habitually with faith and joy to a world beyond the grave; a world of light and love, of effort and improvement; a world where are laid up the richest treasures of the Christian's heart.

Shall we not, then, bow in submission to the decree, by which it is appointed unto all men once to die, and cherish habitually a desire for the joys and society of heaven? Tell me, my friends, are you not conscious of possessing powers too high, too noble to be enslaved by earth and sense? Will you cling with supreme love to the honors of time and the wealth of the world? Be aroused, I entreat you, to the contemplation and study of those treasures that may be found in your own spirits, and in their alliance with Christ and heaven and God? The fairest forms of earth shall perish. Purity, love, heaven, are eternal. For these we were created. To bestow them, Christ lived, and wept, and died. Shall a low ambition, or debasing sensuality, or the spirit of indomitable pride, forbid our humble, penitent approaches to the footstool of Divine mercy and to the cross of Christ; that forgiven by God, and strengthened by the death of the Saviour, we may live for that immortality, that glorious world, prepared by the Father for the followers of his Son?

THE POET'S HOPE.

FROM SCHILLER'S " DIE THEILUNG DER ERDE."

Could Poets tell us all they feel,

Then writing would the spirit heal;

The o'erburdened heart in verse would gush,

The troubled thoughts like streams would rush;

And straight the lightened clouds away
Would sail, and leave a brighter day.

'Tis said, that Jove once in his mirth
Assembled all the sons of earth,
And gave to mortals who were there
The choice of that they wished to share.
One chose to farm, one chose the arts,
And all were suited to their hearts.

But when all things had been divided,
And the day had from Jove's memory glided,
The Poet came. (He was not there
On the great day, and lost his share.)
Then Jove commanded him to state
The reason why he was thus late.
"Ah!' sighed the Poet, 'I was gazing
Upon the heavens, ever blazing
With thy glory, and I lost

That day. Ah! how much visions cost!'
'Go, bard,' quoth Jove, 'go, gaze, be free,
Henceforth you shall be dear to me.'
And from that day, we're told, to this,
Poets have lived in worlds of bliss;
Yet nothing of this world they share,
Of its base troubles, or vain care;
Above all these triumphant flies
The Poet's soul, and heavenward hies.

Thus 't is, the Poet can live here
In joy that's from no earthly sphere.
God is the Poet's friend, and dwells
Within him when his spirit swells

With heavenly thought. The world he spurns;
To God alone for aid he turns.

Rest safely, then, my soul, and know,

Jehovah wills in all below.

The love fle has for thee will last

When all the earth away has past.
All earthly loves the senses pall;
God's love alone outlives them all.

S. B. N.

348025B

CHRIST COMPARED WITH HIS TIMES.

CHRIST must have been either specially designated to the office of the Redeemer, aided by supernatural power and miraculously taught the truth which he imparted, or he must have been the product of his own time and of its institutions. That the latter was not the case, we infer from various circumstances.

He did not so regard himself. His conduct uniformly shows that he considered himself and his character as intimately interwoven with the whole past history and fortunes of his nation; that from the earliest periods of the Old Testament dispensation his coming was an object distinctly kept in view; and that the most cherished hopes of his countrymen had been connected with his appearance. Moses and the Prophets, the Law and the promises testified of him. He seemed to see himself standing out in bold relief upon the sacred records of the nation, nay, to be the chief object for which they were perpetuated. He regarded himself as specially designated to the office of Messiah ages before his advent, and applied to himself those passages of the Old Testament, which speak of miraculous gifts and powers as among the peculiarities of "him that should come." And we know that the Jews had always supposed, that the Messiah would be miraculously endowed with the abilities necessary to the discharge of the duties of his mission. If Christ were the product of his age and its institutions, then he mistook himself and did not understand his own character. He wrongly interpreted the ancient Scriptures, and in his predictions of the triumphs and glories of his religion, as based upon the prophecies of old, merely uttered what proved to be fortunate conjectures.

The impression which Christ made upon the world was very different from the impression made by any person who really was the product of his times. Socrates has often been compared with Jesus, and was in fact one of the wisest and best men of antiquity; but the circumstances of no two persons could more widely differ. To a mind of the highest order Socrates added the utmost culture to which Greece in its most palmy state had ever attained. Jesus did not possess this, nor any of the means by which great reform

ers usually affect the destinies of the world. And yet the influence of Socrates was but as a rush-light to the sun, compared with that of Jesus. The latter impressed his image so creatively upon mankind and its fortunes, as to form a new historical era, from which the world dates its commencement of a nobler life. Man's relation to God is the most important fact of his being, a fact of which the ancient philosophers had a very confused and imperfect knowledge. Jesus addressed himself to this relation, and solved satisfactorily, for the first time, the great problem of human destination, and thus conferred upon the world a benefit to which no other can be compared. Through the instrumentality of a life and character showing the adaptation of his religion to every degree of human culture and every variety of circumstances, he has made this benefit universal and his influence co-extensive with the limits of our race.

Nor in respect to extent alone is his influence peculiar. Its character has been such as to change the soul of man thoroughly -from its foundation—in its principles, motives and aims, making all things new in the religious and moral life-in man's internal and external relations, moulding human institutions into his own likeness, breathing into them his spirit, and thus giving a pledge of infinite and endless improvement. These great results rest upon his agency. "All those powers which have developed them. selves in the form of new, redeeming influences, regenerating society and bringing men to a closer resemblance to God, find their central point in him. Whatever is life-giving in men, in him was life itself." He came not only to reveal the Father, but to infuse a new and diviner life into the souls of men. How unlike any. thing that we know of the tendencies and results of human opinions and actions, independent of special illumination and guidance! Jesus has accomplished so much more than others, because the holy spirit was imparted to him in so much greater abundance. Thus endowed he is the beginning and perfection of faith, and the limit of future development.

Again; it is not possible that Christ should have become what he was in consequence of the general culture of his age, because that, like all other ages, was a sinful age; the circle in which mankind moved was a circle of corruptions. His age and its institutions

had no power to create or awaken in him the spirit of perfect holiness. If mankind, created with a religious nature and placed in circumstances favorable to its development, had from the beginning been faithful to the duty of improving this nature; if from the beginning a religious and moral spirit had predominated in the race and pervaded all its actions; in other words, if man had always retained the life of God in the soul, then perhaps Jesus Christ, as he is now known to us, might have been considered in his character as the natural result of such a state of things. He would have been the spiritual offspring and representative of a race that had never been alienated from God. But even then, and in consequence of this condition, he would not have exhibited, as he now does, the limit of human development. As he grew out of the past, so an indefinite future of improvement would have stretched itself out before him.

It needs no words to show that the moral condition of the world, at the time of Christ's appearance, was in all respects adverse to such a result. The Heathen world was sunk in the miseries consequent upon idolatry and atheism. The religious spirit once so efficient had died out of the hearts of the Jews. A morality corresponding to this destitution of religious principle everywhere prevailed. The elements of the spiritual life had become inoperative. Nothing less than a Divine creative act was necessary to produce a Redeemer of the world.

In the

In such an age and amidst such circumstances Christ arose pure and spotless, exhibiting the perfection of moral and religious character, elevated above the world no less by his life than by his doctrines, a solitary and sublime exception to the world's faith and practice. He stood out at once before his age, in manifest advance of its religion and its morality, its theory and practice. knowledge of truths, and in motives to the performance of duty, he was immeasurably its superior. There was neither moral nor intellectual harmony between it and him. He taught truths which the wisest knew not. He lived a life to which the best had not attained. So far was he from deriving ideas on these points from his contemporaries, that he found even his friends and disciples extremely dull in apprehending his instructions. He stood so far above them, that it was difficult to find the necessary point of union.