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him as a unique being, differing, not in degree only, but also in kind, from the just and wise and saintly of every age. I answer by a parable: he that always hits the mark does not differ in kind from those whom he surpasses; yet, if all others fall short of this, he is unique. In truth, the whole antithesis between degree. and kind, borrowed from natural history and becoming ever fainter even there, is absolutely empty and unmeaning when transferred to the sphere of moral life. The differences of which the conscience takes cognisance lie entirely among the inner springs of action, as ranged upon a progressive scale of relative excellence; and, thus admitting of comparison and depending on it, can never be anything else but matters of gradation and intensity. To speak of them as belonging to distinct categories or orders of being, is to declare them incomparable, subject to no common measure; and therefore to deny any universal moral law. Among all natures that can speak together of duty and righteousness, and exchange ideas of the right and wrong, there must prevail one system of values, one metrical notation; failing this, there could be no commerce of thought or sentiment. Hence we can neither deny to faithful, heroic, and holy men, to a Socrates, a Marcus Aurelius, a Blaise Pascal, an approach to Christ upon the same line, nor claim for him any pre-eminence that removes them from his fellowship. But neither can we speak otherwise of God himself. He also, with all the in

finitude of his perfections, is still but the Father of spirits, and on the side of moral goodness differing from his children only in degree: however vast the interval, it is one on which movement never ceases to be possible: the obedience of the little child that tells the truth or keeps his word and suffers, is akin to the fidelity of God who will not break his promise to the universe. In the world of character there is no such problem as that about the "origin of species." All minds that own a better and a worse are fellow denizens of the same City of God, severed by no antipathies of race or impassable barriers of rank; but inwardly conscious of the same authority and revering the same call; knit together in love, in proportion as they draw nearer to the beauty of holiness; and lifted at last into fellowship with the Supreme Perfection.

XVI.

The Prayer of Faith.

1 TIMOTHY ii. 8.

"I will that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.”

THE charge has frequently been brought against the theology of modern Christendom, that it has quitted the realities of religion, grown stranger to the strife and sorrows of human souls, and lost its holy vision amid the dust of criticism and the clouds of metaphysics. Finding God's existence at the far end of the chain of secondary causes and his inspiration in the grave-yard of departed ages, it has superseded all genuine faith in the Living God. Placing the evidence of things unseen in the testimony of dead languages, it has contracted the approaches to him into an avenue of books, and shelved in libraries the charters of human salvation. No man seems longer able to see for himself what God is, or even that he is, to feel his look, to know his voice, and trace the warm touch of his light. If tomorrow Atheism were somehow to prove true, it would make a

difference, like the explosion of a geologic theory, in our conception of the origin of worlds; but London and Paris would not feel it as they would the death of a Statesman or a President. The future would lose a hope, the past a sacredness; but no passion of the hour would be changed, no instant sense of bereavement lay the city low. Few would feel the privation as they would the loss of wife or child:-feel it not simply when they worked themselves up to think of it, but in unconscious hours by dreary chasms in the heart, by the presence of a desolate stillness, and the unnatural dumbness of all the counsels of the soul. They would scarce be seen to wring their hands in anguish, like prophets bereft of their inspiration, or seers suddenly struck blind.

Whether this complaint against modern religion be just or not, may be ascertained by an easy test. What is the doctrine, what the practice, prevailing among us, in reference to Prayer? If God be not thrust away by us to the other end of nature and of time, then must we feel him among us as our contemporary, must walk with him in the field and street, live with him in the home, and speak with him as the Soul of our soul. If, on the other hand, we take it for a fond superstition and a womanish weakness to ask him anything; if, owning it right to think of him as Lord of the universe, we expect no personal notice and seek no contact with his spirit; if in temptation we imagine that we must

fight without ally,—in sorrow, that there is none to bear our burthen for us; it is plain that we believe him either absent, or sleeping behind the curtain of inexorable law. Where there is no direct intercourse between the human mind and the Divine, no mutual recognition, no secret understanding, religion is no more than a tradition; God is no longer our dear abode, our native land, but as some distant country reported by foreign ships, or some invisible star testified by magnifiers of the skies. Faith indeed cannot subsist on silence, any more than the body upon air; and however little conscious of its growing emaciation, it would assuredly soon cease to be. The whole structure of our nature is made for utterance,-for sympathy, for interchange of thought with thought and love with love; and not more certain is it, that to one who never heard the human voice or looked on the face of his kind Reason would dwindle and Affection wither up, than that they who have no converse with the Highest must find Religion languish, and holy peace entirely die. Are there none who can bear a sad and bitter testimony to this? none, who in the young days of natural wisdom used to pray out of a clear and mighty heart, but in the dry delusions of maturity have given it up because God does not hear; or perhaps have brought themselves, by giving it up, to believe that he does not hear? And do they find nothing harsh and chilling in the change? Is their power as serene and lofty as before, or sunk to a coarser

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