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In saying this, of course I do not mean that no one can be devout, unless and until he is exposed to poverty, or bereavement, or disease, or other outward infliction; and that the prosperous are disqualified for being the pious. Disappointed aspiration of some kind, desire stretching far beyond attainment in some direction, I do believe to be essential to the sentiment of religion thus only can we be conscious how far the dimensions of our souls transcend the limits of our lot, and make us the children of the Infinite. But it need not be, and it ought not to be, the defeated appetite for happiness that teaches us this truth; it is an ignoble mind that waits for this, and does not find on what a world 'tis cast, till its pleasurable sleep be broken. The unsated love of truth impels the earnest reason to sigh for increase of light; the sense of moral beauty, the idea of right, the perception of the intrinsically good and holy, are ever mortified by our poor performance, and weep the tears of an unspeakable repentance. And our mutual affection God has made so great, so unreasonably deep, that it craves many an unfulfilled condition, and breathes a thousand disappointed prayers; and even where it achieves the good it seeks, it is often by glad self-sacrifice, the welcome martyrdom of faithful souls: for no considerable blessings are procurable for others, under the Providence that rules us, without large denial to ourselves. And so there is room enough for various

sorrow in the mind itself, without harrowing the outward lot; and where the field of life is greenest and brightest with the culture of prosperity, the seed of true faith may be dropped in the deep furrows of self-mortification, and grow beneath the dews that penitence weeps by night. It was not, then, without reason that the prophet pronounced a "woe on those that were at ease in Zion"; or that Jesus demanded from his disciples a self-renunciation like his own. If it is within the shadows of the soul that God retires and makes his spirit felt, it was well that Christ, the image of all that is sacred within us, should walk on earth within the cloud of so much grief. If the purest lustre and power of our nature comes forth from the severity of trial, it was fit that he, our Christ, should suffer, and thence emerge into his glory.

It was not till after his resurrection that Jesus was prepared to show, for the conviction of yet reluctant minds, that he ought to have suffered; and that no complaint could stand against the Providence by which he had been stricken. The agony over, the peril past, in the calmness of an immortal's thought, he saw it all; and as he expounded the ways of God from deep experience, he made the hearts of his companions burn within them. And in this too, is he not an image of ourselves? We recoil from all affliction, ere it comes: our cross appears too heavy to be borne; and in the Gethsemane of our anguish we cry aloud in darkness;

VOL. II.

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and as oft as we sob and pray, we still say the same words, "let this cup pass from us!" But when we have been led away and passed the dreadful hour, and see it all in retrospect, not with the eye of mortal fear, but with the glance of a diviner wisdom, we comprehend how we ought to have suffered these things, and wonder at our former doubts, and try, perhaps in vain, to convey to others the tranquil persuasion so deep within ourselves. May we not say, that these after-thoughts of our mortal grief are forethoughts of our immortal peace; showing under what fair and quiet aspect will then appear the stormiest passages of life; and how the very glory into which we have entered, came, like the rainbow, from the glow of God upon the chillest and blackest sky.

Even when we consider the Christ as the emblem of God, rather than the representative of man, it is not difficult to perceive why he ought to have suffered these things. Deity, it is true, cannot suffer; and the conflict and agony of Jesus can teach us no direct lesson of the Father who was with him; and it might even seem as if a total exemption from affliction would better, and with more of truth and majesty, have displayed to us the being whom he revealed. Yet surely, on nearer thought, we shall be convinced, that mere immunity from pain would have given a very poor and a very false idea of God's elevation above vicissitude. In the contemplation of a perfect being, it is not his out

ward removal beyond the reach and touch of ill, not his mere privilege of rank lifting him into a region free from harm, it is not this that gives us the strongest impression of his greatness. This is but natural or physical divinity; not its moral and spiritual majesty ; it is the impassibility of a mind without emotion. And Christ has surely left us an image of something diviner far than this, in the power to quell and drown intense suffering with the flood of pure and sacred sympathies ; in the transcendency of thought and tranquillity of faith, which the pulses of anguish vainly strove to reach and overwhelm; in his triumph over evil by simple and entire preoccupation of soul with duty, love and goodness. And meekly as his head was bowed upon the cross, never surely could an impression of more godlike power be left; never could evil appear more utterly baffled; never could guilt shrink more ashamed even from the eye of Omniscience itself, than when the prayer went forth, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Victim as he was, he was the conqueror then; and all who realize his spirit may, in like extremity, become "more than conquerors through him that hath so loved them."

X.

The Soul's forecast of Retribution.

ISAIAH xi. 2 (part), 3 (part).

"The spirit of the. Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears."

IN no respect does the language of religion more violently offend the common understanding, than in the sharp division it makes of all mankind into saints. and sinners. The world as it moves before our eye presents nothing like this twofold classification; which appears not only to confound every finer distinction of character, but to overlook broad differences recognised even by human law and conspicuous to the least cultivated perception. Such an arrangement seems to run counter to all the phenomena of society and the experience of life. No schoolmaster could distribute his scholars, no parent his children, into two sets, the one all bad, the other all good. Through no group of human beings, whether assembled on an exchange, in a senate house, or at church, could we run such a line of demar

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