is not true"; or you can say, "Yes, it is true." Do you not know that sometimes an untruth is truer than a truth ?—I do not mean in the thing itself, but in the impression which it produces on persons' minds. The history of the world shows that in the divine development of a system of instruction precisely those methods were employed for the purposes of unfolding and carrying up men's ideas, and elevating the standard of their inward manhood to a higher plane, which are employed in every rational family.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child." Very well, Paul, then your father and mother had to teach you as you could understand, or else you would not have understood as a child. You have to adapt things to each other. Although men have come to intelligence and refinement, and to a much higher stage of development than they had reached in the times of the apostles, yet all that is known in this world with regard to the after-life, the heavenly state of the human soul, is as nothing. Paul says in the thirteenth of first Corinthians that our knowledge of the future condition is like the knowledge of our childhood in regard to the condition of mature manhood. He declares that the whole after-scene is yet vague to him. He says, "We see through a glass, darkly." He says that now, in this life, we see only in part; and that only then, in the future life, shall we see fully, as one sees when he comes face to face with another.

All through the instruction of the Saviour, all through his discourses in the temple with the educated Jews, you see the tests which he brought to bear. It is evident

that he had a consciousness of this higher knowledge, and was attempting to teach men who had not that consciousness, nor the conditions of it in their minds; so that when he attempted to approve his divinity before them, he did not say, "I am God because I can do this or that;" he said, "I am divine, and I see divine truths in their essence. When you look at these truths, you have no moral interpreting sensibility, and therefore it is impossible for you to know what they are. You are of your father, and you understand the things which belong to him; I am of my father, and

when I do works which have reference to the life beyond this world, you do not understand them, because the Spirit of God is not in you. You have no power by which to judge of these things." In the teaching of the apostle, when he is speaking of men and society, and their relationships, there is hovering above a higher vision or ideal.

Now, in the passage which I have selected from Galatians, you will observe that we are represented as being "all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." And it is declared that in a state of relationship which stands in God through Christ Jesus, or, to put it in more philosophical phraseology, in that state which shall be ours when we come to our ideal manhood, so that we shall possess the divine nature, not having it as we do here in germs, but in its higher developed form all the lower distinctions are abolished. They are relative to a nascent, germinant condition in time, and in the flesh; but in Jesus Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek :" national relationships are all swept away on that higher plane. "There is neither bond nor free:" all arbitrary conditions, relative and subordinate, are gone in that higher stage, however necessary they may be in these lower physical circumstances. "There is neither male nor female" however indispensable the one and the other may be to the relations of human life on earth. In the spirit-world all that which is relative to time and the body ceases. "You are all one [that is, alike] in Christ Jesus"-the crowned head and the peasant; the armed warrior and the feeblest child; the mightiest philosopher and the boy at school; men and women; foreigners and they that are bred at home; bond and free. In that higher manhood all those relationships which here necessarily and properly discriminate men, and set them apart from each other, are so changed that it is not right to conceive of the other life from the divisions. which belong to this life. The relationships which we have there are higher and nobler than any that we have here.

And so it is with the other passage which I read, “We are no more strangers and foreigners." That is to say, all those enclosures in which men live in this mortal state, all those household divisions which exist here, in the higher

state are unknown; and we have a glimpse of this, as I shall show, even in this world.

As we pass along by the magnificent houses in some street, we know that in them is living the father, and his brood of children that inherit his wealth, and have participated in it. We know that in these houses are bands of people connected together by various ties, and that for the most part they live honorably and joyfully together. If we pass by them at night we see bright lights shining in them, and other evidences of conviviality; and if we pass them by day we observe signs of comfort and happiness. Now, though I may be a very respectable man, I should not think it right for me to walk into one of these houses unbidden, and sit down in the parlor, and commence looking at the book, or the picture, or playing with the children. Suppose I did it, and the father came in and looked at me inquiringly, I should not think of saying, "I took the liberty, sir, to come in here. I am no stranger to you. I belong to just such men as you are. These little ones are my children, and these grown people are my brothers and sisters and friends. Do not trouble yourself about me. I will make myself at home here." I think he would stare at me, and would have a right to stare at me, if I did anything of that sort.

no more strangers in the There is a state, there is a which men and women, each other, and are equal to

But the apostle says, "We are light of the higher development. condition, there is a place, in wherever you find them, are like each other, in Christ Jesus." He means the higher, the heavenly realm of development. The time is coming when we shall be no more strangers and no more foreigners. Now we are divided in spiritual things as we could not be divided by the highest mountains through which tunnels cannot be pierced; but there is coming a time when we shall not be foreigners in any land, and when we shall all speak the same tongue-not literally, but in a sense of spiritual conception.

We are now, in this nascent state of existence on earth, connected, in the first instance, by blood, by household contiguity; and that is supposed to be the basis and test of all genuine relationship.

It is supposed that there may be metaphorical and imag◄ inary relationships, but that the real relationship is that of the flesh. There is a relationship between parent and child, and between brothers and sisters, in the household, which is noble, and which is justified by its necessities, and made honorable by its fruits; but is it the highest relationship? Out of it does there not grow something higher yet? What is it that by-and-by takes one away from both father and mother, to one with whom he has no blood-relationship and no kinship, to give to her a more absorbing love, and a more perfect life than he does to father and mother? It is a new and a higher affection. It is an affection which is founded on elective affinities-on spirit reasons.

As we go out of the household, we find other mutual relations of men. And first, they are grouped together in neighborhoods, and common exigencies and common necessities make neighbors sustain relationships to each other.

Sometimes these relationships are vexed by little frets, and bickerings, and envies, and jealousies, and passions. How often neighbors quarrel about a stone-wall that is two inches over the line; or about some animal that has broken into this or that field; or about some matter touching the treatment of one another's children! And so men live in their canine nature, in their vulpine nature, all their lives disturbed and annoyed by their passions. And yet, in good neighborhoods, there are important and necessary relations which are fruitful of joy all through one's life.

You cannot tell how much you think of a neighbor until you meet him abroad, in Paris, for instance, at the Grand Hotel. He may be a man that you scarcely thought of at home; he may be a man that you looked upon as a milk-andwater sort of fellow; as an indifferent kind of person; as a punctuation point, so to speak, in society; but seeing him there, you almost kiss him, you are so glad to see him; and you say, “Why, neighbor, how do you do?" He is glad to see you, too, though he rather wonders at the affection which you display toward him, and which he hardly suspected before.

There is a relationship in neighborhood, which is worth

making better, and which is indispensable to comfortable and kind living.

Then we have relationships of a civil character. We are drawn together by our common duties; by our obligations under the law; by those things which we are bound to do in partnership for the maintenance of the commonwealth, and for the peace and safety of our own households in connection with the households of others. For so society is built that the interest of each one is the interest of the whole, and the interest of the whole is the interest of each one.

Then come arbitrary commercial relationships, in things which may involve honor, rectitude, truth, honesty, pride, vanity and selfishness. They may be high or low just as we gauge them; but they are real. The partner is next to the brother; and those who are of the same guild or kind have a sort of connection together, and are related to each other both by antipathies and by sympathies.

Now, when I am talking thus, and speaking as far as this, everybody says, "You are on good ground; you are doing very well; what you say is sensible. Yes, people are related because they are born together, because they live in the same neighborhood, and because they perform the same offices. Yes, the relationships of men in common every day life are good, substantial, effectual relationships. Yes, and men are united together under the same government, in the same state, and in the same county. They are substantially joined together if they belong to the same party. I admit that these are all actual relationships. Yes, and if men are in business together, their interests are co-related. And the playing of partners into each others' hands brings them yet closer together."

And I begin to say, "But there are more relationships than these; there are relationships which are established by reason of taste." "Yes." "Yes." "There are relationships which are established by reason of like affections." “Y-e-s—yes— yes; but don't go too far. Now you are getting on rather misty ground." "There are relationships which are established by moral similarities and attractions." "Yes-perhaps; but I believe in good substantial things. I cannot fly