themselves before God. May they be chastised by the stroke of thy hand, knowing that it is the Father's discipline, who chastises not for his own vengeance, but for our profit, that we may become partakers of his holiness.

Grant thy blessing to all those to whose minds thou art carrying unsettling truths. Bless all those who preach the Gospel. Bless those who are working for the reformation of morals. Wilt thou cover this land as by a flood with thy divine influences. Bring, we beseech of thee, every success to schools, to the honor and glory of thy name. Bless colleges and seminaries. Bless all efforts for diffusing true knowledge and right influences among those who are in darkness. May those who are despised be sought out and made honorable.

And we pray that thou wilt bless those who do wrong. Inspire them with a sense of their wrong-doing. Arouse their conscience. We pray that they may be led from their evil courses to do the things which are right before God and man. Bless all this land, and all the States that are therein.

May thy will be done in this nation, and may it become strong, not for violence, not for selfishness, not for aggression or selfaggrandizement, but that it may be a light to weary and struggling nations, and that it may give courage and hope to those who are seeking liberty. And may all the nations of the earth arise and meet the coming of their God. May thy voice be potential; and may we everywhere discern the glory of the Lord arising and shining, until the whole earth shall be filled therewith.

And to thy name, Father, Son, and Spirit, shall be praises everlasting. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

OUR Father, wilt thou bless the word of exhortation. May it not be in vain. May the truth search out all the motives and emotions of the heart. We pray that many may be made willing in the day of thy power, and be encouraged to go on. And may thy name be glorified in this assembly. Bless all who preach the Gospel. Bless all the churches. May they be filled with the divine presence. May they work for things high and pure. And grant, we pray thee, that at last, as one by one we go forth from the church militant, we may enter the heavenly church triumphant, to rejoice there over those victories which thou hast ministered unto us.

And to thy name, Father, Son, and Spirit, shall be praises for evermore. Amen.

THE TRIUMPH OF GOODNESS.

"And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest."-REV. xv. 3, 4.

If it were possible in one way more than in another to destroy the glory of this most wonderful Book, it would be by treating it after the manner of science, or after the manner of philosophy. If it be treated as if it were an unfolding either of the past or of the future by a succession of ideas philosophically expressed, or according to any rules which belong to didactic teaching or statement, it will be utterly destroyed and ruined. For the Book is unique in this that it is a drama which contains in it the moral of dramas. It is a Work addressed to the imagination in respect to the highest aspirations and experiences, and in respect to the whole sphere of human desire and knowledge. It teaches chiefly by symbols, which were far more significant in ancient days than they are now; and things were made to do service then that to-day seem strange simply because other things are substituted, and they are unwonted. Its sphere is cast in a much higher atmosphere than we are accustomed to think. It is a Book which overhangs the whole career of time. Indeed, it is at the point where time and eternity meet that this ublime drama takes its rise. It

SUNDAY EVENING, June 14, 1874. LESSON: Rev. v. HYMNS (Plymouth Collection): Nos. 1.251. 1,230.

is poetry; and yet not lyric, and certainly not cast in the mould of pleasure. It is not poetry for any such measured use as we make of poetry in literature. At times it seems wild, and even grotesque, but never less than sublime. It is unworldly, and it has strange spiritual power; because whatever undertakes to successfully teach a drama or a grand oratorio must needs be lifted up largely above the thoughts and comprehension of men.

Now, if this, which in its single self has been the fountain. and inspiration of the grandest works of men-of such works as Milton's Paradise Lost, as Klopstock's great German work corresponding to it, and as the work of Pollock, which was much read, but which seems now to have largely died out of the general mind-if such a work be treated, as I might say, after the manner of men, it is disfigured and utterly ruined.

What should we think of one who should go into the lobby of the Vatican to see the frescoes of Raphael, and take with him scales and rules, weighing out certain parts of the pigment, measuring other parts, and ciphering upon and estimating these pictures by weight and size, as if they were a mere merchantable commodity? Men would stand with uplifted hands in amazement that there should be found fools that would treat pictures in this way, applying to them rules that they are infinitely above, and that have no relation to them. What if we should find men who in regard to music or poetry should treat it after the same commercial scale— after the same mathematical rule? And yet, so men have been for generations attempting to interpret this sublime, vague, but most glorious and useful drama, ciphering throughout the past as if it were a literal prophecy, and ciphering into the future as though it were a prophecy unfulfilled; and attempting, by arithmetic, by historical interpretations, by various ingenious parallelisms or inferences or analogies, to obtain didactic meanings from it to suit their own schemes of thought.

Suppose a youth should walk, at evening, when the heavens were all balm, and the sun, just gone down, was throwing up all gorgeous colors into the west, mounting to the very apex of the sky-suppose a youth, walking at such a time

with his well-beloved, they being full of sentiment, full of feeling, in the midst of this charming scene, somewhat forecasting their own life, and in the language of affection looking down through the days that were to come-suppose that then she should breathe the thought of her fancy, her feeling and her love, into his ear, and he should receive it in silence, and think of it for a time, and at last say, "My dear, let me reduce what you have been saying to the laws of the mind; let me see exactly the philosophy of those statements." How in an instant the touch would turn the whole scene to emptiness and folly! How incongruous, how impertinent, it would be! And yet, it would not be more so than are those methods by which men have attempted to solve, and to satisfy themselves about, this stupendous and unmanageable Book. You will sooner reduce the Northern Lights to the conditions of a material proposition than you will reduce this Book to any method of thought that is yet known. You will sooner make the sunset conform itself to any theory of arrangement. It is a drama, indicating the close of the long struggle between good and evil which has been and is a thread of human history. It is a drama which does not pretend to be symmetrical, and which does not attempt to have unity. It is like a great piece of music, filled with strange choruses and songs. It is full of swarming conflicts set off by stupendous images. In the construction of this irregular, sublime, transcendent drama, all creation is made a tribute. It includes lions, and lambs, and eagles, and dragons, and kings, and slaves. The good and the bad are mingled with thunderings and lightnings, with night and with day. Seas of fire, seas of glass, pavements of gold, cities, gardens, all manner of fantastic things and all manner of real things, are here strangely blended; and who can unfold them, who can take them apart, and give them that analysis which belongs to time, to history, or to any of the modish thoughts of mankind?

It is a sublime Book that hangs in the future, giving assurance of the final triumph of goodness, of truth, of justice, and of love in the world; and we must take it as a magnificent tableau, and not as a regulated philosophical