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ization. Without the intelligent element, the great natural world, with its laws, would be empty. A chaotic period of the globe would come again, and no such thing as civilization would be possible. It is natural law directed by personal intelligence that makes the wilderness bud and blossom as the rose, and creates gardens, plants orchards, and brings civilization. It is natural law acting under the direction of human intelligence.

Now, all that we need for a better understanding of the divine providence is to suppose that God is able to do, by the whole scheme of the globe and the universe, what we see men do in special, in their place, and in their relations. If I can make my children happy by being a providence to them; if I can so control natural laws as to make my household poor or rich; if I can so use natural law as to make my average state high or low; and if men in general have this power, then much more may God, by his scheme of natural laws, and by his intelligence of them, constitute a providence.

It is under this providence that men are exhorted to industry, frugality, foresight and prudence, in all their relations, while seeking to build up in themselves this manly character, this grand divine nature implanted in them. While they are trying to do that, the Lord says to them, "You are doing it under a providence. You are doing it under a scheme of forces which are in themselves adapted for that work. You need not forsake your fields, your farms, your shops, your warehouses, in order to become Christian men. It is through the right use of these things that you are educating yourselves into Christian dispositions. The end of your life is true manhood; and he who is seeking that supremely is working under a scheme of natural laws of a providence that will provide for you better than you could be provided for in any other conceivable way. Let him that would be true, be true; let him that would be humane, be humane; let him that would be moral and spiritual, be moral and spiritual; and he will find in the cultivation of these things a reflex influence exerted on his industries; and

his enterprises will yield more abundantly than if he had made selfishness and pride and avarice the motive of conduct in the great secularities of life.

"Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”

If in the conduct of the lower forms of animated creation God can order his physical laws so as to abundantly take care of them, shall he not by the more noble laws that environ mankind, be able to take care of them?

"Therefore, take no thought [be not anxious], saying, What shall we eat? [never saying, What shall we be?] or, What shall we drink? [never saying, What shall we aspire to?] or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? [outwardly; and never saying, What robes and raiment shall the soul have?] for after all these things do the Gentiles seek [that is the way the unenlightened Gentile reasons]; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things [for your lower nature]. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

Gain that, and all else that you need will flow from it. That piety which is of the large, true, noble type is sufficient, because it carries the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come.

"Take therefore no [anxious] thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

WE rejoice in thee, our Father. Thy wisdom, thy power and thy glory we cannot compass to understand; and yet, whatever there is of thee, whatever there is of power, and of wisdom, and of glory, are ours; for we are thy children, and thou art our Father, and thou canst not be built up to an estate of power and glory that will not make us the more rich and the more blessed. Grant that the connection which is between us and thee may be realized, and that we may cease to look so much to the earth, as they that sprang from it; that we may look more and more to thee, and know that the true manhood in us, and which life is bringing forth, is of God. We pray that we may have the knowledge of the truth which lies in this connection of our souls with thine. Here is our life. Our life is hid with Christ in God; in that blessed revelation which he hath made; in that glorious faith which he inspires, in the power of that love which draws us by our inward and best nature to the divine. In this our life is hidden, in this our life is strong; so that they who love thee, and live in the trust of God and in the peace which passeth all understanding, are served by whatever there is of life. Joy is theirs, and sorrows are theirs. Thou art theirs in darkness, and thou art theirs in light. Thou art theirs in adversity, and thou art theirs in prosperity. Whom thou lovest thou chastenest so that adversity is robbed of its terror. If God be for us, who can be against us? What weapon formed against thee shall prosper? In thee we glory. We rejoice in the Lord; we rejoice from day to day with increasing joy: and we pray that the plenitude of this inward life, and all its remunerations of faith, may be more and more apparent to thy people. Open within them the kingdom of God. Widen it. Grant that its bounds may evermore increase with them. May it be for us, every one, to know within ourselves the true kingdom. May we therein from day to day be strong, and hidden as in a tower of defense and in a fortress, against our adversaries. We pray that thou wilt grant that the light of the truth may dawn on their eyes who see it not, or who dimly see it. And we pray that by the Holy Ghost the truth may be revealed in the inward consciousness and experience of thy people more and more amply; and we pray that in them thy precious word may be no longer powerful in the letter only, but in the spirit. May it be a disclosure in them. May it be transferred, so that the truth shall be understood by their living consciousness.

We pray that thou wilt bless all those that are especially in thy care to-night. All who have come bringing petitions and requestshear thou them. All who ask for strength, all who ask for consolation, all who ask for guidance, all who ask that they may learn to love-by love cleanse thou them, and set them on their way toward the heavenly land rejoicing.

We pray that thou wilt bless this church, in all its works of love; in all its schools and missions. And bless the more those who go every Sabbath day from the midst of their families to give time and strength to those who are less favored; and we beseech of thee

that they may be prepared for their holy work by the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Grant thy blessing to rest upon all the churches of this city, aud upon all the pastors. May they grow in grace and in favor with God and with men.

We pray that thou wilt bless all instrumentalities throughout this land which are for the furtherance of the truth, and for the promotion of intelligence, and morality, and pure religion; and may those jealousies and those irritations which have existed between church and church throughout this land, and throughout the world, pass away, and be gathered among the things of days of twilight and of darkness; and let that blessed time come when men shall see eye to eye, and heart beat responsive to heart, and thy kingdom be one, though there be infinite varieties-one differing from another in love, one in trust and faith, and one in power; and we pray that thus thy name may be glorified in the midst of this people, and spread abroad the light of truth everywhere to the dark places of the earth and the continents in which night dwells. We pray for all nations. We pray for the ingathering of the Jew and the Gentile for the final glory-for that millennial day when thou shalt reign a thousand years.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

GRANT, our Father, that we may rest in thee, rejoice in thee, and seek to change these natures of ours' from selfishness and from passion, and from all that is low and degrading, into truly divine natures of love, and purity, and peace, and joy, and of righteousness; and in this higher power of a redeemed and regenerate nature grant that we may not only find thee, but that we may make proof that in the wisdom derived from this higher life, all our lower duties are the more easily performed; and that we see more clearly, that we judge more accurately, and that we have motives for more patience in the fulfillment of disagreeable duties, and that we walk stronger and are mightier by reason of the things of the kingdom than we would be if, without that kingdom, we were clothed with all human power.

Grant that we may have this conception, that we may live more and more in thy Spirit, and that we may dispense with unnecessary thoughts and anxieties which spring from fear, and that we may trust God, and be at rest. We ask it through the adorable name of Jesus, to whom, with the Father and the Spirit, shall be praises evermore. Amen.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

I shall take for a starting point, in the remarks that I make this morning, the 19th verse of the 2d chapter of the 2d Epistle to Timothy :

"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his."

The context is this:

"Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure."

We have come in our day into times precisely like those of the apostle, in which there is a great movement throughout the whole civilized world, and a great change of feeling, an apprehension or what is worse, in regard to the stability of the Christian religion.

There are two classes that look upon this matter from very different standpoints. On the one side are those who are devout philosophers in religion, and who hear doctrines which seem to them to be very strange expositions of Christianity-doctrines which they have not been accustomed to. They see the manners and customs of religious institutions or churches very much disturbed; and they have an impression that evil is coming in like a flood, that the foundations are being removed, that the old landmarks are being taken out of the way, that everything is going to wreck and ruin, and that rank infidelity, atheism and anarchy are going to overflow the world.

Then, on the other extreme, there are those who feel that religion is not worth anything at all if it stands on foundations of the past; but that it is like an old stubble-field, that

Preached at the TWIN MOUNTAIN HOUSE, White Mountains, N. H., Sunday morning, August 23d, 1874. Lesson: Gal. v., 1-13. Hymns (Plymouth Collection): Nos. 288, 706. Doxology.

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