10 when that which is perfect is come, then that which 11 is in part shall come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child but when I became a man, I put away 12 childish things. For now we see as by a glass, in hints; but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as I also am known. 13 And now abideth Faith, Hope, Love, these three but the greatest of them is Love. THE Unity of Spirit apparent in Creation is the highest evidence of the presence of a pervading God. One Will must be the Author and Ruler of a Universe, amid whose infinite variety of kingdoms and regions there are no conflicting Purposes, and no inconsistencies of Law. This is not merely the argument from Design, which, from observing the adaptation of means to ends, and organs to functions, and faculties to the media through which they act, infers that there is a great Mechanician in the Heavens; for all that this Argument from design establishes is an intellectual God, with a Power and Goodness commensurate with what appears in His works. It is good thus far:-"If the World proceeded from an originating Mind, then it affords evidences that it is the work of an Intelligence possessed of kindred qualities to that which we call Design in Man. But in this Argument, the only theological part of it is taken for granted. If a living God created this World, then the Argument from Design comes in to prove the commensurate depths of his Wisdom and resources of his Power; but it is of no logical force to establish the fundamental assumption, that wherever there are to us the signs of Design, there must have been a prior Creator. For if this argument is valid, then how can we avoid applying it to God himself? If Design necessarily implies a prior Designer, then what bears such evidences of Design as the Constitution of a Mind? The Universe itself is not so wonderful for the compass of its harmonies. The World is not so full of the evidences of Design, as is the Mind of God:- by what valid argument do we infer a previous Designer in the one case, and not in the other? As a demonstration even of the existence of Deity, this whole Argument from Design cannot, we think, be regarded as successful; nor any other of the philosophical reasonings of Natural Theology: they all proceed upon logical assumptions which cannot be proved. If it be said, that we have but the alternatives of an eternally existing Universe, or of an eternally existing God, and that the latter is the more reasonable, then it is obvious to reply, that where both are incomprehensible there is no logical choice, no logical probabilities;-whatever grounds there may be for a moral conviction, a spiritual belief. In fact, our path to God lies not through the reasoning powers. Intellect proceeds from definite premises, and ends in definite and measured results. It can argue only from what it comprehends, from fixed points, and it is a wellknown logical principle, that a conclusion cannot - contain more than the premises from which it is drawn. From the comprehensible you cannot logically deduce the Incomprehensible, nor from the finite the Infinite. It is impossible, then, that the finite premises of human comprehension and experience should logically involve the infinite and incomprehensible God. God is revealed to the highest faculties in man: but these are not the logical ones, which are conversant only with definite measurements. But the moral God, the Father of spirits, is spiritually discerned. The Soul conceiveth Him,the Spirit taketh hold on Him:- through the sentiment of a divine Faith, and not the discovering force of an all-sufficient Argument, have we access to and communion with Him. By the spiritual path He admits us into His presence: - when we attempt the intellectual one, we fall back into our own littleness, for knowledge is human and defined. There is perhaps no real resemblance between the Intellect of Man and the Mind of God, between the creative source of Truth and Power and the mere observing and receptive mind, that slowly traces out some indefinitely small portion of their manifestations, - that originates nothing, but only deciphers, and painfully spells out a little of what the mighty Author has written in Nature. But in all moral and spiritual qualities, there is a oneness of kind, even between perfection and imperfection, even between God and Man. The affections are of the same character; they are touched by the same spirit, they suggest the same sentiments, they dictate the same actions, they are framed and toned alike, and the difference is not of Nature, but of Degree. Even as it was no chain of inferences from the empty tomb, and the shattered seal, and the guards become as dead men, that led to the discernment of the Lord's Resurrection; nor even the presentation and recognition of himself in bodily form, for the Disciples at Emmaus, and elsewhere, knew him not, and even Mary took him for the gardener, but rather the moral tones of Jesus, which falling on the heart forced the faith that that heavenly voice, which they had believed stilled for ever upon Calvary, was once more a living Power, so, they are the voices of God's spirit, toned by infinite tenderness, that awaken the vibrations of our own, and that, recognized by that portion of His spirit which God has given to each of us, intimate a moral Presence and Power, within the manifestations of whose Holiness and Love we live, and move, and have our being. - It must not for a moment be supposed, however, that the existence of God is less certain to us because He is spiritually discerned,—not logically inferred; for in fact, whatever be the instruments and avenues of our knowledge, Faith lies at the foundation of them all, nor have we any security for the reality of their communications except a Moral Trust. Man must have faith in God that his sensations, and physical expectations, do not deceive him, to the full as much as he must have trust that the intimations of Conscience, the self-sacrificing sense of Right and Justice, the spiritual discernment of the Perfect, do not lead him wrong:-and if God can betray by the voices and aspirations of the spiritual nature, we cannot conceive what ground of confidence any man can have that the impressions of the Senses, or the deductions of the Intellect, are infallibly secure. It may be, as philosophers have thought, that this beautiful universe is all an appearance, that there is no such thing, and that, like the murderer's air-drawn dagger, it is but a creation of the mind. We know no ground that any man has that his senses are not deceiving him, but moral trust in God. It may be, if God and his Goodness are not to be taken upon spiritual Trust, that this world of apparent order is itself but a designed fallacy of the Senses, a contrived chimera of the Intellect, and that at some time, at Death for example, we may awake from this mocking Dream of Design in an everlasting Chaos; and certainly it is a gross inconsistency for any man to be free from this fear, who puts no faith in the pure revelations of Conscience and the Soul. If God can deceive upon one set of subjects, or by one set of mental Instruments, where can be the security that our whole mental Being is not a dreadful deception? The most irreligious of men unwittingly ground some of their deepest convictions, such as the constancy of Nature to her Laws, upon a religious foundation, even upon the constancy of God to his moral Purposes, upon Faith in the Truth and Holiness of the Author of their being. And when this Faith and spiritual sensibility are lively and tender, and trust in the truth of our faculties, in the religious intimations of our Nature, is |