childhood of the race. What is called the phonetic form of writing (a form by which letters and syllables are made to represent sounds), and which now prevails throughout the civilised world, undoubtedly sprung from this. When and how our present alphabet was invented has been a matter of speculation from the earliest times. Most scholars have, however, agreed in making Phoenicia the mother of all our known alphabetical characters.

Now there is a writing older, more universal, and more important than this, I mean the penmanship of soul In this art every man is a busy writer. The soul registers every impression made on it-every passing thought, every wave of feeling that breaks on its shore, every volition, whether outwardly expressed or hidden in the solitude of its own. chamber. It transcribes all that comes within its horizon, it leaves nothing unrecorded. In comparing soul writing with that of the pen two things are observable, correspondence and dissimilarity.

I. CORRESPONDENCE. Both imply readers. It is true that sometimes men take the pen and note down things intended for no eye but their own. They register their private transactions, and their secret devotions, not for others but for themselves. But generally men write to be read and the writings of some men are read by thousands the world over, and that by many generations. Soul writing has its readers. Paul regarded the Corinthian Christians as "the epistles of Christ," "Written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God: not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." Every man is a letter that has many readers, and often many students. What we write in the soul is seen through our words, habits, spirits, bearing, as through a window. The members of our circle read us, angels read us, and the Great God "understands our thoughts afar off." Accuracy in both cases requires training. In teaching our children the art of caligraphy we furnish them with model copies, which they

are to imitate with strictest attention. The art of writing seems to me so wonderful that I doubt whether any man could have discovered it by his own unaided efforts. I am inclined to ascribe it to the Great Teacher of all that is good and useful. Nor will the soul ever write well without instruction, and that of the highest kind. It is true that it will register everything that comes under its consciousness by the necessity of its own nature; but such a record will be miserably vile and unfit to read, unless it has been inspired and directed by the Spirit of truth and holiness. God Himself must give the model copy for good soul writing. This He has promised to do, "I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their heart." What is that law? It is the law of purity and truth, the law of holy love to God and man. The soul must write after this copy if it would write well-all its facts must be registered, all its arguments conducted, all its purposes formed in the spirit of this model Both are either useful or injurious. The writings of some men have been a great curse, they have rolled as rivers of poison through the heart of ages. Much of the modern press of England is, I fear, impregnating the mental atmosphere of our age with foul diseases that emmasculate intellect, and paralyse the moral powers of mankind. But whilst art writing has often been and still is very injurious, it has often been and still is very beneficial. We thank God for books. They make us acquainted with the distant and the dead. On the streams of literature we see mirrored the institutions, philosophies, and habits of men who have been carrying on the affairs of the world from the beginning. Judea, Greece, and Rome, the old teachers of the world are brought down to us in books and made to live their life and play their part again. Christianity has come down to us in writing. The communications of Heaven to the Fathers and Prophets, the biography of Jesus, and the thoughts of the Apostles, these soul rennovating and soul saving forces would never have reached this age had it not been for letters.

Soul writing is also either injurious or useful. The record of a bad life is bad in its influence. Each human life, however humble, is a fountain whence streams will flow down the centuries. If the life is corrupt the streams will be morally pestilential, if holy the reverse. What an influence the life of Christ had for good. He wrote no book, yet his life was a volume full of the cleansing, recreative, and Divine-it is a fountain of the highest life to the world.

In comparing soul writing with art writing the other thing observable is,

II. DISSIMILARITY. Soul writing is the more universal. The number of men who are instructed in the art of writing are few compared with the population. To the disgrace of the rulers of England, be it said, there are thousands in this country who are yet incapable of reading or penmanship. But all souls are writing. The soul of the wild man in the forest, as well as that of the most enlightened sage, the soul of the child as well as of the man, is constantly registering. Soul writing is the more voluminous. Amongst our English authors there are some who have written in great abundance; many large volumes have gone forth from their brain; but the works of the most prolific writer constitute but a fraction compared with that which each man's soul has written. What a wonderful book is memory! Dr. Johnson is said to have forgot nothing that he had ever seen, heard, or read. Grotius and Pascal allowed nothing that came under their notice to be lost. Ben Jonson tells us that he could repeat all he had written, and whole books that he had read. Themistocles could call by their names the 20,000 citizens of Athens. In one man's life there is more written down than could be contained in a thousand volumes. Count all the impressions made, all the thoughts conceived, all the emotions felt, all the volitions past during one day. Multiply them by all the days of a man's life; how enormous would be the sum!-no figures could represent them. Soul writing is the more permanent. Art writes on paper, but.

paper moulders-on vellum, but vellum decays-on metals and marble, but time erases every character. The names of men once engraved on earth's most enduring substances, have long since been wiped away by the hand of time. But what is written on the soul can never be erased; the soul is an imperishable tablet, a tablet over which time has no power, and which the conflagration of worlds will leave unscathed and untouched.*

Soul-writing is the more useful to Christianity. On this let us specially dwell for a moment. All writers in relation to Christianity may be divided into three classes. Those who ignore it altogether—this perhaps is the largest class. It is to us a wonderful mental phenomenon, that men born here in England, educated in what is called Christian colleges and universities, should be able to write large volumes, and never make allusion to that religion which has confessedly made their country what she is. The literature of Greece and Rome is full of religion. The divinities appear and speak through all. The songs of poets, the narrations of annalists, the speeches of orators, and the philosophies of sages, are full of the gods. This is natural. The chief thing in the mind being the religious, and the chief thing out of it the god, it is only natural to expect that the chief feature in its productions should be religion. The second class are those who introduce Christianity into their writings for wrong purposes. Some to undermine its authority, strip it of its supernaturalness, and explain away its divinity; others to aggrandize themselves, to adorn their tales, embellish their productions, and sell their books. The other class are those who introduce Christianity into their writings for a good purpose, but in a bad way. Some in the way of whining sentimentality, others in the way of bitter polemics, and others in the way of cutand-dried orthodoxy. Some of the most Anti-Christian books are written in the name of Christianity. Their narrow

See further illustrations of this on another page, under the title"Strange Psychological Facts."

spirit, their vapid conceptions, their childish reasonings, their simpering, mawkish sentiment, and withal, their arrogant assumptions are miserable libels on the system of Jesus. They have done, I trow, more to promote infidelity than books constructed for infidel purposes. Give me the book which makes no mention of Christianity, or the book that introduces it professedly to degrade it, rather than the book which seeks to promote it, but contains nothing of its grandeur of conception, freedom of spirit, and nobleness of soul. But whatever may be the amount of literature that does real service to humanity, its service is in no way so effective as when it is written in the soul.

First: Truth written by the soul in the life is more legible than truth written by the pen. There are some whose caligraphy is difficult to decipher, and some whose compositions are difficult to interpret; their thoughts are misty, their style involved, their sentences lie under a haze. But what the soul has written, the life reveals so clearly that a child can make it out. It is possible for a man occasionally to put on a mask, and to misrepresent his true spirit and inner life. And this, alas! he often does; but when he is natural, and he is so during the average of his life, his very looks and movements reveal him. It is said that children are physiognomists. So they are. They read the soul in looks. Many noble works have been written in order to expound the principles and spirit of true religion; but the most lucid of them is obscure compared with the exposition that is furnished by the life of a genuinely godly man. The best commentary on Christianity, the most easily read and generally appreciated, is the life of its disciples.

Secondly Truth written by the soul in the life is more convincing than truth written by the pen.-Many books have been written on the evidences of Christianity, and sometimes by the greatest scholars and ablest men. Do I underrate their productions? By no means. Works such as those