atic thought, in images of reality, and in free, self commanding life and action, must form the substance of all philosophy, all poetry, and all heroism. Its corruption into idle vanity and diseased sentiment is doubtless also inevitable. But what good thing is there, what best thing, what love to man, what faith in God, which human frailty does not thus twist and crush into evil? Sterling.

The higher development of each civilization is a selfcriticism; and along with the condemnation of the past, neatly packed in silken integument, lies a promise of better things. But this divine verdict, towering at the top of the plant, can only wither by staying there; it must be blown, or shaken, or plucked thence, and consigned to that earth which we all despise so truly – the hearts and heads of common men. There must it find the soil and moisture, blood and tears, which burst its rind and evolve the godhead within. Horatio Greenough.

There have not wanted some among the old philosophers, who have maintained this strange paradox, that both being and knowledge are fantastical and relative only, and therefore that nothing is good or evil, just or unjust, true or false, white or black, absolutely or immutably, but relatively to every private person's humor or opinion; and that whatsoever things seem good and just to every city or commonwealth, the same are so to that city or commonwealth so long as they seem so.

But if the perceptions of the soul did not extend to the

comprehension of the absolute truth of things, every opinion would of necessity be alike true; neither could there absolute falsehood in any. Cudworth.

be

any

The elements of this great moving power of Christianity are to be derived from those natural judgments concerning the principles of honor and right which God has made the human mind to form with intuitive certainty, and which he designed to be a divine disclosure to us of the principles by which he regulates his own conduct. Edward Beecher.

In every possible state of the human consciousness there are two elements necessarily involved - the subject and the object. Every form of intelligence involves the attempt to bring the nature and attributes of some object home to the subject — self, and unite them in the harmony of a direct consciousness. On the contrary, every form of action implies the effort to impress our own subjective energy upon some outward object. Intelligence seeks to bring every thing to the centre of self, and place it before the eye of the percipient action seeks to diffuse the energy of the subject over the whole or some portion of the objective world.

The same law which we see to pervade the regions of thought and action, pervades equally the region of emotion. Every emotion presupposes a mind aroused and excited, and an object arousing and exciting it; and on examining attentively the phenomena of the case, we find

that there is a highly fluctuating proportion between the energy of the subject on the one hand and the influence of the object on the other. Wherever the energy of the subject predominates, the emotion is one of freedom wherever the influence of the object predominates, the emotion is one of passive susceptibility; or, what is the same thing, of dependence upon something beyond ourselves.

In the ordinary flow of human life, our emotions are almost always combinations of these two feelings. The subject and object, the sense of freedom and dependence, vary and interchange with each other. There is an action and a reaction ever going on, in which sometimes the subjective side appears to be in the ascendency, sometimes the objective; while frequently there is wellnigh a balance of the two influences, which leaves the mind in a state of calm repose between them.

There are periods of human emotion, however, when the will. the sense of freedom seems almost omnipotent; when human nature becomes actively and determinately selfish in all its aims, and imperious in all its demands; when man would, if he were able, make himself a God, and render the personal subject absolute over every thing in the universe beside. This entire self-deification, however, is a moral paradox, which man has too much conscious weakness to imagine, except under a momentary state of infatuated delusion. In other words, the absolute sense of freedom is to a human being impossible. God alone can possess it.

With regard to the sense of dependence, however, the case is far otherwise. Although man, while in the midst of finite objects, always feels himself to a certain extent independent and free; yet in the presence of that which is self-existent, infinite, and eternal, he may feel the sense of freedom utterly pass away and become absorbed in the sense of absolute dependence. Accordingly, while an absolute sense of freedom is to a finite creature impossible, yet an absolute sense of dependence is strictly in accordance with man's being and relations in the universe. Let the whole independent energy of the subject merge in the object as its prime cause and present sustainer; let the subject become as nothing-not, indeed, from its intrinsic insignificance, or incapacity for moral action, but by virtue of the infinity of the object to which it stands consciously opposed; and the feeling of dependence must become absolute. On the side of dependence then we can reach the sphere of infinity. And the sense of dependence accompanying all our mental operations, gives them the peculiar hue of piety. Morell.

Certain it is, that God is manifested in his will in a peculiar sense. We can more easily make a distinction between God and his power, and between God and his wisdom, than we can between God and his will. The will or purpose of God, in a given case, necessarily includes something more than the mere act of willing; it includes all that God can think in the case, and all that God can feel in the case. And I must confess that the will of God

whenever and wherever made known, brings out to my mind more distinctly and fully the idea, and presence, and fulness of God, than any thing else. This is so much the case, that, whenever I meet with the will of God, I feel that I meet with God; whenever I respect and love the will of God, I feel that I respect and love God; whenever I unite with the will of God, I feel that I unite with God. So that practically and religiously, although I am aware that a difference can be made philosophically, God and the will of God are to me the same. He who is in perfect harmony with the will of God, is as much in harmony with God himself, as it is possible for any being to be. The very name of God's will fills me with joy. Upham's Life of Madame Guyon.

In all the world there is but one legitimate Originator. Man's business is that of concurrence.

Such are the relations between God and man, involved in the fact of man's moral agency, that man's business is to receive; or, in other words, to coöperate with what God gives.

The sanctified soul, although it no longer has a will of its own, is never strictly inert. Under all circumstances, there is really a distinct act on the part of the soul, namely, an act of coöperation with God; although, in some cases, it is a simple coöperation with what now is, and constitutes the religious state of submissive acquiescence and patience; while in others it is a coöperation with reference to what is to be, and implies future results, and consequently is a state of movement and performance.

Fenelon, translated by Upham.