friends, allowing us to know what our Lord doeth; a law which bids us yield, not to blind fear or awe, but to the majesty of truth and justice; a law which is not imposed on us by another power, but by our own enlightened will. Now, the first of these is the law which governs and educates the child; the second, the law which governs and educates the man. The second is, in reality, the spirit of the first. It commands in a different way, but with a tone not one whit less peremptory; and he only who can control all appetites and passions in obedience to it can reap the full harvest of the last and highest education.

This need of law in the full maturity of life is so imperative, that if the requisite self-control be lost or impaired, or have never been sufficiently acquired, the man instinctively has recourse to a self-imposed discipline if he desire to keep himself from falling. The Christian who has fallen into sinful habits often finds that he has no resource but to abstain from much that is harmless in itself, because he has associated it with evil. He takes monastic vows because the world has

proved too much for him. He takes temperance pledges because he cannot resist the temptations of appetite. There are devils which can be cast out with a word: there are others which go not out but by (not prayer only, but) fasting. This is often the case with the late converted. They are compelled to abstain from, and sometimes they are induced to denounce, many pleasures and many enjoyments which they find unsuited to their spiritual health. world and its enjoyments have been to them a source of perpetual temptation, and they cannot conceive any religious life within such a circle of evil. Sometimes these men are truly spiritual enough and hum

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ble enough to recognize that this discipline is not essential in itself, but only for them and for such as they. The discipline is then truly subordinate. It is an instrument in the hands of their conscience. They know what they are doing, and why they do it. But sometimes, if they are weak, this discipline assumes the shape of a regular external law. They look upon many harmless things, from which they have suffered mischief, as absolutely, not relatively, hurtful. They denounce what they cannot share without danger, as dangerous, not only for them, but for all mankind, and as evil in itself. They set up a conventional code of duty founded on their own experience, which they extend to all men. Even if they are educated enough to see that no conventional code is intellectually tenable, yet they still maintain their system, and defend it, as not necessary in itself, but necessary for sinful men. The fact is, that a merciful Providence, in order to help such men, puts them back under the dominion of the law. They are not aware of it themselves men who are under the dominion of the law rarely are aware of it. But even if they could appeal to a revelation from heaven, they would still be under the law; for a revelation speaking from without, and not from within, is an external law, and not a spirit.

For the same reason, a strict, and even severe discipline is needed for the cure of reprobates. Philanthropists complain sometimes that this teaching ends only in making the man say, "The punishment of crime is what I cannot bear; not, "The wickedness of crime is what I will not do." But our nature is not all will, and the fear of punishment is very often the foundation on which we build the hatred of evil. No

convert would look back with any other feeling than deep gratitude on a severity which had set free his spirit by chaining down his grosser appetites. It is true, that the teaching of mere discipline, if there be no other teaching, is useless. If you have only killed one selfish principle by another, you have done nothing; but if, while thus killing one selfish principle by another, you have also succeeded in awaking the higher faculty and giving it free power of self-exertion, you have done everything.

This return to the teaching of discipline in mature life is needed for the intellect even more than for the conduct. There are many men, who, though they pass from the teaching of the outer law to that of the inner in regard to their practical life, never emerge from the former in regard to their speculative. They do not think they are contented to let others think for them, and to accept the results. How far the average of men are from having attained the power of free independent thought is shown by the staggering and stumbling of their intellects when a completely new subject of investigation tempts them to form a judgment of their own on a matter which they have not studied. In such cases, a really educated intellect sees at once that no judgment is yet within its reach, and acquiesces in suspense but the uneducated intellect hastens to account for the phenomenon; to discover new laws of nature and new relations of truth; to decide and predict, and perhaps to demand a remodelling of all previous knowledge. The discussions on table-turning, a few years ago, illustrated this want of intellects able to govern themselves. The whole analogy of physical science was not enough to induce that suspension of

judgment which was effected in a week by the dictum of a known philosopher.

There are, however, some men who really think for themselves; but even they are sometimes obliged, especially if their speculations touch upon practical life, to put a temporary restraint upon their intellects. They refuse to speculate at all in directions where they cannot feel sure of preserving their own balance of mind. If the conclusions at which they seem likely to arrive are very strange, or very unlike the general analogy of truth, or carry important practical consequences, they will pause, and turn to some other subject, and try whether, if they come back with fresh minds, they still come to the same results. And this may go further, and they may find such speculations so bewildering and so unsatisfactory that they finally take refuge in a refusal to think any more on the particular questions. They content themselves with so much of truth as they find necessary for their spiritual life; and though perfectly aware that the wheat may be mixed with tares, they despair of rooting up the tares with safety to the wheat, and therefore let both grow together till the harvest. All this is justifiable in the same way that any self-discipline is justifiable; that is, it is justifiable if really necessary. But, as is always the case with those who are under the law, such men are sometimes tempted to prescribe for others what they need for themselves, and to require that no others should speculate because they dare not. They not only refuse to think, and accept other men's thoughts, which is often quite right, but they elevate those into canons of faith for all men, which is not right. This blindness is, of course, wrong; but in reality it is a blindness of the same kind as that with

which the Hebrews clung to their law, -a blindness provided for them in mercy, to save their intellects from leading them into mischief.

Some men, on the other hand, show their want of intellectual self-control by going back, not to the dominion of law, but to the still lower level of intellectual anarchy. They speculate without any foundation at all. They confound the internal consistency of some dream of their brains with the reality of independent truth. They set up theories which have no other evidence than compatibility with the few facts that happen to be known, and forget that many other theories of equal claims might readily be invented. They are as little able to be content with having no judgment at all as those who accept judgments at second-hand. They never practically realize, that, when there is not enough evidence to justify a conclusion, it is wisdom to draw no conclusion. They are so eager for light, that they will rub their eyes in the dark, and take the resulting optical delusions for real flashes. They need intellectual discipline: but they have little chance of getting it; for they have burst its bands.

There is yet a further relation between the inner law of mature life and the outer law of childhood, which must be noticed; and that is, that the outer law is often the best vehicle in which the inner law can be contained for the various purposes of life. The man remembers with affection, and keeps up with delight, the customs of the home of his childhood; tempted, perhaps, to over-estimate their value, but, even when perfectly aware that they are no more than one form out of many which a well-ordered household might adopt, preferring them because of his long