the charge! Place the Conqueror, amidst the sad scenes of life, by the side of the humblest Christian, and who then conquers? Who then teaches the great purposes of life, and brings before us the great realities of futurity? Who then proclaims the end of the dark night, and the coming on of a bright and glorious morning? He "that overcometh"-he who is conqueror of himself and maintains the purity, integrity and devotion of the Gospel, he hath power over the world, and through Jesus conquers death and the grave, and is to the world as the morning star,-the harbinger of light and life and joy eternal.

A. H.

INTUITION OF GOD.

A SERMON, BY REV. CALEB STETSON.

Matthew V. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

THE brief sentences, called the beatitudes, which begin this chapter, are a comprehensive definition of happiness. They are not to be regarded as promises of what God will do for good men hereafter, but a declaration of what they do actually enjoy by the laws of their own being. Here is a revelation of our highest good,-a good which belongs, not to present or future, to time or place, but to the soul, whose home and rest are in the bosom of the Infinite. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." By no miraculous manifestation shall they see him, but their purified souls are no longer in disastrous eclipse, no more do clouds and darkness brood over them and shut out the vision of Divine glory and goodness. They come into the bright and serene day. They are born into the world of spirits which God's presence fills and blesses.

When we speak of seeing God, it is obvious that we use a figurative language. We employ a word, which literally signifies the perception of a material object through an organ of sense, to express the soul's direct intuition of a spiritual object, of which our senses can give us no information. But in whatever forms of speech our ideas on this subject find utterance, they will always be somewhat obscure to those

who are wholly unaccustomed to spiritual thought. By all worldly and sensual persons the higher revelations of religious experience are apt to be regarded as mysticism; "the natural man (or the unspiritual man) receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

In the whole universe of thought there is no image so dim, so far beyond the grasp of mind, as that of God. It transcends and baffles alike the humblest and the loftiest understanding. Learning strives in vain to search out more of Him,-the Unsearchable, the Incomprehensible,than is revealed to the mind of a little child. Philosophy loses itself, and becomes folly and dotage in the unfathomable abyss of the Eternal Being.

But the soul has a direct vision of spiritual and moral truths, without which neither religion nor virtue were possible. There are sublime intuitions of faith, which carry us above the logic of the understanding, above all outward evidence, up to the presence of the Infinite Father in whom our souls find rest. And thus does the pure heart "see the Invisible," an irresistible power without organs,-a life and activity infinitely diffused, ever working, without form, limits, dimensions; yet quickening all finite life, moving in all motion, acting in all activity, enclosing, holding and penetrating all finite forms. This great Being, the object of perfect love and perfect trust, is not an object of sense. His essence is hidden. Phenomena only appear. We look upon the many-coloured robe which nature is ever weaving for him, but the great Spirit himself we do not literally see. And yet he is revealed to the pure in heart. Their faith is grander, more inspiring than the convictions of the understanding. God is in their consciousness; they know him by their experience; they commune with him in the invisible temple of their souls. Only through spiritual experience then can God be truly known. He is a spirit, and not the senses, but the spirit of man perceives him. By spirit is spirit discerned. We cannot see or hear or touch the soul of our nearest friend. We look upon the outward form-the "flesh garment" of the indwelling man, and our organs of vision see no We cannot penetrate the deep mystery in which the spirit wraps itself. You may be my intimate friend, I have lived with you familiarly for years, have shared your joys and sorrows, have given and received the tokens of faithful affection; but I have never seen

more.

the being which you call yourself. I have no more looked upon the real man with whom I hold such near communion, than I have looked upon the face of the living God. The invisible, impalpable soul eludes my vision. The phenomena of life I see, but life itself I cannot see. I observe outward symbols of thought, emotion, power, virtue, faith, love; these may be true signs of what passes in the inner sanctuary of life, the revealing of the spirit-form; or the cloak of the hypocrite they may be, put on to hide the man within. I desire to know him more. I stand before a visible temple, where he is enshrined; I would enter and hear utterances of truth and wisdom. But not the eye which gazes upon the goodly edifice, nor the ear which listens to the music within, can find the soul that dwells in secresy there. So does man hide himself in thick darkness from the searching glances of man. Only by mind can mind be known. Only by inward experience, consciousness, sympathy, do we comprehend any thing spiritual, that lies outside of our own being. We compare the external indications of another man's character with what we are conscious of in our own souls, and as we feel we judge. Accordingly, we know our dearest friends less by what they do and say, than by what we have felt and experienced. The articulate speech or the noble deed discloses nothing of character, unless it wakes answering sympathies within us.

All spiritual discernment then depends upon consciousness and sympathy. A great thought or a great action is strange and unintelligible to us unless there is something responding to it in our own nature. Heart answers to heart, and interprets its dark oracles. Love comprehends love, goodness understands and appreciates goodness. A man who is full of honour, justice and generous enthusiasm, enters with hearty sympathy into all that is noble in character or great in action. The pure heart needs no commentary on a good man's history. It kindles and glows always at the idea of high-minded integrity, and self-sacrifice and suffering for the true and the right. The profoundest instincts of its nature are interpreters of all disinterested affection, magnanimity and moral heroism, which history records or every day life reveals. Thus a pure, manly, upright soul does instant justice to every pure, manly and upright character, and waits not for the popular cry to justify its preferences. In its own consciousness it finds every generous motive and aim which it honours in another. When these noble qualities are altogether wanting in ourselves, we do

not comprehend them nor believe in their existence. The worldly or base mind has no reverence for what is spiritual and holy-scorns it rather" as foolishness."

Observe how these remarks are verified by the common experience of mankind. No spirit can be understood and interpreted save by a kindred spirit. In vain will you endeavor to describe a great and noble mind to one who has no sympathy with its high qualities. As well may you talk of the beauty of the many-coloured rainbow to a man who was born blind. Hence it is that many excellent men, who were much in advance of their age, have been misconceived and calumniated by those about them; nay often, have become martyrs to truth and righteousness. They had qualities which find no sympathy in mean souls; they lived in another sphere quite above them-in the pure element of spiritual thought and life. "Wisdom indeed is justi. fied by her children,"-but by her children only. Often "she crieth aloud in the streets, and no man regardeth her." When Jesus, the Son of God, appeared in the land of his nativity, with messages of love and mercy and redemption, "speaking as never man spake," living as never man lived, the many turned from him scornfully, saying, " he hath a devil and is mad." But there were a few humble-minded and simple-hearted men, whose souls were open to the instructions of the great Teacher. They saw the divine beauty of his character and doctrine, and "to them he gave power to become sons of God;" for they were drawn to him by an irresistible sympathy with godlike excellence.

So incapable are we ever of appreciating those qualities of which our experience has given us no intimation. The faculty of spiritual discernment, however, lies in every human soul; but in how many it is inactive, buried, not yet born. You will often meet with an uncultivated mind that has no perception of any of the higher forms of excellence. The noblest monuments of ancient genius or art have no significance where the sense of beauty which God breathed into the universal heart has not been developed. A musician may have an angel's skill and an angel's power, but he touches his harp in vain, if there is no music in your soul whose harmonies he may waken. An illustrious mathematician was once persuaded to read Milton's Paradise Lost; he went through the book with distate and weariness, and at length laid it aside with the remark, that he "did not see that it proved any thing." Nor was there any thing strange in this, for the

man of science had never cultivated in himself the faculties which the great poet addressed; he had no sympathy with his enthusiasm. In his own soul there was no poetry to glow with a kindred inspiration, and reproduce the poem for himself. Every word of wisdom or truth must be felt and interpreted by the same spirit which gave it utterance. This law is universal.

It is not then a doctrine of theology which may be questioned, but a great law of our nature, that the worldly mind cannot discern spiritual things. From the foregoing illustrations it plainly appears why the impure and unholy cannot know God; for they have no sympathy with him. That which is godlike in their own being is not yet waked to activity. The spiritual part of their nature is not born. We measure and interpret all things by our consciousness. We know only so much moral beauty and truth as we have lived. By our experience is the ideal made actual. In our experience are divine wisdom, goodness and love truly revealed. We know Christ only when we reproduce him in ourselves and make him one with our inward life. We receive his truth and know its power and beauty, when we new create the gospel in our souls,-the gospel of our own religious life and experience. "If ye will do his will," the Saviour said, "then shall ye know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."

Perhaps I am needlessly multiplying illustrations; but I feel the difficulty of finding an adequate expression for this great truth. I would gladly make it plainer by homely and familiar instances. You may go to the rude and wild savage of our native woods, whose virtue is revenge, whose glory is homicide, whose divinity is the grim wargod, whose instruments of sacrifice are the scalping-knife and tomahawk, and tell him of the meek, peaceful, forgiving character of Jesus of Nazareth. He will "see no beauty, that he should desire him" for a teacher and pattern. It strikes him at first that the divine gentleness of his nature is the mean and cowering spirit of a slave. You may find here and there a sordid, hard-hearted miser, whose god is gain; who has sacrificed to his base idol all kindly affections and all blessed hopes. Talk to him of disinterested benevolence-of godlike justice of the melting heart of mercy-of the generous hand of charity; it seems to him all folly and woman's weakness. And unless his heart is changed and warmed with the heavenly fire, and its great idol thrown down and broken, he can have no sympathy with divine benignity and love. I see before me an unhappy man, who