stractly, that gives the Bible its transcendent position among other volumes, but truth as immediately made known by our Heavenly Father in just such measure and aspect as his infinite wisdom determined. On this foundation it builds its sovereign authority. On this foundation it bears witness to the facts of our spiritual being in language admitting of no appeal, and binds to its doctrines and assurances the

reason, but on faith;" we are now told that a miracle is "accepted on religious grounds, and can appeal only to the principle and influence of faith." Lord Herbert, conspicuous in English history as the first Deistical writer, published "De Veritate" to prove that man does not need an external revelation; and indeed the Deism of England has earnestly advocated the doctrine that the light of reason within man, assisted by the Spirit of God, is altogether sufficient as a rev-faith of the world. elation of the divine will. But the accredited The logical result of this theory of Rationalsupporters of Christianity now inform us that ism is that every man is a self-ordained judge the Scriptures themselves are the product of the of the contents of Revelation. Grant the sup"devout reason." Rejecting the great truth on position that the "inward light," the "devout which Revelation rests-the only truth that can reason" discovered these truths, and the "inbe a foundation for its infallibility and suprema- ward light," the "devout reason" of our age cy—that it contains the knowledge which God may sit in judgment on them. The ideal view has communicated directly to his servants, and of this "reason" is that it is absolute; but in through them to the world, they teach that the practice the ideality is sadly sacrificed. If any writers of Scripture made these discoveries by thing offensive to the spiritual ideality of the means of their own faculties, guided by the nineteenth century is discerned in the ScripSpirit that all humble and docile minds pos-tures, the Hebrew or Christian ideality is resess. According to this theory man is the principal, and inspiration the auxiliary in the office of Revelation. Obviously enough man is hereby made a revealer of God to his own mind and to his fellow-men, and whatever aid is received simply assists his faculties to do their work. The functional idea of Revelation is thus taken away from the Holy Ghost and lodged in the offices of the "devout reason;" and conse-ceived notions and native instincts. In othquently no one is bound to reverence Christ's religion except just so far as it is the "expression" of the "inward light" that he enjoys.

Put in plain English, this makes the Bible man's book. Admit all that the rationalistic system predicates of the influence of God's Spirit, give man all the advantages of wisdom and goodness, but still the degree of intelligence and purity in the volume, if the legitimate fruits of human intellect, can not vary the conditions of the argument, or constitute it a divine volume in any appreciable sense. The true idea of Revelation is not in the discovery of spiritual facts by the exercise of our faculties, no matter what amount of help is received from the Holy Ghost, but in a direct, positive, and certain communication of God's will on his part through the medium of the human mind. It is God's act; it is God's spoken self; and whatever office the inspired apostle performs, it is strictly subordinate to the fact that God is the sole Revealer. No theory of inspiration is complete that contravenes the idea of human agency in the production of the Holy Scriptures; and we think that men may honestly differ as to the precise view to be taken of the relation of the human element therein to the supernatural wisdom and authority with which it is so intimately connected. Notwithstanding all this, the distinctive claim of the Scriptures is plain enough. In spirit, in form, in general scope, in minute detail, in every thing constituting the essence and vital soul of its writings, the Holy Bible answers to the mind of God as image to original. And hence we believe that it is not truth, viewed ab

jected. And thus it happens that Scripture is never Scripture per se, but becomes Scripture by agreeing with our "inward light." If in any sense we can exercise faith in such a Revelation, it is not a faith that simply accepts because the statements are contained in a volume substantiated by evidences ample and satisfactory, but because of the harmony with our precon

er words, we believe in the Revelation for the very good reason that we believe in ourselves. The fact is, our own pleasant image is projected upon the pages of the book, and, in Coleridge's words in the "Ode on Dejection," we might say that "We receive but what we give." Now, it is quite true that Christianity teaches the doctrine of spiritual discernment. But it is no such doctrine as this. The spiritual discernment taught by St. Paul is such a discernment as is wrought in our hearts by the agency of the Holy Ghost, and through the operations of divine truth as embodied in the religion of Christ. It is not a doctrine that superstition may take to itself as an apology for its wild and erratic ravings; not a doctrine that under every imaginable pretense any disordered brain may shelter itself behind, and vaunt its flummery on the notice of men; not a doctrine that even good men and true may plead except in connection with those rigid qualifications that guarantee its safety and value. Men may rightfully speak of intuitions and instincts, but these are not necessarily spiritual discernments, nor can they claim therefor the excellence and blessedness which God has secured to this inward perception, this comprehensive realization of the interior meaning of his truth. The artist has an inward eye for the beautiful; the philosopher has an inward eye for abstract truth; and indeed, to most cultivated men, and always to men of genius, the outward eye that takes cognizance of material things is very much like a telescope or microscope, while behind it and far within is the real eye that sees, as Wordsworth

says, "into the heart of things." Yet it were a perfect misnomer to call this spiritual discernment; for what is shared by all men, irrespective of any special moral gifts and religious experience, and is attributable to nature when existing under genial auspices, can not possibly be referred to the peculiar facts of a Christian life.

Heaven for their sustenance, less provision for their growth? They make a tree beneath the surface. There they are-how industrious and faithful at their task! There they are-truth in every fibre, sealed all over by a Divine hand to their unheeded work! They define the compass of the tree; the tree follows them and adopts their movements. Downward and upward, tree above and tree below, out in the air and in through the soil, one teeming life of expansion, one love of broadening growth, same heart and same hope, how they fraternize as of one blood and one being! Such are the evidences-roots that fasten the hold of this magnificent tree on the granite and the iron beneath, clasping this rock and then that to steady the burden above, interlacing, too, among themselves, and knitting in close concord that they be competent to withstand the storm and outlive the centuries.

If now this system of evidences is broken, we see nothing but ill results. On logical grounds it is quite apparent to us that to impugn one branch of these evidences is to impugn the whole. To invalidate one is to invalidate all. Sever the ties that bind them together, and it is as if a link in a mighty cable, holding a ship in a storm to its anchorage, were parted. For all these evidences are connected by means of one common element, viz., the supernatural. And, therefore, no form of Rationalism that decries the miracles as attestations of Christianity can consistently ask any thing for the self-evidencing power of the Gospel. Precise

Along with this favorite dogma of recent Rationalism comes another, viz., the self-evidencing power of divine truth. That this property of the Gospel is acknowledged in the Bible and urged upon our attention can not be questioned. The dispute between Christian thinkers of the old-fashioned school and our modern Rationalists is not as to the existence of the doctrine itself, but as to the nature and offices of the doctrine. Rationalism refuses to regard miracles as supports of Christianity, but insists that "they are at present among the main difficulties and hindrances to its acceptance." To supersede the necessity of the argument drawn from miracles, or to reduce that argument to the merest minimum of value, the self-evidencing power of the Gospel is set forth with great emphasis. This is a fatal thrust, in our opinion, at the heart of Christianity. We mean, of course, in its logical bearing; for we do not impugn the character and motives of these writers who are now agitating the Church. Scripture unequivocally asserts that this selfevidencing power exists, nor can we conceive how Christianity can perfect its influence over a human mind where it is wanting. But let it be observed that there is nothing in this self-ly the same difficulty meets it, only that it is evidencing power to interfere with the evidence of miracles, or in any way to abate their utility. No fallacy can be greater than to regard them as rival forms of proof, or in any degree as unfriendly. If the miracles are set aside as worthless, we should not calculate on the other exert-ercises His own omnipotence through the docing much force. If the miracles are depreciated, do not imagine that the selecter and more spiritual evidence - the internal purity and beauty of the doctrines of Christianity-will be all the more appreciated. Such a result we pronounce impossible. For if the external credentials are rejected, or if they are lightly esteemed, then the measure of indifference to them will be the measure of insensibility to the other and higher class of divine authentications. Christianity has a system of evidences as well as a system of doctrines; and the unity of the one is as essential as the unity of the other. Far be it from us to undervalue, even in apLook at these doctrines, and you see how in-pearance, the spiritual strength and fullness of separably they are united. Like a gigantic trunk, the truth of the paternal character of God in Christ rises from the beautiful companionship of the dew upon the grass and the smile upon the flowers, and lifts itself heavenward. Stately arms spring out from the central shaft, and spread themselves far and wide. Lop off branch or bough, touch a leaf, and either symmetry or proportion is destroyed. But is there less wisdom seen in the roots, less care of

transferred from without to within. For if any intelligible meaning is to be attached to the internal evidence of Christianity, as it addresses itself directly to the heart and stirs the conscience into fuller life, it is this-that God ex

trines of Christianity, and discloses His infinite goodness to the soul by means of their influence. But is this less a wonder-is this a glory less divine-than raising the dead? Christianity employs the language of miracle whenever it speaks of this inward work. It speaks of a death of the spirit, of a resurrection to newness of life; it refuses to adopt any other terms; and hence, if the supernatural in the form of a suspension of the ordinary laws of nature is a "hindrance" to revealed religion, the supernatural in the form of a spiritual agency is none the less a "hindrance.'

the self-evidencing power of Christianity. On the contrary, we are satisfied that this is the consummation of the argument in behalf of Christ's religion. Not because we attach a secondary interest to it, but because we consider it above all worth, are we desirous to see it placed on safe ground. In truth, it is rather the final and finished state of the "Evidences" that are inherently different from miracles. Perhaps it were better to contemplate it more

as a confirmation than a proof; but, whichever verse. It is humanity in the presence of beauty, aspect is preferred, it is ennobling to feel its grandeur, magnificence. It is humanity enforce, and to rest on an assurance made thus circled with mysteries. It is humanity with "doubly sure." A man never feels the grand- senses and intellect and emotions; nor can any eur of his redeemed being as when the Gospel thing restrain this ever-escaping inborn energy, thus comes home to his heart in the demonstra- or drive it back from contact with the wondrous tion of the Holy Ghost. Then are stirred those shapes of the material world. Its interest in depths into which no sounding-line has hitherto these external forms is, as poets term it, an gone. Then leap up toward heaven those sens- appetite, and must be fed. Day unto day must ibilities never before quickened. Then instinct utter speech, and night unto night show knowlgropes no more, but sees in full vision its end edge. And now, which is better, to have this and aim. But this is the experience of ad- monotony unbroken, or to have God our Father vanced or advancing human nature under the come forth from behind His laws, and unfold in tuition of the Holy Ghost. The eyesight of front of them the glory so long hidden? If the intellect must precede the eyesight of the there is any power in uniformity outside of regenerated soul; and, therefore, the proofs of mechanical results, it certainly lies in the immiracles, coming from a source objective to the pression given of the utility of law. But is mind, must be prior in time to the other and there nothing within us superior to a sense of more elevating evidence. And, moreover, this law? Can the mere idea of law cultivate us to evidence may run through various stages. The the full extent of our being? If the Lawgiver instincts of the spirit are not developed all at will reveal Himself, surely we are vast gainers once, but are gradually brought into conscious- by the splendor of the manifestation. Instantly ness, and by virtue of this law, which Nature and forever the world is ennobled by the disnever fails to execute, the birth of one power play. It is nearer to God in our estimate of follows the maturity of another power; the off-its relations, and nearer also to ourselves. No spring of the soul are cradled in successive longer a magnificent corpse, wearing the great years; a growth of one season of toil and trial white clouds as a shroud, and the air filled with opens a fresh possibility of another kind, and a mournful requiem, it pulsates with abounding thus, led by the hand of God, we enter upon life, in which we share, and by which we are larger spaces of spiritual life and realize the made larger recipients of joy. Had we no ever-increasing beatitudes of the sons of light. loftier realities, Poetry, Philosophy, CivilizaWe are then not "miracle-mongers." tion would be grander things from the fact that doubt some writers have laid an undue stress God had indorsed the wonders of his own union this department of the "Evidences." Cham- verse, and verified them to our contemplation pions of a cause sometimes prize their weapons and love. The rivers would flow with a gladmore than their cause, and in this temper de- der fullness, mountains stand with statelier sumfenders of miracles have occasionally given mits, oceans roll with a mightier impulse, 'seamiracles a greater prominence than Christian- sons move with a more majestic tread, skies ity itself. Be this as it may, it is very clear to spread out a sublimer canopy, because of such our mind that if the external proofs of Chris- a manifestation. tianity are destroyed, there is no room left for any other evidence. Our effort, therefore, has been to show that just as a stranger may bring us a letter of introduction, which by virtue of its author admits him to our fireside and domesticates him in our midst, and so furnishes him an opportunity to disclose his personal merits and commend himself to our sympathy and love, in a similar way Christianity presents its miracles, and for their sake asks to be re-cendent greatness in the form of miracles. We ceived into the heart. Open those closed portals, and permit it to enter; another evidence than the senses and the logical understanding appreciate will follow, even the evidence that faith is constituted to realize, and which fulfills the last requisitions of a soul maturing for infinite blessedness.

No

Add to this the religious uses of such an unveiling of the Infinite Glory. Take the manifestation in the person of Jesus Christ, as he demonstrates his sovereignty over creation and works miracles which exemplify his love and prepare us to listen to the ampler ministry of his voice. We often hear of the simplicity of his teaching; but that simplicity had been another thing if he had not exhibited his trans

often hear of his parables. Touching, tender, wise above all wisdom, sublime beyond all sublimity, are these parables; and yet, the flowers of the field, the fowls of the air, the vines of the hill-side, the shepherd with his flock, and the father in his home, had not been in his hands such expressive types of spiritual truths, if he Here, then, are two views. One is arrayed had not given a new and diviner meaning to all against all interference on the part of God with nature by setting the seal of his authority brightthe uniformity of material nature; the other ly and broadly upon its manifold objects. The asserts that, for his own infinite purposes, God wonderful worker and the wonderful teacher are interrupts this external order on special occa- blended in him; each sustains and honors the sions, and draws visibly near to men in the other: and hence, if you darken the glory of the stupendous acts of his power. Suppose now one, you darken the glory of the other. Get a we take the lowest aspect of this subject, and closer view of this union, and you see that his consider humanity as shut up within the uni-works give tone to his words. The same lan

guage indeed is spoken by both-the language | lor's or Robert Hall's sermons and the Scripof infinite power and of infinite love—and therefore when we pass from word to work, or from work to word, the same lofty elevation of mind is maintained; no break is felt, no shock received; but in the ministry of power and in the ministry of instruction God reveals Himself for adoration and obedience.

tures is simply a difference of degrees in spiritual illumination. The last fatal step is soon taken, and the Lord Jesus Christ is brought down to the level of sages and seers. Excessive and unreasonable claims in behalf of human nature degrade it as effectually as to ignore altogether its dignity, and consign it to the tyranny But we must have an atmosphere through of ignorance and superstition. Milton and Swewhich to see this greater than sunlike splendor. denborg were great men, but not great enough Because of dust obstructing the passage of the to be our guides to Heaven. Inspired teachers beams, only the red ray may reach our eye, or must stand apart from the world, must be known overspreading clouds may hide the magnificent by no earthly badge, must wear the insignia of orb and leave only a faint light to illuminate Heaven, or they are no authoritative exponents the scene. Time and circumstances can not of God's will. Our humanity requires that such add an iota to the weight of "Christian Evi- inspired teachers should be men like ourselves; dences;" and yet time and circumstances, as they our spiritual humanity demands that they should operate through specific modes of culture and be God's immediate representatives, sent from habits of thought, may powerfully affect our ap- His throne and commissioned to announce His preciation of this argument. The spirit of the message. Nothing less can content us. Noage is certainly an indefinite expression when thing less can satisfy the deep cravings of the used in connection with Christianity, and in one soul. The sense of manhood within us will not sense there can be no such thing as respects respond to the grand manhood in these inspired those eternal facts with which our spiritual na- servants of God, if we abate their claims and ture deals. But the spirit of the age may mod-make them one with ourselves. And hence ify this controversy. Nor can we doubt that the dreary intellect of those who, gifted with the characteristic features of the times have im- talents and genius, are counterfeiting the subpressed themselves on men's minds in their re-lime instincts of our nature, and, under cover of lations to Christianity. Positive disbelief is reverence for humanity, are dethroning Christ. always the same thing; but semi-Infidelity, as One of the saddest spectacles of this age is to manifested in the recent forms of Rationalism, see such men as Carlyle, Emerson, Parker, has reflected both the animus and the humors Newman, worshiping the idol of the human inof the current day. Advanced thinkers are now tellect; and most painful, too, is it to behold full of morbid individuality; their own thoughts some of the professed disciples of Christ indulgand feelings are clamorous for a large share of ing in speculations that may lead them into their attention; objective truths are viewed as their company. But when this new Babel, with secondary; and hence the idealities of the pri- its confusion of tongues, has passed away the vate imagination are every where ambitious of one voice that has broken the silence of the ascendency. Yielding to this false habit, men ages will speak as heretofore the restored lanseek to understand Christianity from the stand-guage of humanity, as that humanity is found in point of subjectiveness, forgetting that this re- the Ever-Blessed Son of God.

ligion, as a divine revelation, must be objective before it can be subjective. Men must obey Christianity if they would acquire the inward organs by which its spiritual truthfulness and complete adaptations are apprehended; nor will God permit any one to see the heavenly lustre of its doctrines by any process of intellect that antedates a direct and thorough-going experience. A man is competent by mere force of logic, by a candid examination of the outward proofs of Christianity, to settle the question as to its divine origin. By no such methods, however, can he attain that assurance which God gives to those who submit their hearts to its control, and find in hours of trial, amidst toil and tribulation, amidst sickness and sorrow, as the strife of life goes on and the instincts of the soul spring into activity, that Christianity is an infinite blessedness issuing out of the heart of Christ.

It will not answer for vain men to babble about Inspiration. It will not do for us to confound the distinction between Divine Influence and Inspiration, and to advocate the absurd idea that the difference between Jeremy Tay

COURTSHIPS COMBINED.

OBODY in Winkleton supposed that Miss

NOB

Annie Barber would ever marry. She had settled into a confirmed old maidenhood; from the time when she had first brushed her hair over her ears and donned gray bonnets, which she afterward persistently favored, no one had had any hopes of her. "She was so exactly after the pattern of maiden ladies, so quiet, apparently so happy to put herself into unnoticed corners, so-" Here the gossips would pause, actually in want of expressive words; as a naturalist would wonder to find an animal of a certain genus utterly unlike its fellows, so they wondered at Miss Annie, careless of marriage prospects.

The two extremes of beauty and ugliness one knows well enough how to dispose of in matrimonial prevision; but these people, só perfectly as they should be, so proper and precise, so wanting in distinctive features-dear me, what trials they are to their interested friends! When Miss Annie was twenty-five people had

said: "Superior young woman, cultivated, re- | ing in rather an original manner: following the fined, high moral character, but-" An untrans-stately Mrs. Winter, he entered the ministerial latable "but;" now she was thirty they said she was every thing she should be, and shook their distrustful heads, probably thinking she would be always Miss Annie Barber.

She had a quiet face-rather too pale-grave manners, grave ways of dress; and when her mother died, leaving her alone, these sober fashions became more sober; when she took a little niece eight years old into her house, to relieve its loneliness, the rare smile which lighted her face sometimes came more frequently, perhaps; her voice was more lively in its tones; but her life was as quiet and retired as ever. | The gossips had given her up: she was an obstinate young woman, neglectful of the duties of young women; she would give them nothing to talk about.

pew, which was directly in front of that occupied by Miss Barber and the little Annie; the latter was sitting beside her aunt demurely, her fair curls drooping across her face; she seemed at once to attract Davy's whole attention.

Miss Barber, lifting her eyes presently, saw the little stranger half-turned and regarding Annie with a pair of very wide-open, bright eyes; while her small niece had put up a fan bashfully, and was peeping around it at her admirer. She touched Annie's arm and showed her the hymn; but Davy, having found the place in his own book, got up, and, advancing in front of Annie, presented it to her with a pompous flourish which caused great amusement to the inhabitants of pews behind.

the minister was too much occupied by his own thoughts and words to heed his doings; so Master Davy leaned his head sidewise on his hand, and amused himself by casting continual adoring glances at the small lady back of him.

Miss Barber could not help smiling, but shook Perhaps they were the more willing to do this her head slightly at the young chevalier. Howbecause, just about the time Miss Annie had re-ever, Mrs. Winter had not turned her head, and duced them to despair, there came to Winkleton a new minister. No one will deny that a new, unmarried minister is a godsend in a country town; a godsend in a double sense. He attract ed the birds of prey at once from lesser feasts. From the Sunday when he first preached before the society as a candidate to the Sunday of his installation they talked about him mildly, preparatorily; but when he was fairly established in the white mansion on West Street, the abode of pastors from time immemorial, when his name, "David Winter," was on the door-plate, and his family portraits rendered the parlor and study populous, then the watchers over Winkleton's prosperity gave their tongues full license.

"So lonely for him! What a pity the poor man hadn't a wife to make his home pleasant! Such a Christian man! He would make a wife so happy! Very good-looking, too-though beauty wasn't required in a minister! Decidedly a good catch!"

Three weeks this style of remark was prevalent; then the unconscious Mr. Winter inflicted a great blow upon the sensibilities of the female portion of Winkleton by bringing his mother to preside over his household. He shouldn't have had a mother, of course; she ought to have been a thing of the past-necessary once, but no longer needful; indeed, very much in the way.

He also introduced into his family his nephew, a namesake and a youth of ten. This addition was labeled-"Harmless, and possibly advantageous."

Seeing them quiet, Miss Barber turned her attention to the sermon, though not unmindful of the stifled titters of the young girls around. Matters progressed. At the second hymn Davy offered another book, and when the final anthem at the close of the service came, though he had only one volume left, besides the one his grandmother held, he gallantly and unhesitatingly deprived himself of that. He was permitted to follow his new attraction as far as the church steps, where, unfortunately, their ways separated.

Annie had received these acts of devotion with such marked favor that her aunt ventured to remonstrate with her on the way home.

"You shouldn't notice little boys in church, Annie," she said; "it isn't proper."

Annie blushed and hung her head. "He kept looking at me!" she answered. "Yes," said Miss Barber, "but he oughtn't. You shouldn't have looked back."

"I guess he thought I was pretty," said Annie, ingenuously—“ he is.”

"Oh fie, fie!" the aunt exclaimed; "it's very silly in little girls to think they are pretty. Never say that again, Annie.”.

The small piece of vanity at her side tossed her head at this, but could find no answer, and her aunt privately reflected on the doctrine of inherent depravity.

The new-comers settled very quietly into the ways of Winkleton; the minister took up his duties very readily; Mrs. Winter became a sort At the Sunday-school that afternoon our litof Sister of Charity to the poor and a kind host-tle friends met again, but had the misfortune to ess to her incipient enemies; and little Davy was be in different classes. Davy, however, had sent to school, where he instantly became all- the satisfaction of making his tiny sweet-heart powerful with teachers and scholars. He was a most magnificent bow, which caused her to a handsome boy, with his uncle's black eyes be the envy of her companions for the rest of and hair, but with a rounder face and fresh col- the day. Annie's. added dignity and statelior. On the Sunday following his arrival heness at supper amazed Miss Barber much, and came into church magnificent in "scarlet tie she was greatly amused, about sunset, to see and suit of gray." He conducted that morn- Davy promenade past the house once and again,