With them, "I meant right," and, "I was nearly right," are terms synonymous with "I was right." Alas! for their half-way measures their lame approaches to right; they shall not avail with upright, conscientious judges. No, they must be right, and do right, if they would receive the approval of self, when conscience, that inexorable judge, awakes.

TRUTH AND ERROR IN RELIGION.

Truth and error in religion, as in everything else, both absolute and relative quantities; that is, they not only exist separately and independently, but in connection and in conjunction with each other. They sometimes run like the two parallel tracks of a railway, side by side, with numerous and open switches between, so that a man can pass from one to the other before he is himself aware of the transition. There is but one path of safety, and a hundred paths of danger. By leaving out, or by explaining away, any one of the five elements mentioned in this chapter, man leaves the heavenly highway and starts off into a wilderness of weary wanderings where paths of all sorts and kind intersect and cross each other in such a bewildering maze, that the only possible ending of his search is to be hopelessly lost. Thousands upon thousands of human beings are now, and have been, wandering about in this wilderness; therefore our great concern, as already stated, is to guide the reader, if possible, into the true path which has but one ending, in life and peace above. Hence we repeat that God, man, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible, are the five foundation stones on

which the Heavenly Temple is built, and if any one is omitted from the ground-work of your faith, the temple for you will always remain closed.

Does the reader feel inclined to ask, How do we know that this constitutes the true religion? We reply, because it rests upon admitted facts in human nature, in the outside world, and in the Bible; because it is inherently complete and harmonious; and because it is in full accordance with the highest permanent results of the best thinking which the world of mind has yet produced. Millions have accepted these truths and facts, and have been saved, and millions more are now clinging to them as shipwrecked mariners to a rock in the midst of dashing billows. As the pious Faber has sung:

"To angels' eyes

This Rock its shadow multiplies,

And at this hour in countless places lies.
One Rock, one shade

O'er thousands laid

Rest in the Shadow of this Rock!

"In the Shadow of this Rock

Abide! Abide!

Ages are laid beneath its shade.

"'Mid skies storm-riven

It gathers shadows out of heaven,

And holds them o'er us all night, cool and even.
Through the charmed air

Dew falls not there—

Rest in the Shadow of this Rock!"

INVISIBILITY OF GOD AND HEAVEN.

"There's a land far away 'mid the stars, we are told,
Where they know not the sorrows of time,

Where the sweet waters wander through valleys of gold,
And life is a treasure sublime.

'Tis the land of our God, 'tis the home of the soul,
Where rivers of pleasure unceasingly roll,

And the way-worn traveler reaches his goal
On the Evergreen Mountains of Life."

ANY years ago, Prof. Austin Phelps of Andover, Mass., in a little work entitled "The Still Hour," wrote: "One of the most impressive mysteries of the condition of man on this earth, is his deprivation of all visible and audible representations of God. Christians seem to be living in a state of seclusion from the rest of the universe, and from that peculiar presence of God in which angels dwell, and in which departed saints serve him day and night. We do not see him in the fire; we do not hear him in the wind; we do not feel him in the darkness."

Now, we think it can be satisfactorily shown that this condition of invisibility with regard to God and heaven is no "impressive mystery" at all, but simply a divinely-ordained fact established for the best and

wisest of purposes. Such language as the above is more redolent of the spirit of the Old Testament than of the New. There are many passages in the Old Testament which contain the same idea, but none in the New. Thus David says, speaking of God, "Clouds and darkness are round about him." And the poor, afflicted Patriarch of Uz also exclaims, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat. Behold I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, but I cannot behold. him; on the right hand, but I cannot see him. For he is not a man as I am, that we should come together."

Still, nearly all minds have at times without doubt felt the same perplexity.

HEAVENLY THINGS.

There is in human nature a strong craving after the same visibility and tangibility in heavenly things, that exists among the earthly. We are ourselves visible and tangible, and all material objects and interests about us are so, and we naturally desire that the objects of our faith should partake of the same character; forgetting that "the things that are seen are temporal, while the things that are not seen are eternal," forgetting, as the Pharisees did at one time, that the kingdom of God is within and hidden, rather than without and observable.

So far as viewing the upper world is concerned, we are, while in life, imprisoned within material walls. And in our weak, imperfect, unchristian moods we

can easily see how the pathetic and piteous language of Job would become the natural plaint of universal human nature. Especially would this be true, when one was wearied and fainting from incessant battling against spiritual difficulties, or when surrounded by immediate and appalling dangers. For it has been true for 1800 years that the heavens o'erhead, wrapped in unbroken silence, look down with seeming indifference upon the struggling masses beneath, while the earth, in sluggish muteness, gives no sign of sympathy. It is true that from out the clear blue depths above, no glimpse of God or heaven hath ever been vouchsafed to man since Jesus ascended, and John closed up all outward visions at Patmos ; neither has any audible voice been heard.

WE ALL WORSHIP A GOD.

It is true, that so far as outward manifestations are concerned, we all worship a God appreciable to us only through his Works, and his Word. But what of it, so long as we have so many better things to take the place of all this?

Sometimes, too, this feeling is liable to be engendered by a continued reading and study of the Old Testament, to the seclusion of the New. There we learn that in former days God, through his messengers and angels, talked with his special chosen ones as a man talketh with his friend; that these messengers often came to earth, and even ate and drank with men; that intercourse with the spirit world was common and general; and that visible manifestations of supernal glory were often given.