last comes, life's struggle over, life's voyage completed -that light from heaven streams down upon the darkness and desolation of earth, and the good angel is by its side, and pointing upward says, "thither-thither shalt thou go" !*

* The allusion here, is to that admirable series of paintings, by Mr Cole, entitled "The Stream of Life."

ON HUMAN LIFE.

VIII.

THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE.

NOW A THING WAS SECRETLY BROUGHT TO ME, AND MINE EAR RECEIVED A LITTLE THEREOF. IN THOUGHTS FROM THE VISIONS OF THE NIGHT, WHEN DEEP SLEEP FALLETH ON MEN; FEAR CAME UPON ME, AND TREMBLING WHICH MADE ALL MY BONES TO SHAKE. THEN A SPIRIT PASSED BEFORE MY FACE, AND THE HAIR OF MY FLESH STOOD UP. IT STOOD STILL; BUT I COULD NOT DISCERN THE FORM THEREOF; AN IMAGE WAS BEFORE MINE EYES; THERE WAS SILENCE; AND I HEARD A VOICE.-Job iv. 12-16.

HUMAN life to many, is like the vision of Eliphaz. Dim and shadowy vails hang round its awful revelations. Teachings there are to man, in solemn and silent hours, in thoughts from the visions of the night, in vague impressions and unshaped reveries; but, on this very account, they fail to be interpreted and understood. There is much teaching; but there is also much unbelief.

There is a scepticism, indeed, about the entire moral significance of life, which I propose, in this discourse, to examine. It is a scepticism, sometimes taking the form of philosophy, sometimes of misanthrophy and scorn, and sometimes of heavy and hardbound worldliness, which denies that life has any lofty, spiritual import: which resolves all into a series of toils and trifles and vanities, or of gross and palpable pursuits and acquisitions. It is a scepticism, not

about creeds, not about Christianity; it lies farther back-lies far deeper; it is a scepticism about the very meaning and intent of our whole existence.

This scepticism I propose to meet; and for this purpose, I propose to see what argument can be extracted out of the very grounds on which it founds itself.

The pertinency of my text to my purpose, as I have already intimated, lies in this; there is much of deep import in this life, like that which Eliphaz saw in the visions of the night-not clear, not palpable, or at least not usually recognised and made familiar; but it cometh, as it were in the night, when deep sleep falleth on men; it cometh, in the still and solitary hours; it cometh in the time of meditation or of sorrow, or of some awful and overshadowing crisis of life. It is secretly brought to the soul, and the ear receiveth a little thereof. It is as a spirit that passeth before us, and vanisheth into the night shadow; or it standeth still, but we cannot discern the form thereof; there is an undefined image of truth; there is silence; and at length there is a voice.

It is of these unrecognised revelations of our present being, that I would endeavour to give the interpretation; I would attempt to give them a voice.

. But let us spread out a little in the first place, the sceptic's argument. It says; "What is there in human existence that accords with your lofty, Christian theory? You may talk about the grandeur of a human life, the sublime wants and aspirations of the human soul, the solemn consciousness, amidst all life's cares and toils, of an immortal destiny; it is all a beautiful dream! Look over the world's history, and say what intimations does it furnish of that majestic design, the world's salvation? Look at any company of toiling and plodding men in the country around you; and

what are they thinking of, but acres and crops, of labour and the instruments of labour? Go into the noisy and crowded manufactory, and what is there, but machinery-animate or inanimate; the mind as truly girded and harnessed to the work, as the turninglathe or the banded wheel? Gaze upon the thronged streets, or upon holiday crowds, mixing the oaths of the profane with the draughts of the intemperate; and where is the spiritual soul that you talk of? Or look at human life in a large view of it, and of what is it made up? "Trouble and weariness"-you see that it is the cynic's complaint-"trouble and weariness; the disappointment of inexperience or the dulness of familiarity; the frivolity of the gay or the unprofitable sadness of melancholy; the heavy ennui of the idle or the plodding care of the busy; the suffering of disease or the wasted energy of health; frailty, its lot and its doom, death; a world of things wasted, worn out, perishing in the use, tending to nothing, and accomplishing nothing; so complete the frivolity of life with many, that they actually think more of the fine apparel they shall wear, than of the inward spirit, which you say is to inherit the immortal ages

יין

All this, alas! is too true; but it is not true to the extent nor in the exclusive sense, alleged. That but few meditate on their lot as they ought, is perfectly true; but there are impressions and convictions that come into the mind through other channels than those of meditation. They come perhaps, like the shadowy vision of Eliphaz, in darkness and silence-vague, indistinct, mysterious, awful; or they come in the form of certain, but neglected and forgotten truths. And they come, too, from those very scenes, in which the eye of the objector can see nothing but material grossness or thoughtless levity. This is what I shall especially attempt to

show. I shall not undertake, in this discourse, to go farther; but I believe that I shall not perform a useless service to the true faith of our being, if I may be able, in some measure, to unveil and bring to light, those secret intimations which are often smothered, indeed, but which from time to time, are flashing out · from the cloud of human cares and pursuits.

"Man," it is said, "is bound up in materialism, imprisoned by the senses, limited to the gross and palpable; far-reaching thoughts, soaring aspirations are found in essays and speculations about him rather than in his own experience; they are in books, rather than in brick-yards and ploughed fields and tumultuous marts."

What stupendous revelations are cloaked and almost hidden by familiarity! This very category of scepticism; what is it, but the blind admission of the sublimest truth? A man is recognized as standing amidst this palpable cloud of care and labour; enclosed, it is said, shut up in sense and matter; but still a man! A dungeon is this world, if you please so to represent it; but in this dungeon, is a prisoner-moaning, sorrowing, sighing to be free. A wilderness world it is, in the thought of many; but one is struggling through this wilderness, who imparts to it a loftier grandeur than its own; his articulate voice, his breathed prayer, or his shout amidst the dim solitudes-nay, the very sound of his axe in the forest depths-is sublimer than all the solemn symphonies of autumn winds sweeping through its majestic aisles.

Grant that matter and sense are man's teachers; and consider these teachings in their very humblest form, in their very lowest grade-what they teach perforce, and in spite of man's will. What are they? Materialism itself suggests to man the thought of an