struggle going on between the lower and higher types, in which the former are being vanquished, for all life is being lifted toward God. The whole creation is groaning and travailing, and the day of complete emancipation will at length be ushered in with great rejoicing. The signs of a more general spiritual interpretation of God, Nature, and the Bible, are multiplying on every hand. The spirit of unity is disintegrating sectarian barriers. The great altruistic current is gaining volume, and Love is broadening its channels, and growing more divine and impersonal. We are under the "Dispensation of the spirit," and modern progress and upliftment indicate the more general recognition of the fact, that all laws and all truth are divine. The time comes on apace "when all shall know the Lord," not merely in a restricted theological sense, but as the Omnipresent Inspirer of Humanity.

IV.

BIBLICAL REVELATION.

It contains

THE Bible is a vast storehouse. treasures of priceless value, unlimited variety, and general adaptability. Its supplies are suited to the requirements of every age, race, and condition. Its doors are always open; its riches to be had for the asking; and, unlike material depositories, demands upon it do not diminish its resources. The Biblical framework, with its various partitions, shelves, and cases, has only a nominal value; but within it are contained royal treasures and gifts,"gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

The Written Word is also like a great mine. There are shafts, tunnels, and galleries; engines, wheels, and pulleys; there is pumping, draining, hoisting, and assorting; and afterwards, stamping, melting, and moulding. What is the purpose of all this activity? and

have all these complex processes any special significance? Is there order and unity in the midst of such seeming confusion? The bars of bright and shining metal, which are the final result of these energetic operations, furnish the answer. The treasure was hid, and could only be extracted, reduced, and purified by such a severe and searching process. There are deep veins of truth imbedded in the strata of national history; and rich specimens of the ore of virtue, wisdom, love, and self-sacrifice, cropping out above the surface of individual character in patriarchs, kings, peasants, and slaves. The pure gold and silver of the Spirit are found in an endless variety of combinations and degrees of richness. Some of its ores are free and easily separated, and others are refractory and difficult of reduction to the pure metal of truth. There must be much crushing and heating before the golden product can be released from the grasp of its local combinations. If the whole mining territory were solid gold, the metal would lose its rarity and extreme value. An important element of its great worth consists in the labor and patience in

volved in its production. The unprecedented study and searching criticism of the Bible which characterize the present era are but a more vigorous working of the mine, not for its destruction nor its exhaustion, but in order to the production of greater wealth.

The Bible is a library rather than a book; but notwithstanding its marvellous variety, it does not claim to be a complete or finished revelation. But if it does not contain all truth, its pages glow with spiritual pictures which have every variety of coloring, foreground, and perspective. It is richly garnished with jewels; but their polish, setting, and framing, show wide diversity. But though it is precious, it is not a fetich which possesses any miraculous charm, nor a divinity to be worshipped, but rather a great consensus of experiences and object-lessons. It furnishes compass, chart, and steering directions for the voyage of life. It is not an end, but an important means to an end. Truth does not originate in its pages, nor gain its authority from textual declarations, because it eternally existed. Truth is not true because the Bible says so; but the Bible says so

because it was already, and is everlastingly, true. The sole use of the collective Inspired Library — voluminous though it may be — is to teach men two very brief rules of action, or rather principles of living, love to God and love to man. These are the concentrated golden product of the wonderful profusion of law, history, psalmody, prophecy, and philosophy, which make up the Old and New Testaments. The human mind is so constituted that it does not readily assimilate concentrated, abstract truth; otherwise, the great collection of Sacred Writings might at once be reduced to a simple statement of the two all-inclusive motives before noted. That this fine gold of principle may be received and transmuted into living spiritual fibre, it must be presented in all possible combinations and conditions; seen at all angles and in different lights, and tested in its application to varying ages, nations, and civilizations. Its essence must flow into the lives of rich and poor, high and low; its quality must be exhibited in all stages of development, from germ-planting through successive stages of growth, to blossoming and full fruition; its