opment of beauty, that which is flesh is withal flesh. The elaborateness or the perfection of the moral development in any given instance can do nothing to break down this distinction. Man is a moral animal, and can and ought to arrive at great natural beauty of character. But this is simply to obey the law of his naturethe law of his flesh; and no progress along that line can project him into the spiritual sphere. If any one choose to claim that the mineral beauty, the fleshly beauty, the natural moral beauty, is all he covets, he is entitled to his claims. To be good and true, pure and benevolent in the moral sphere, are high and, so far, legitimate objects of life. If he deliberately stop here, he is at liberty to do so. But what he is not entitled to do is to call himself a Christian, or to claim to discharge the functions peculiar to the Christian life. His morality is mere crystallization, the crystallizing forces having had fair play in his development. But these forces have no more touched the sphere of Christianity than the frost on the window-pane can do more than simulate the external forms of life. And if he considers that the high development to which he has reached may pass by an insensible transition into spirituality, or that his moral nature of itself may flash into the flame of regenerate life, he has to be reminded that in spite of the apparent connection of these things from one standpoint, from another there is none at all, or none discoverable by us. On the one hand, there being no such thing as 'spontaneous generation,' his moral nature, however it may encourage it, cannot generate life; while, on the other, his high organization can never in itself result in life, life being always the cause of organization, and never the effect of it."

Of the difference, on the score of beauty, between the moral and the spiritual, Mr. Drummond cites the analogy of difference in beauty between a crystal and a shell. "This difference perhaps is imperceptible. But fix for a moment, not upon their appearance, but upon their possibilities, upon their relation to the future, and upon their place in evolution. The crystal has reached its ultimate stage of development. It can never be more beautiful than it is Take it to pieces, and give it the opportunity to beautify itself afresh, and it will just do the same thing over again. It

now.

will form itself into a six-sided pyramid, and go on repeating this same form ad infinitum as often as it is dissolved, and without ever improving by a hair's-breadth. Its law of crystallization allows it to reach this limit, and nothing else within its kingdom. can do any more for it. In dealing with the crystal, in short, we are dealing with the maximum beauty of the inorganic world. But in dealing with the shell, we are not dealing with the maximum achievement of the organic world. In itself it is one of the humblest forms of the invertebrate sub-kingdom of the organic world; and there are other forms within this kingdom so different from the shell in a hundred respects that to mistake them would simply be impossible.

"In dealing with a man of fine moral character, again, we are dealing with the highest achievement of the organic kingdom; but in dealing with a spiritual man we are dealing with the lowest form of life in the spiritual world.

"To contrast the two, therefore, and marvel that the one is apparently so little better than the other, is unscientific and unjust. The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, hidden as yet in his earthly chrysalis-case, while the natural man has the breeding and evolution of ages represented in his character. But what are the possibilities of this spiritual organism? What is yet to emerge from this chrysalis-case? This natural character finds its limits. within the organic sphere. But who is to define the limits of the spiritual? Even now it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo it contains some prophecy of its future glory. But the point to mark is, that it doth not yet appear what it shall be."

CHRISTIANITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY.

No writer has expressed this relation with greater clearness than Rt. Rev. Samuel Smith Harris, D. D., Episcopal Bishop of Michigan. "Christianity is personal loyalty to Christ as a divine and living king, manifested in the obedience of discipleship, and maintained by communion with him in sacrament and prayer. Into this relation with Christ, man is called as an individual: he enters into it by faith and through grace. By it he is recognized as the

only ethical subject. By its cult he is individualized, dignified, saved. Yet the inevitable effect of this is to bind him more closely to his kind; to develop his social instinct into love for his neighbor; and to enable him to find his own completeness, not in isolation from his fellows, but in association with them-not in selfishness, but in brotherly kindness. Christianity, then, begins with Christ, and, through the individual, leads back to him. Civil society, on the other hand, begins with the individual. It has its genesis in the social instincts and needs of the individual man, who, combining with others in obedience to those instincts, and in order to serve those needs, proceeds to organize an instrumentality which shall serve the common purposes which he and his associates have in view; which instrumentality he calls a State, or government, or civil society. But this civil society, having its genesis in man, and deriving its authority from him, has its excellence measured solely by its capacity to serve him, and finds its end in him. At this point, then, and at this point alone, namely, in the individual, Christianity and civil society touch each other. The great concern of Christianity is the culture of the individual man, the training of him for immortality. But inasmuch as man can, by reason of the social characteristics of his nature, attain to his true individuality only in association with his fellows, and inasmuch as it is the effect of Christianity to enlarge man's social instincts, and expand as well as dignify man's social nature, Christianity enters through this culture into the most intimate relations with civil society. Nevertheless, in pursuing this culture, Christianity is not only protected by its origin and authority from all control by the State, but it is prohibited, by the very character of its legitimate influence, from exercising any control over the State. For to control the State would be to destroy man's political nature, and to defeat the impulses toward society which its design is to reinforce, and not to abrogate or destroy. From this it appears that a theocratic Church and a secular State mutually so limit each other as to forbid the interference of each with the other."