in them, else they would not be the expression, as they often are, of what an earnest and true soul has to tell of its progress. The rhetoric in such cases may be in the bad style of coarseness and exaggeration; but the fact, which that rhetoric aims to signify, may be a high and solemn fact. The consciousness or the observation of every day testifies, that the heart of man has its experiences, - its history of joys and sorrows, of darkness and light, of victory and defeat. Through these transitions it works its way, with various success, in business, in friendship, in labor, in all the common relations of life. Surely it cannot be that in religion, its highest concernment, it should have no history, or, which is the same thing, no experiences. Disgust with fanaticism must not make us forgetful of the great realities of the Christian life. We must not be unwisely blind to the fact, that the religious improvement, or, to use the better word, the regeneration of the human soul, implies necessarily a contrast between the past and the present, and in some cases a sharp and searching contrast.

Let us consider how we may apply for our own edification this being "far-off" and being "made nigh," of which Paul speaks to his Ephesian brethren.

1. May it not be stated as a fact in spiritual history, that there is such a thing as alienation from truth and righteousness? The question so obviously has its answer, that to ask it seems almost a piece of simplicity. Perhaps the saddest, the most fearful expression to be found in any book, is that used by the Apostle," without God in the world." But sad and fearful as it is, does it not describe an actual condition of man now as truly as it did eighteen hundred years ago, here in America as

well as there at Ephesus? Not that we worship images for divinities, as the people of that city worshipped the image of their "great goddess Diana." No, we do not that. But if we should say, that some in modern days, in Christian lands, do even worse than that, would it be quite a caricature or an extravagance? For, is it not worse to have no reverence for any thing divine, than to worship an image, which, to the sincere though deluded devotee may represent, however coarsely, his relation to the Infinite? There is a kind of heathen darkness, which may be found now as well as under ancient paganism,here as well as in barbarous lands; I mean the darkness of a heart emptied of all faith, not merely of faith in traditional forms of religion, but of faith in any thing good, and so of faith in God. Is it not possible to live here amidst the sweet or awful tokens of the divine presence, where the spirit of wisdom and love is breathing around us, and the light of the upper world comes down in gentle shining, or broad flashing to the open eye, where the seeds of all holy influences are sown broadcast, ready to spring up around us and yield a harvest of immortal life, if we will but take it, where the truths of heaven's inspiration speak from the pages of the Bible, and invite that which is divine in man's soul to answer to that which is divine in them; - is it not possible, I say, to live in the midst of all these tokens of the supreme mind, and yet be "without God in the world"? Would to heaven that it were not! Would to heaven that to say it is possible were only fabulous talk, or the romance of exaggeration never realized. But no,-in simple truth it is a reality, to a thoughtful mind the saddest and sternest reality among the many strange wanderings of a fallen race, the most sorrowful proof that we may

sleep the sleep of death even when the spirit of God is nearest with its guidance and its grace.

There is indeed a sense, in which no one can be "without God in the world; " for He, in whom "we live and move and have our being," is always around us and over us, in the supplies of his mercy and in the measures of his Providence, whether we apprehend these or not,-just as the heart beats, and the blood rolls through the system, even when we think not of it. But, so far as depends on the exercise of our spiritual faculties, we may be without God in the world, — that is, without any apprehension of Him or union with Him by faith, reverence, or love and if there be for the soul a state of more dreary desolation than this, I know not what it is. Yet shall not many be found in this state, who still go through life with an easy heart and a smiling countenance, as if nothing were the matter with them, as if the frame of the spirit within were all right and healthy? Worldliness, sensuality, frivolity, the lusts and the pride of life, these take possession of the soul: the throne of God, which should be erected there, is cast down; the light of the golden candlestick, which should shine there, is quenched.

So that other expression,-" without Christ," has a meaning for us and for our times. For do not multitudes live in a Christian country, under the shadow of Christianity, to whom Christ is an absolutely unmeaning name? Either they think not of him in any way, or think of him passively, just as they learn by hearsay he is thought of by others. Indeed we are apt to deem ourselves quite creditably pious, if we believe in Jesus as a personage of the past, who was empowered in some way or other we hardly know how to do or suffer a great deal in our stead, if we believe that there was

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a work of salvation, which he was to go through and achieve, and the benefits of which are by some divine arrangement made over to us now. A large part of the so called faith in Christ amounts only to this, or to little more than this. As for the faith constituted and expressed by the life of Christ in the soul, by being in union with him in consequence of sharing the same spirit, so that we may be children of God as he was the Son of God, all, in short, which the Apostle means by his favorite expression" Christ within you, the hope of glory," this is a thing which practically men feel to be strange, and doubt if it has any meaning; and they, who say that herein lies the true faith in Jesus, shall perchance be deemed visionary or extravagant. So it comes to pass, that virtually we are "without Christ," even though we pray in his name, and contend for that divine authority, which belongs to him in the church. That beautiful and holy life of the heaven-sent Man of Nazareth, so beautiful and holy that only here and there some few rise to the apprehension of it, and it stands in our midst a perpetual rebuke to the low standard and the sinful practices which Christian nations tolerate and even commend, this manifestation of the godlike and the divine in the midst of us, practically passes for little or nothing, though if understood aright it is indeed an Immanuel, God with us. The word of him, who spake as man never spake, comes to be regarded as a thing, which it is proper perhaps to respect, and to enshrine in formalities; but if one would apply its awakening, life-giving power to individuals or to communities, he shall be quite likely to be deemed a mere theorist, if indeed he be not named a disturber. When the case stands thus, may we not say, in Paul's language, that men are "far off" from

the very idea of Christ, and have yet to be baptized into his spirit, before they can know what his mission was at first, or what now is its meaning for ourselves?

I have spoken of the manner, in which the apostle's expressions- "without Christ and without God in the world,"― have their application at this day, as well as in their first use. This is one side of the contrast, of which I spoke. Let us now turn to the other.

2. But now, says Paul, "in Christ Jesus ye, who were sometime far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ," that is, by the divine efficacy of his mission hallowed and sealed by his death on the cross. May we too, like those of Ephesus, be thus made nigh? Doubtless we may. We are so, whenever instead of being without God and without Christ, we are with God and with Christ. Το receive into the sources of our own spirit-life that vital power of renewal, which the Son of God can impart to us, is to be “made nigh" by him. Our condition is so constituted, that we receive many of our best blessings through the mediation of other beings. One is the instrument of good to another. How much beneficent agency goes forth from the father or the mother to the child! In the growth of the intellect, how much do we owe to the contact of our minds with the mind of a skilful and kind instructer! So, in civil affairs, our rights are pro

secured by the labors of And in the moral world,

tected and our social progress wise and far-seeing statesmen. when some pure and gifted spirit looks on the face of the higher truths, till his soul has caught their brightness, and he turns to his fellow-men, and reflects the heavenly radiance among them, how many see by that light what they saw not before! So in other cases. Thus a system of mediations perpetually runs through human affairs;