of God. Unutterable graces play around them, and their glance melts the beholder with a sentiment of love too pure for flesh and blood. Bliss stands bodily before him, and Sculpture, like John the Revelator, falls at its feet as dead. Her graven images are left behind her, and her cunning ceases "in the land where all things are forgotten." Where in heaven is the field of the soldier? Destructions are (there) brought

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to a perpetual end," and the sword reaps death no longer. Where can the great commander, guiltless though a slaughterer of men,-where can Gustavus Adolphus witness among all spirits the huge iniquity of deadly strife? The Prince of Peace, "who openeth and no man shutteth,” may indeed permit the vision, and allow his shuddering glance to pass the ghastly gates of darkness, and see the raging battle "where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth," but in heaven they "learn war no longer."

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it;

the

What shall the critic do in heaven? Can Longinus lay down the rules of its sublimity, or Quintilian train "one of these little ones that believe in" Jesus, so that he shall attain to that celestial oratory whose communications are Yea, yea, and Nay, nay?" Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil," and therefore cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Not even the great mover of men, Demosthenes, can impel angelic passions to break "the peace of God which passeth all understanding." He can raise no storms, and there are no tumults to assuage. The rich lips of Cicero drop no luscious periods in the heavenly Senate. Not even he, clothing exuberant nature with exuberant art, can there discourse magnificent charms. Angels love the simple truth itself alone, and words are only endured by the lowest as necessary to convey highest do without them. Perhaps "one human tear may drop and be forgiven," if the scholar yearns to find in heaven some relics of the literæ humaniores, some Sapphic fragment, some Greek Idyl, some Homeric Epos, some song of Horace, or some hymn of Eupolis, or at the least some Christian muse, as where our Milton from his urn of copious purity spreads forth the matchless picture of earth's paradise, and of the first pair its blest inhabitants. Surely the scholar may lament for these, and hope to find such strains in heaven! Does not heaven itself in them bear witness of itself, and ministering spirits prompt unfallen poetry? Might not the ear of saints made perfect listen to such echoes? So it would seem, for as we rise to their delights, the actual earth passes away, and that on which we stand has lost the mortal rigours which began when sin turned both the poles aslant. This we fondly feel, and sympathy weeps with the scholar that even his treasures cannot pass the grave. But there is paradise itself, and there are the

angels its inhabitants. Reality known, seen, felt, exceeds all bounds of either free or numerous speech, and Milton himself, among the pure in heart, forgets his own words; forgets for ever that mighty charm which the world "will not willingly let die." It is dead to him.

What, then, may hope to survive if science, art, and poetry have no resurrection? The question startles one, and makes us look back to see if in such sweeping argument there may not be some error. Suppose an error, and then Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, because consummate artists, are necessarily angels, for no one could bear the thought that such art as theirs may exist for ever in hell. If, then, it do exist there, it can only be "for a time, and times, and half a time," until vastation is consummated, and the states are past which permit in each the perception and representation of outward beauty separate from the perception and love of the essential beauty of truth and goodness. But suppose these great men, good men, and gone to heaven, is all the artist lost? Or, to come nearer home, take our own Flaxman, -our own in every sense,and contemplate the forms which his pure and tender nature gave us, living with his own love and breathing his own truth: did he also drop the mantle of innocent fantasy as he went up and entered the joy of his Lord, clad only in charity and faith?—that is, clad only in the image of the divine love and the divine wisdom? What more does he need? What more can he have? But if among the particulars which compose that faith in him, which is an image of the divine wisdom, there be some analogue of the scientific perception which distinguished him on earth, its existence springs from the love, the holy love, which refined the imaginations of other men by its reflections, and thus made art the servant of elevating uses. Love, then, is the fountain of it. Merely as art it has no continuance, but as a form of use love pours life into it, and makes its grace eternal. Such must be the case if there be any analogue in heaven of the imitative arts; but if holy love, embodied in a life of love, be the one only power which can give new life to art, and if art dies without it, then the quality and measure of the love give the quality and measure of the artistic faculty which survives the grave. And if the simple in heart, who have loved much, enter into the arcana of celestial wisdom and become dazzling intelligences, while the selfish learned dwindle into mere drivellers who jabber in outer darkness, who shall say that the continual worship of a holy life may not evolve an artistic power in heaven which may so fashion spiritual things to image the divine, that the beholder may gather from their contemplation not sentiment but wisdom? So it may be, and if it were our purpose to conduct an argument upon the permanence of art, many thoughts occur which would modify the

general axiom that in love alone is the fountain of all truth, of all happi ness, and of all beauty; of all power to please, to instruct, and to bless ; but now we can only suggest some general courses of reflection, and leave thinkers to follow them if they please. Our business is with sterner themes, and such attractions as these can have place in them only as here and there a sweet flower which weaves itself along the thorny hedge of life.

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Love, then, active love, love the fountain of use, this is the principle with which we have mainly to do, and in the endeavour to establish this principle within us, the common affairs of the world rise into dignity as appointed mediums of our purification from self-love, and of our exaltation into the love of our neighbour and the love of God; and although the mediums themselves, the common occupations which call up all the efforts of duty, and the common cares which empty us 'from vessel to vessel," are not, and cannot be, topics of elegant dissertation, neither ought they to be daintily kept out of sight as the bad custom is, lest, forsooth, among our abstract wisdom should be found some taint of that actual work which God has given us to do. It is time this form of pride, this resolution of ourselves into lofty intellectualities, this perfumed contempt of Providence, were done away with, and that spiritual truth took the working world by the hand, not disdaining such fellowship with the temporal ordination of God, but guiding it aright, and finding even here the very basis of heaven. To proclaim a more excellent moral principle than the world yet sees, is better than to discover a new planet; and to press its adoption as a rule of life, by pure obedience to its dictates, is far nobler than to empty the whole cemetery of time, and make the earth give up every stony monster which existed before the creation of Whether we calculate the elements of comets or the cost of corn, whether we encounter a martyrdom for advocating, with Galileo, a true system of the universe, or are crushed by a bankruptcy because we are too honest to rob the public which has robbed us, the spirit in which we act or suffer is the eternal element which elevates or sinks us; an element not unworthy of the deepest thought and the most pregnant illustration. The wisdom of the closet has but a feeble voice unless it draws life and power from actual affairs, and falls upon the worn ear of anxiety and toil as the words of one who talks from no cool gaze upon the sufferings of others, but who speaks "out of the fulness of the heart," and who feels what they feel because he is called upon to do what they do. This is the man to speak to the people. This is the man to soothe our cares with counsel which is balm; to raise our estimate of the worth of life by shewing in his own person what wisdom comes from right

man.

action, and to claim dignity for any calling by marrying it to justice, truth, and love. This is the science of living-the inner spirit of common affairs-that in them which is intellectual, consecutive, without measure in time. Even as we write, how different does the mill, the market, or the shop appear when viewed in this relation to a life which they are the means of raising in spiritual quality! Instead of one dead level of bargains and balances, we have an ascending series of activities, beginning in prudence and ending in wisdom; and instead of a weary round of duties which grind the soul with stale and unprofitable anxiety, we have, indeed, the same forms of action, the same duties, but they move in a new system. The sun is up, and the gaze of heaven is upon The devouring vortex of self-love is stopped, and our motives, springing from regenerate affection as from a centre, carry all things round it in a spiral whose vanishing ratio is the perfect circle, for thus we may not unfitly image a spiritual procession, in which every new gyration is composed of parts which have more and more nearly the same relation to the central love, until at length all the activities of life are drawn into uniform obedience to its attractive power.

us.

What, then, is this love, this spirit of life, which is of such vast importance? It is shewn in the quality of our affections, and their quality is shewn in the ends and purposes of our actions; for purposes are inspired by affections, and affections spring from love. The universal conditions of love are but two,-good and evil. Nothing can be simpler. What, then, is all this stir and mist in which men lose themselves, putting evil for good, and sweet for bitter; following enchantments which end in desolation, and neglecting the plain path which God makes straight before the face of the simple? This is, indeed, the question; the question of questions. It is the mist of false persuasion which exhales from hell, and conceals a myriad lurid spirits let loose upon the world to turn the precepts of wisdom into mockery, and hold up the fair visage of religious virtue to the ready contumely of inflamed lust. With what potent branch shall we lay these spirits? How shall we distinguish the real quality of our love from that which it falsely appears to be? Nothing is easier if we really wish to know it. Good is disinterested, and goes out to give; evil is selfish, and seeks only its No man can mistake his quality in the main, if he tries his actions and purposes by this simple test:-Am I trying to give or to get? Resist the temptation to many words, and give yourself a plain answer to a plain question. Let me leave you while you do it, and when we commune again together we will endeavour to draw from the facts of real business, and from the principles of spiritual morality, some uses

own.

which may help on the period when religion will no longer be "Lo here and lo there," like ignorance gaping for a phantom, but when it will be every where the love of our neighbour as ourselves, and the love of God above all; when intolerable anxieties from outward causes will be unknown, because selfishness and selfish wrongs will be diminished, and when patience and fortitude, and faith and hope, will turn to blessings all "the cares of the world."

EVERY one is prone to judge that to be true which is most agreeable to his feelings. Hence it is that the good and evil judge oppositely. The good have good feelings, and in judging that to be true which agrees with them, they judge rightly: the evil have evil feelings, and in judging that to be true which agrees with them, they judge falsely; for they substitute the false for the true, because that alone agrees with their evil state of feeling.

CCCCXLVII.

It is good to shun evils as sins against God whenever we discover them; but there is a danger of our remaining blind to their existence, and therefore of not discovering and thence shunning them, and this danger lies in the want of an anxious desire to detect them. Without such a desire there can be no progress in the regenerate life. True piety consists in the desire to unite good with truth, and it is this piety which alone creates the desire to search out our evils. So far as the reception of truth has a pious ground, spiritual prosperity results; but so far as it has a merely philosophical ground, the wilderness may give place to the forest, but it can never become a fruitful field.

CCCCXLVIII.

How lamentable to behold a man generally well disposed persisting in a bad habit. He appears like an escaped captive, painfully dragging his chain after him, and refusing to be rid of it.