vacillating; but in God Himself, the All-wise, the All-good, the All-loving. He obeyed the Word of that God, although that Word seemed to clash with the moral laws of nature, and was repugnant to the profoundest instincts and affections of his heart. This mighty faith gave him rectitude of soul. This mighty faith made him the "friend of God." This strong faith gave him a pre-eminent position,not only amongst the good of all ages and lands, but in the heavens above. "They shall come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham, with Isaac, and Jacob." "I envy no quality," says Sir Humphrey Davey, "of the mind or intellect in others, be it genius, power, wit, or fancy, but I should prefer a firm religious faith to every other blessing, for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay and apparent destruction of existence the most gorgeous of all lights, awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity, makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise, and far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys-where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and death." THE GOSPEL. "Let mental culture go on advancing, let science go on gaining in depth and breadth, and the human intellect expand as it may; it will never go beyond the moral culture of Christianity, as it glistens and shines forth in the Gospels."-Goethe. "THINGS Heb. xi. 1. The Unseen Universe. other class is, (2) Those that are essentially unseeable, that can never come within the range of the visual faculty, such as thought, spirit, God. There is an unseen universe. It is of the latter class we speak, the essentially invisible, and concerning it we remark— I. The seen universe is the EFFECT of the unseen. There was a time when nothing was seen, when all that existed was invisible, and He who no man hath seen or can see commanded and it stood fast." All that comes within the sweep of the miscroscope or the mightiest telescope, or within the range of any created. eye, is but the production of an invisible agent. Just as all the visible productions of mankind, all the paintings, sculpture, buildings, ships, all the towns, cities, mansions, palaces, cathedrals, cities, came out of the unseen in man-viz., his mind, his thought, his purpose, his volition, so all the material creation came out of the mind of the Invisible God. things that are made." The seen reveals the wisdom, the might, the tastefulness of the unseen. III. The seen is the INSTRUMENT of the unseen. As the body is the instrument of the mind, all material nature is the instrument of the invisible God. It is an invisible power that sustains, directs, and uses all nature. IV. The seen is but the SHADOW of the unseen, 66 Things that are seen are temporal," &c. Men talk of the palpable and the tangible, that which they can touch and handle, and see with the bodily eye as the real, but it is not the real at all. It has no fixity, no substance, all is in constant flux and reflux, all as insubstantial as a dream. The only real and lasting thing is the invisible. V. The unseen is REALISABLE by man as well as the seen. It is a dis tinguishing power of man that he can realise the invisible. Brutes, I suppose, cannot do so, everything to them which they cannot see, touch, or handle, is nothing. But man has the power to penetrate the veil and look into the region of the unseen. Upon his realising the invisible, man's progress depends. (1) His intellectual progress. The men who realise nothing but what they see and hear, what comes within the range of their senses. can make no progress. It is because scientific men pierce the veil and see the invisible elements and forces, ascertain their methods of operation, that men rise in intelligence and civilisation. (2) His spiritual progress. By this I mean the progress of the entire man, his conscience, the core of his being. Let us take a few men who have realised the in visible. It is said of Moses that he "endured as seeing Him who is invisible," he realised that Almighty Spirit in whom all "live and move, and have their being," and he became mighty. It is said of Noah that he believed in "things not seen as yet." Peter says "Whom, having not seen, we love," &c. And Paul says, "Our citizenship is in heaven.' Man can only rise spiritually as he realises the invisible, as he "walks by faith and not by sight." He who "walks by sight" is bounded by the material, matter is his cradle, his nourishment, the circle of his activities, and his grave. On the contrary, he who "walks by faith" towers into other regions, brighter, broader, and more blest. The man whose faith is bounded by the evidences of his senses, must have but a very narrow world. With the places he has not actually seen, he will have no interest, no connexion. The stupendous systems that roll away in the boundless districts of space, and the mighty principalities of spirits that populate those systems, will be nothing to him. Nay, life, which is invisible, mind which is invisible, God who is invisible, will be nothing to him, if he believes only what he sees. CURIOSITY CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL.-I have been reading some of Milton's amazing descriptions of spirits, of their manner of life, their power, their boundless liberty, and the scenes which they inhabit, and my wonted enthusiasm kindled high. I almost wished for death, and wondered with admiration what that life and those strange regions really are. I cannot wonder that this intense and sublime curiosity has sometimes demolished the corporeal prison, by flinging it from a precipice or into the sea. Milton's description of Uriel and the Sun revived, the idea which I have before indulged as an imagination of sublime luxury of committing myself to the liquid element of rising on its swells, darting upwards on the spiry point of a flame, and then falling fearless again into the fervent ocean. O, what is it to be dead! What is it to associate with resplendent angels?"-J. Foster. Seeds of Sermons on St. Paul's Epistle to Philippians. Having gone through all the verses in the Epi t'e to the Ephesians (see "Homilist," Vol. xxii. to xxviii.), we proceed to develope, with our usual brevity, the precious germs of truth contained in this letter. The following remarks, as a standing introduction, may contribute some portion of light to the whole Epistle:-Notice (1) The residence of the persons addressed. Philippi-whose ancient name was Crenides-was a city of Macedonia, and called after the name of Philip of Macedon, because he rebuilt and fortified it, B.C. 358, and afterwards colonised by Julius Cæsar, who invested the population with the privilege of a Roman City. It was the first place in Europe where the Gospel was preached by Paul, an account of which we have in the sixteenth chapter of the Acts. It was during his second missionary tour, and about A.D. 53.-Notice (2) The occasion of the Epistle. The contributions which the Philippians had made towards supplying the Apostle's necessities when a prisoner at Rome, evidently prompted its production.-Notice (3) The scene from which the Epistle was addressed. That it was from Rome where he was a prisoner is clear, from chapters i. 1-13, iv. 22. It would seem from the Epistle that he was expecting a speedy decision of his case, and hoped to obtain his release. Epaphroditus had been despatched to him from the Philippian Church with pecuniary contributions for the Apostle's relief, and on his return the Apostle entrusted this letter for conveyance. This would be about A.D. 63.-Notice (4) The general character of the Epistle. It is all but free from any censure, and breathes a warm and generous feeling through every part. The Epistle gives us the impression that the Philippian Church was one of the most pure, consistent, and generous, of that age. About 40 or 50 years after this Epistle was written, we are informed that Ignatius, on his way to martyrdom passed through Philippi, and was most warmly received in that city.] SOUL SALVATION AS A WORK IN THE SOUL. IN YOU BOTH TO WILL AND TO DO OF HIS GOOD PLEASURE." Phil. ii. 12, 13. It is worthy of note that this, of all the epistles of Paul, is the only one that contains no direct rebuke. The Apostle here No. XI. speaks of them as "having always obeyed," not only in his presence, but in his absence. The passage leads us to contemplate soul salvation as a work in the soul. The word salvation implies a previous lost condition. The soul is lost, but in what sense? Not in the sense of missing, as the piece of silver was lost, the sheep was lost, the prodigal son lost; God knows where every soul is. Not in the sense of destruction, as the tree or house is lost when burnt to ashes, |