deeming work of his Gospel. He had joined the two worlds together, and was now at work with equal power and efficiency in both, establishing and building his kingdom in the hearts of believing souls. Here and there his agencies are active and successful. Death is abolished. Immortality lifts on the vision of faith, a grand reality. The trailing glory of the risen and ever redeeming Son of God floats along all the ascents of the spirit world. Angels catch the signs of his coming, and take up the old strain, "Hosanna to the Lord," and hosts of believing spirits join with believing men in swelling the multitudes of the Saviour's kingdom. And so shall he work the work of God, till he has gathered all unto himself, to the glory of God the Father.

These are the visions of faith that filled and inspired the early Christians. These were the proclamations that multiplied believers in great numbers. These were the hopes, quick with charity, and holy with saintly aspirations, which fired them with zeal in the Lord's work. And these are the quickening views of the risen Saviour which must re-enkindle the Apostolic fire upon the cold altars of the Christian Church.

ARTICLE XII.

The Law of Victory.

In human life every great object of desire is a goal or prize to be struggled for. The effort to reach and pluck this stake may fitly be called a race, a battle. Of these strifes some are public and material, some private and spiritual, some selfish, some disinterested. A man may desire to satiate his physical appetites, or to make a fortune, or to accumulate a fund of knowledge, or to achieve fame, or to train his faculties into full co-operation, or to contribute something to lessen the

miseries of his fellows and help the progress of the world, or to establish a fervent piety in supreme sway over his heart and life. Whichever of these aims it be that he seeks, the effort towards the accomplishment of his desire, is his race and battle of life.

Every human being ought, in order to be meritorious, hapру and progressive, to have some aim which he earnestly wishes to compass; some ideal within his own soul, or in his social sphere, or both, which he deeply purposes to achieve. Then, laboring with resolute perseverance to attain that end, he will find the joy and nobleness of life. Without some aim, and some progress towards it, there cannot well be much either of joy or of nobleness in life. Now, in the endeavor to accomplish his aims, will the probabilities of winning be in proportion to the abilities and fidelity brought to bear? All will agree that this is what ought to be. I believe that, on the whole, in the actual experience of human life, it is so. The object of the present article will be to qualify, prove, and recommend that conclusion.

But, in the very outset, we know that often the result turns out, to our great surprise, contrary to the face of promises, the apparent balance of chances, and the race glaringly is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. to shut our eyes to this notorious fact. then? Why, evidently we ought to say pear as exceptions to the law of victory. fied under three heads.

We cannot pretend What shall we say, that these cases apThey may be classi

First, there are accidental failures of the law, from the intrusion of fortuitous causes. By fortuitous causes are meant causes whose origin and meaning we are unable to trace. Chance and fate are different names for unknown cause. There certainly is in our life, in this sense, an element of chance and hazard, an element beyond our calculation or control. Plans laid with shrewd insight and with wide information will sometimes be defeated by an accidental mishap, which could not be foreseen and guarded against. The factors entering into the various problems of our life are so numerous and sub

tle that no one can grasp them all and assign to each its due place and proportion. Multitudes of errors and surprises are therefore unavoidable. A wise and skillful speculator may sometimes fail, and a foolish and neglectful one succeed, by a chance concurrence of causes. The famous warrior may slip, and the awkward coward prove the victor sometimes. But such instances, in moral or other affairs, are comparatively rare, and, what is of the greatest importance to us, are never to be relied on. Theoretically, we have nothing to do with them, since they lie out of the sphere of our calculation.

Secondly, there are natural failures of the law, from the coexistence with the swiftness and strength of neutralizing forces. For instance, the productions of a man of moderate abilities and intense endeavor will be likely to surpass those of a man of striking genius who trusts to his unaided gifts. Gifts will avail but little if unimproved. The eagle was defeated in the race by the tortoise, when he perched by the way with folded pinions, while his steady antagonist plodded towards the goal. If the swift and strong in nature, are indolent and careless in habit, they may be outrun and outfought by the slow and feeble; because, not to exert swiftness and strength, is virtually the same as not to possess them.

Thirdly, there are providential failures of the law, from the interference of retributive moral agencies. Men of large endowments and exertions are frequently thwarted of their aims by theffects of some vice of character, some sin of conduct, which raises enemies against them, surrounds them with watching distrust, sets the moral laws of nature and society in hostility to them. Who knows not the proverb, Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall? In many instances, the leagued array of selfishness and cunning is riven by the lightnings of man's indignation and crushed by the thunderbolts of God's justice in season to prevent the race being won by its treacherous swiftness or the battle being carried by its remorseless strength.

After all, however, these three classes of exceptions are only seemingly such. Practically, it is most convenient to re

gard them as exceptions. tial, are the names we give to different aspects of the same set of facts. There is a justifying reason for them all; a reason which, in the two latter classes is obvious, in the first class, though just as really existent, concealed from us. These, then, are the apparent exceptions to the law of victory ruling among the deeds and homes of earth, over the characters and destinies of mortals; the law which every truth-seeing and honest man unflinchingly reads in this manner. The race is to the swift, and the battle to the strong! These exceptions, lying as they do in the confused sphere of fortune, or in the hidden hands of God, for the most part baffle our inquiries beforehand. We are merely to meet them in the best manner we can, when they come.

But accidental, natural, providen

It is a most injurious habit, to which many are addicted, to be constantly dwelling on these exceptions, picking them out for inspection and emphasis, saying, Well, the wisest plans may fail; the probabilities may deceive; in some way the swift may be outstripped; by some means the strong may be vanquished; it is of no use for me to struggle; I shall not succeed, however large my merits! This diseased and pernicious habit of mind is too frequently met. Perversely exaggerating an occasional occurrence, as if it were the general rule, it chills and lessens the incitements to action, pampers and magnifies the motives to indolence. It seeks to justify its unmanly and atheistic sloth, by making the exceptional chances of failure an excuse for not trying to succeed. The solemn and stirring voices of true self-interest, wisdom and religion combine to rebuke such a custom, saying to every man, You have nothing to do with exceptions; it is perilous for you to consider them, immoral for you to trust in them. Entirely out of your hands, they rest with God. All that practically concerns you is the LAW. In revering and following that, lie alike your obligation and your success!

The secret of the wretchedness and ruin of thousands is here touched in its core. Neglecting those opportunities perpetually offered for steady effort to make small cumulative gains,

they waste life with weak credulity in an imaginative looking for something brilliant to turn up. The Micawber of Dickens represents a large class of men-men possessed by the silly mania of trusting in luck, fancying the heavens will rain down riches and honors, the earth vomit up thrones and crowns for them, if they only wait long enough. They reproduce, diffused over the moral affairs of life, the spirit of the lottery infatuation. There are a thousand blanks to one prize. Failure is the law, success the exception. Yet, bewitched by the one lure, they refuse to notice the myriad disappointments. Would that they might learn to turn from the unnerving contemplation of exceptions in particular, and pay their court to the tonic principle of success on the average! It is the self-deceiving evasion of responsibility, to which the weak and faithless have recourse to silence the reproaches of their consciences, that speaks in the delusive cry, The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. God thunders through the universe in the voice of all his laws, THEY ARE; and if you play the sluggards you shall sink in defeat and shame!

Having thus considered the exceptions to the law of merit and success, and been warned against the ruinous mistake of forming our resolutions and guiding our conduct too much by them, let us now try more adequately to appreciate that law itself. The law of victory is this: When an individual is striving to attain any desired end, the probabilities of his success are proportioned to the amount of power he devotes to its achievement. The statement should seem to be a truism, so acknowledged, so obeyed, as to need no enforcement. But if you scrutinize the world, dive into the breasts and motives of people, you will find that as there is in theory no scepticism worse, in reality there is none more prevalent, than that which distrusts this same proposition. It is, therefore, not superfluous to affirm in the ears of men that everywhere, in everything, he who labors with most talent, knowledge, skill, zeal, perseverance, and morality, will be most likely to win. This is not only just and right, it is also the fact.