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the Hawaiian, in the lowest sphere of life, to Faraday, Miller, and Brewster on the heights of science. It can show more trophies rescued from vice in a year than any other influence through the annals of history; more men lifted to the height of generous, magnanimous, and thankless self-abnegation, a myriadfold, than all other forces together. There is no range of thought or action or life which has not been touched and quickened by its light and life giving power. What it has done for the family and the home and its presiding genius, who needs to be told again? How piteous is the protest of a noble lady (Mrs. Lathbury) against the hardening effects of agnosticism on her sex! Who would have for his mother, his wife, his sister, an open repudiator of the gospel of Christ? God in mercy forbid! For its effect on the vitality and well-being of society in its various relations, look around on the Christian Protestant nations and behold the monument. Where else have scientific investigations fully flourished? And the spirit of liberty under which all else has found shelter, have not Hume and Macaulay and Hallam and Froude and Guizot told us whence it came? Of the relation of Christianity to sound learning as seen in the origin of the old universities, the modern colleges, and the American free school system - why repeat the ofttold tale? When the arts of civilized life have grown and flourished in Christian states, who is it that by devoted lives of toil and self-denial have conveyed these, and the comforts of living-to say no more- to the degraded nations? Is it your Mills and

Spencers, your Haeckels and Bastians, Tyndalls, Huxleys, Cliffords? I doubt whether the world can show a dozen instances in which the men of this stamp have lifted a finger in the good work except for pay. It has been left for the missionary of the cross to carry, not alone the gospel, but all good things else, for the life that now is, as well as that which is to come.

This same divine Word has furnished to man his highest ideals: of the true freedom, consisting in the fullest ascendency of reason and law; of the true heroism, that conquers self; of the true benevolence, which lives in the welfare of others, and has filled the world with its fruits. In the Roman empire in the time of Trajan I trace but one charitable institution - - though there may have been others an orphan asylum maintained by Pliny; in the one city of London, years ago, there could be counted up three hundred.

How the brightness of the gospel spreads beyond the range of spiritual life alone, and tips all things with its light! It has furnished the highest sphere of human attainment, and even the noblest range for human genius. Except in sculpture, high art has reached the goal chiefly under its inspiration. What are the themes that have called out the triumphs of the painters, masterpieces of Angelo, Raphael, Da Vinci, Guido, Rubens, Titian, Tintoretto, Domenichino, - but sacred themes; Madonnas, Magdalens, prophets, martyrdoms, the Adoration, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, the Deposition, the Last Judgment? In the realm of music, what has ever so profoundly evoked human

genius, or filled the human heart, as the great oratorios; the Messiah, the Creation, Elijah, Saul, Israel in Egypt? And where have been embodied the grandest conceptions of architecture, but in the great cathedrals, as at Cologne, Florence, Milan, Strasburg, Rome?

Poetry has here attained its noblest possibilities. We will say nothing now of Dante, Milton, Spenser, Wordsworth, or the hymns of the ages. Grant that Shakespeare is not a religious poet, and that you can scarcely guess whether Catholic or Protestant. But it has been well said by Shairp: "The light by which he viewed life was the light of Christianity. The shine, the shadow, and the color of the moral world he looked upon were all caused or cast by the Sun of Righteousness." Were such characters as Macbeth or Hamlet, Lear or Wolsey, or Imogen, Cordelia, Ophelia, possible to Eschylus in Athens? How his Brutus, Portia, and even great Cæsar, swell beyond the dimensions of the Roman empire!

Here too alone are found the ideals of the perfect manhood, and, with whatever shortcomings, the steady progress toward it. Count up easily all the truly great characters beyond the range of revealed religion. But within that range, where begin and where end? Abandoning all attempt to speak of the gentle or noble or heroic personages of the later Christianity, when we turn to the sacred volume, and make all deductions for their faults, what colossal characters confront our eyes! I see the great Friend of God walk forth from Haran and move through Palestine, mighty in his matchless

faith and tranquil power. I see the faultless Joseph maintain his crystalline purity at the court of Egypt, and shed sunshine through his father's house. I behold the imperishable Lawgiver stride on, meek, majestic, and indomitable through the desert, then calmly ascend Mount Pisgah on his path to heaven. The venerable Samuel, "half warrior and half sage," travels the round of the sacred places, beloved and honored of Israel. Elijah, grand and terrible, confronts Ahab alone in the vineyard stained with Naboth's blood, or wrapped in his mantle hurries on to his ascension, attended by his heartbroken friend and bewailed by all good men. Daniel sheds the lustre of all virtue through the reigns of four monarchs, and the light of a wonderful example down to this day. Peter throws his whole fiery character into the Master's work. Paul counts not his life dear. John lingers long on the vision, as a golden chain binding apostolic times to common life, and earth to heaven. And behind them all looms up that personage whom Renan calls "the incomparable man, so great that no fault can be found with those who call him God." What figures are these—what ideals—what inspirations! For, proceeds the same freethinker, Jesus "founded the eternal religion of humanity, the fruitful center to which mankind for ages were to refer their joys, their hopes, their consolations, their motives to well-doing."

Well spoken, Frenchman! But what a catalogue – "their joys, their hopes, their consolations, their motives to well-doing"! What more is it possible to say? It is indeed the glory of that gospel that it

offers and applies all the forces of the noblest character and achievement, such as have filled the world with heroism and godlike magnanimity. And as the moral capacity and quality are raised higher and higher, it still offers to the soul, in its best estate, whatever could fill its utmost aspirations: a God who knows its every wish and want, hears every prayer, guides every event, and guarantees all true blessing; a Redeemer that frowns on sin, yet holds out hope and help to the sinner, full of human sympathy and bright with the power of God, watching in heaven above and personally present here below, inbreathing spiritual life on the earth as the sure pledge of eternal life in heaven.

And when its perfect work is wrought, faith becomes experience and knowledge, saying, "I know whom I have believed." And then the simplest believer may boldly add: "You may puzzle my intellect, but you cannot confound my heart. For though you array against me the utmost stores of learning and argument, you cannot for an instant discredit what Christ hath done for my soul, or take away the daily power of that blessed Presence."

"To the whole world I say, Christ lives

Uprisen from the dead;

His spirit in my bosom heaves,

And hovers round my head.

This world shines out on my new sense

Now first my fatherland;

Fresh life beats in my soul intense

From his creating hand."

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