ceptions he will be successful only by earnest effort. I have shown that, working upward from our best spiritual realities, we will come to something better and higher-we will come to a conviction of spiritual realities, and of the essential truth of Christ Jesus. Now, in order to do this, we must work earnestly, and put forth earnest effort. There are no great interests achieved, or works done, in this world, except by earnestness. Why should not a man be as enthusiastic in regard to religion, and the great interests of the soul, as in regard to worldly affairs? There is a great difference between enthusiasm and fanaticism. They are the antipodes of each other. There never was a man who did a great thing in the world without enthusiasm. No man ever made a fortune without it. Was there ever an artist who was not enthusiastic in his art? So in regard to matters of religion-of fulfilling the spiritual ideal—we must be enthusiastic. If a man is going really to live up to his best conceptions of God, truth, and duty, according to the pattern shown him in the mount, everything else must stand subservient to that, and he must be enthusiastic about it. How gloriously this enthusiasm breaks out in other things-in patriotism, for instance, as was exemplified in the maid of Saragossa, as she stood up by the gun, bespattered with blood; in John Hancock, who, when the council met in Boston, in the stormy days of the Revolution, and talked of letting the British into the city, though he owned probably more

property that any other man in Boston, said, "Burn Boston, and make John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires it." We like to hear such things; but why don't men say, "Burn the richest treasure I have got, if it corrupts my soul. Burn down the pinnacles of my pride-my wordly interest -if they stand in the way of my attainment and fulfillment of the great pattern which has been shown me in the mount?"

We do not like fanaticism in anything; but if we must have it at all, let us have the fanaticism of religion rather than that of worldliness. For the most fanatical man of the two is he that buries his soul up in bullion, grovels in the earth, and lives like a barnacle on this planet, without recognizing anything higher or better. I would rather see a fanatic in religion than in worldliness. That old fanatic, Simeon, who founded a sect called "Pillar Saints," who stood ten years on the top of a pillar in sun and storm, drenched and dried, weather-beaten and baked, who lived and died there, was at least so much nearer heaven than the fanatic who was groping below.

But there is no need of fanaticism in order to fulfill the noblest ideal. It is not by going out of our relations, but by diligent action in our relations to business, truth, and social action, everywhere, no matter where it may be, if it is lawful, that you can fulfill the ideal of spiritual good that comes to you in Jesus Christ. Only be in earnest-be enthusiastic about it.

Oh, my friend, you have, as I remarked in the commencement, some ideal higher than that which you act upon; you are lifted up to something that is above the common plane of your life. What is the significance of material things? It is in the impression they leave upon the mind-the elements they transfer to our consciousness. Therefore, if on standing on a mountain I get an idea of something lofty and glorious, the impression is maintained. Suppose, now, that I am lifted up on the mount of prayer or meditation, and I get an idea of something elevated and glorious, am I not just as much on the mountain, to all intents and purposes, as on the Mount of Olives or Sinai? Oh, man, there are some duties hovering before you which you know you have not fulfilledsome great claim you have not completely answered. It may be you have recognized the ideal in Christ Jesus, and feel that that is what you should aspire after with earnest effort. I repeat, then, what is the thing that stands higher to you than the present plane of your life? Aspire to it. There is no more earnest voice than that which comes to you to-day, speaking of that which is higher than that which you now do— nobler than that which you have cherished, and saying to you, "Go forth; make all things after the pattern shown to thee in the mount."

6*

FAITH AND ITS ASPIRATIONS.

From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed ; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.—Psalm lxi. 2.

HIS is the language of an earnest spirit, conscious

THIS

of need, and by a strong figure of speech expressing its conviction of the existence of a help outside, and greater than itself. How wonderfully fresh and applicable the Book of Psalms is! What a reservoir of human experience! what a perpetual spring-tide of human sympathies! It has some form of speech for every devout need of the soul. It is a great organ of religious utterance, pealing forth in that grand old Hebrew age, from every valve and stop of emotion that the human spirit has felt, or will feel, until time shall be no more. The cry of anguish, the burst of praise, the wail of penitence, the prayer of need, the expression of trust, the sacred admiration that sweeps the starry heavens, the contrite introspection concentrated upon the sin-sick soul-all these find language there. The strings of David's harp are the chords of the universal heart. Doubtless, my friends, you and I, as well as thousands besides, have seen the