doubt and uncertainty. How comforting is the fact that not only does God teach us truth, but He reveals it with the supreme authority of His own voice, so that wisdom and its testimony come to us together. The Lord verifies and attests what He Himself teaches. There can be no doubt that He is hourly teaching us precious lessons, and sending us in various ways and through manifold channels wise counsel for our guidance. The worldly man does not understand this, but the spiritually-minded perceive the truth and dare not question it. When something within us solemnly whispers,-"Thou shalt do no evil," the world may deny it or pass it by as altogether delusive and imaginary; but still the words continue to assail the sinner's ears with an authority peculiarly their own, at once sacred and supreme. Do you wish to know whose voice it is that thus admonishes us and at times thunderingly rebukes us ? God answers, it is His voice. Does not that voice come to you now and then to check your unruly passions, call home your wandering souls, guard you against errors, and punish you for your misdeeds? Then do not say that God does not speak to you to-day, but gratefully acknowledge that the Eternal and Universal Spirit has always spoken and still speaks to His children whether they hear Him or not. The holy dove of inspiration has been flying through all ages since the world began, carrying the message of redeeming mercy. It has alighted on the head of every son of God, but few have welcomed the messenger or availed themselves of the message. Lo! even to-day it is on your head and mine, and is ready to inspire any of us if we would only yield to its heavenly influence. Proclaim then with grateful hearts the glad tidings of universal inspiration.

Now consider the effects of inspiration. See how wonderfully the holy spirit of God acts on the human soul. When the devout worshipper has placed his humble and thirsting heart beneath the streaming grace of his Father, the heart is filled to overflowing, and the waters of divine life rise up again towards the feet of God. You know how in the physical world there is a tendency in water to maintain a uniform level. It naturally goes downward, but it is sure to rise again to its former level if it can find its passage in that direction. So when the genial current of Divine grace descends into the reservoir of the prayerful soul it ascends again in the shape of higher aspirations and longings; again it comes down that it may rise again. Observe the process. God acts upon the soul and the soul reacts upon God, and there is action and re-action again and again. Man cries earnestly for spiritual life, God responds. That response stirs the deepest depths of the heart, and we pour forth our feelings and sentiments of love and gratitude, and consecrate our energies unto God These are again sent down with greater blessings and increased power, so that the heart is more than ever quickened and sanctified. Thus we gradually ascend from the lowest point of communion to its higher stages till we attain that state of inspiration in which the human will is wholly lost in the Divine. Blessed is he who has realized this but once in his life-time! It is true that as often as we sincerely pray the ordinary stream of Divine mercy conveys to us the spirit of godliness, and every devout believer may say that he has been inspired through prayer with wisdom, power, love, and holiness. But in its higher sense inspiration represents only that unusual exaltation of the soul in which self is wholly

consumed in the fire of the Holy Spirit. This is the effect, as I have said, of the repeated action and re-action of the Divine Spirit and man's soul upon each other. The electric current of inspiration constantly and rapidly moves upward and downward between heaven and earth, between God and man, and in this revolving current humanity is drawn into closer union and then into deeper intercommunion with Divinity, till at last all that man calle mine is renounced, and nothing is reserved for self. God is all in all. Then the soul ejaculates,-Nothing is mine, all is Thine, O God!

In what the world calls virtue you will always find a great deal of this self-assertion. Philanthropic and honest men are indeed often found to possess a high moral character; but their virtue is professedly all their own, and they take credit and honor for their merits. Yet such men are high in the estimation of the world. But in the kingdom. of heaven such self-exaltation would be considered a great sin. There every form of virtue and purity is considered to be divine. and Divinely bestowed. Be it veracity or kindness, uprightness or mere domestic affection; be it a good thought, a good word, or a good deed; it is all from God, the fountain of goodness. There is no truth, no goodness apart from God. All truth is divine. All goodness is godliness. The "man of God" deeply feels this. In inspiration he experiences the ebbing away of self, and the pouring in of divine life. The more the Holy Spirit enters into man, the more successfully does he subdue his carnal propensities, till his animal nature is wholly crushed. As the carnal man sinks, the spiritual man rises. The old man dies and is buried, and an altogether new man rises. in his place with regenerated life. Nay, the inspir

ed soul goes further. It does not rest satisfied with having cast off the old and put on the new man; it aspires to put on Divinity. With the profoundest reverence be it said that it is possible for man when inspired to put on God. For then self is completely lost in conscious godliness, and you feel that you can do nothing of yourself, and that all your holy thoughts, words, and actions, are only the breathings of the Holy Spirit. So the great prophets of earlier times thought and felt. They felt strong in God's strength and pure in God's purity; and to Him they ascribed all honor and glory. Not an iota of the truth they taught or practised did they claim as their own. Do you consider this to be arrogance? Is it pride thus to put on Divinity? Assuredly not. It is the very reverse of pride. Self-assertion is certainly ambitious. But self-denial argues nothing but humility. To think of my truth, my righteousness is arrogance and pride; but we see unfeigned lowliness and meek humility in him who, however truthful and righteous he may be, takes no credit unto himself, but believes that all that is good in him is the Lord's.

Some may construe what I have said into Pantheism. But is the doctrine I have expounded really Pantheistic? Let us look into the matter closely. Attempts have been made repeatedly in this country, and probably in other parts of the world, to realize this sort of self-absorbing communion with God, and the result has been that most degrading and revolting doctrine which is embodied in the words Aham Brahma-"I am God." How this theory is arrived at requires some explanation. Some devout men, in order to give themselves up to prayer and meditation, retire from the world and the scene of their daily activities and cares, and sit for hours

together with closed eyes in some lonely place. They try to forget the external world and extinguish self-consciousness in their attempts to realize the Omnipresent Spirit. Gradually they soar higher into the regions of abstraction and imagination till their hearts are wrought to such a pitch of frenzy and self-forgetfulness that they begin to feel and eventually believe that between God and themselves there is no difference whatever-that man is God and God is man! The fact is, these men are lost in the vastness and infinity of the Divine Spirit, and their separate individuality is for the time ignored. Man, the universe and God, all are identified as one substance, and everything is absorbed in the Divine. How blasphemous and demoralizing is the doctrine! Shall puny mortal man, with all his sin and wickedness, liken himself to the Most High, and audaciously assert that he himself is the very God of the universe? This dangerous doctrine has really proved the bane of Hindu society, and unless you go and see with your own eyes what a prodigious and incalculable amount of mischief it has produced in this country you can hardly believe it. Perish Pantheism ! Thou hast dishonored God and ruined man by sapping the foundations of religion and morality! In exhorting you to seek union with God by sacrificing humanity and putting on Divinity, I am far from advocating the horrors of Pantheistic deification. Between man and God there is an eternal distinction. No sophistry, no delusive fancy can convert the duality into a unity. I do not speak of an imagined transformation of self with all its sins into God: but the real casting away of animal life, and the actual growth of the soul in heavenly purity. I am speaking of an actual conversion a reality which you cannot mistake or