we need not look upon the earth as a bleak and sterile region, that we need not feel here that we are without the light, the blessings, and the joys of a beautiful home.

Indeed, this world is overspread with spiritual light. We have but to open our eyes to see it. If we grope about with them shut, why wonder if we think we dwell in Egypt, or wander in a wilderness inhabited by poisonous serpents. Let us lift the lids from our eyes, and behold the radiance of this Christian morning. Let us go to him who put clay on the eyes of the blind man, and gave him sight. He will remove the veil from our vision, and teach us how to discover and study the works of God around and above us. He will be near us always, to show us how to turn all the experiences of our life on earth to the best account. He accompanies us in all our journeys; he is at our right hand in all the changes through which we pass. Shall we not, henceforth, be more thoughtful of his presence than we have been, hitherto; more conscious of his power and aid, more obedient to his commands, more faithful in his service, more grateful for his light and love? Shall we not, day by day, till we pass through the veil, hiding from our sight the shadows of the dead, so walk in his way of truth and life, that we shall be in oneness with him, in nobleness, serenity and joy?

DISCOURSE XXVIII.

THE THUNDER-THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL.

JOHN XII. 29.

THE PEOPLE, THEREFORE, THAT STOOD BY AND HEARD IT, SAID THAT IT THUNDERED: OTHERS SAID, AN ANGEL SPAKE TO HIM.

A short time before his crucifixion, the Saviour thus gave expression to his thoughts and emotions: "Now is my soul troubled: and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. The people, therefore, that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, an angel spake to him."

It is not my purpose to lead you into unprofitable speculations or conjectures concerning this voice. It does not seem to me necessary to inquire whether it really articulated the words which are here recorded, or whether we have here merely the interpretation of the sound. We ought to be satisfied, I think, that we have before us its meaning as understood by the great Teacher and his followers.

The fact I wish you to notice is this: that it was heard differently by different persons; that some who heard it thought it was thunder; others, that an angel spoke. And I wish you to consider this fact too: that there are those still who just as widely differ from each other with respect to the manifestations or revelations of God; that there is in this nineteenth century as broad a contradiction, occasioned by the difference of hearing or understanding, as ever took place from the same cause in the Saviour's day.

When the Saviour lived on the earth he was surrounded by men who were very unlike in their mould and character; who stood on grounds of thought a great way apart. On one side, there were those near him whose plane of life was low, whose course of existence lay in darkness, and who saw all strange sights, or heard all unfamiliar sounds with fear. Whenever

any thing new and wonderful came upon them suddenly, they looked about themselves with a face marked with anxiety and terror. To them every unusual event, every phenomenon, was ominous of something appalling and terrible, portentious of calamities and plagues. On the other side, among his hearers, were those who occupied a higher stand-point, who looked at all things with a broader vision, and who explained all events and signs with the aid of the most lofty and benevolent ideas. They could always see that every cloud had a silver lining on its upper side, hear harmony in the discords of the world, and read the prophecy of a noble, bright, and beautiful culmination in the discordant or jarring events transpiring around them.

In our own age we find these same classes of men side by side. They have not yet become one. Still there are those in the world who are perpetually discerning inauspicious signs, tokens, and events; who see sights and hear noises which bode evil; and those who contemplate the same things with a clear eye and a cheerful heart, and who are at all times surveying with delight the various phenomena of the natural or moral universe, or listening with joy to the grand and sweet strains of music coming to their ears from the great organs of nature, or from the hosts of angels who sweep their harps in heaven.

I remember that early one morning, while it was yet dark, the atmosphere was filled with meteoric sparks falling to the earth; and that at another time, on an evening in mid-winter, the whole dome of the sky or the heavens, from the horizon on every side to the zenith, was radiant with crimson light, and the earth, covered with snow, reflected everywhere the vermillion or fiery glow above. I remember, too, that on both these occasions these wonderful spectacles were contemplated by different classes of people with very different eyes and very different thoughts. One class were alarmed by the shower of fire. They feared the physical heavens would be rolled together as a scroll, and that the elements of the earth would be melted with fervent heat. And they looked for the same scene of destruction when the northern lights colored the sky, and spread their glow over the mountains and plains of the world. The other class surveyed these sublime and beautiful phenomena with very great pleasure and

satisfaction; and they said, with the Psalmist, in the spirit of worship and trust, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge, and there is no language where their voice is not heard.”

I can remember. we all can with what dissimilar thoughts and emotions different individuals have contemplated the comets which have come and gone within our day. Some have gazed at them through the midnight hours, praying that their trails might not sweep the earth. Others have watched the regularity of their motion, and considered the beauty of their forms; and they praised the wisdom and power and goodness of him who guides the stars and the comets in their orbits, and preserves the order and harmony of the natural universe.

Even in ordinary times, in the common seasons which are not marked by strange events, there are thousands and thousands who are worried and weighed down with apprehensions, with terrible forebodings. If they go forth in the summer or winter night to look at the works of creation, they do not see the wisdom and goodness of God in these objects, and thank him for what they behold. They do not bless him for such a season of beauty and repose. They look forth into the darkness with fear, and are apt to imagine that every form they see is that of an enemy. There are others who walk out into the gloom of night with higher thoughts and with more agreeable reflections. They often perceive the beauty and feel the force of the poet's words, that,