Conscience that was

But it is Because of the

now loud as the thunderings of heaven. dormant before now lashes the soul into agony, and the thought of a wasted mis-spent life gives birth to keenest remorse. Thoughts such as "Whence came I? What am I? Whither go I?" agitate the soul, and before these the things that formerly delighted become contemptible. The soul turns away from them as from things utterly unworthy, and in a darkness deeper than that of midnight, it utters a cry, which, when fairly interpreted, amounts to this, O that I knew where I might find God. The man may not formally know that he needs God. He may not formally know that it is for God his soul is seeking. none the less true for all that. And why? nature of man. The soul has been made for God. God alone can fill it. It was made and meant to be the temple of God; and, therefore, earthly pleasures and wealth and friendship, cannot make up for the absence of him who formed us for himself. The bee wings its flight from flower to flower, and gathering its honey is satisfied. The oxen on a thousand hills feed on the grass and desire nothing higher. Were man's nature like theirs, he would rest satisfied with what gratifies "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." But his nature is not like theirs. It is far higher, even as the heavens are higher than the earth. Hence it cannot rest in transitory and sensual things. Forget his worth a man may, and act as if his nature were an ignoble thing. Forget he may his affiliation to God, and his need of God. Neglect he may the many and great influences that press upon him to induce him to receive God into his soul. But in all his forgetfulness and neglect, his worth will be evidenced by his continual unrest of soul. Many try to keep far from God in their thoughts. They look on God as a Being fitted only to produce suspicion and misery; and hence, like Adam after his fall, they try to hide themselves from his sight. But many have come to learn the fearful folly of such a course. They have learned that God alone can satisfy the soul he has created. They have learned as they bowed before the cross and beheld the Father as made known in the Son, that there is more in God than there is in all the universe besides to satisfy the deepest cravings of the human heart. The "soul thirsteth for God, for the living God."

in

for us."

"Jesus

The worth of man is seen in the price paid for his redemption. That such a price was paid is clearly revealed. "Christ died "Christ Jesus gave himself a ransom for all.” tasted death for every man." "Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world." "Ye are bought with a price." "Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ." The sacrifice was

costly. Even God could give no costlier. The Father had nothing dearer to bestow than his only begotten Son. But does not the giving up of Jesus to sufferings and death, shed light on the worth of man? We think it does. It will not do to deny this, and to say that the atonement simply proves the love of God; for the question is at once started-could God then love a worthless object? Men sometimes love objects that are worthless; and in so doing, degrade themselves. It is their crime that they love objects unworthy of their love. But God could not thus love an object which he saw to be unworthy of his love. To tell us, therefore, as some do, that in nature, as well as in character, we were unworthy of the love of God, and then to say that God so loved us as to give his Son to be our Saviour, is to say what reflects on the wisdom of God. There must have been a worth in man sufficiently great to justify the shedding of the blood of Jesus for his salvation. True, as we have already remarked, there was nothing in man's character to elicit the complacency of God. Man was a sinner, who did evil, evil only, and evil continually. But God looked past the worthless character to the man himself, to the soul, and saw in the soul the stamp of his own image, and therefore an object worthy not only of being loved, but of having great and costly efforts made to save it. Though we may have undervalued and despised our nature, God has not. And to him who may be disposed to look on it as an object that may be thoughtlessly employed for purposes of evil, we would say, Go mark what your Saviour did. Mark his unwearied deeds of love and works of mercy,—his homelessness and poverty,—the shame and obloquy to which he was persistently subjected, and the black reproach that assailed his name, mark the tears he shed, the agonising prayers he offered, and the bloody sweat that was pressed out by reason of the fearful sufferings that were borne within. Trace his footsteps from his infantine helplessness in Bethlehem to his crucifixion on Calvary. Standing there amid the preternatural darkness, behold the strange sight of God in sacrifice. Note the agony that at last broke the heart of him who hung on the centre cross. Thus learn the worth of the soul. In the light of the cross we see the love of God towards us, a love too great for human mind to conceive. We see, too, the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Not in the thunders and smoke of Sinai, not in everlasting burnings, but in the cross of Christ do we see most clearly the turpitude of our guilt the awful wrong of man's rebellion. We see our sin to be so sinful, that ere it can be overcome and forgiven the Son of God must become obedient in our stead unto death. But besides the love of God and the sinfulness of sin, we see in the light of the cross the worth of man.

The soul

which God had made in his own image was no insignificant thing to be lightly lost. When undone by our sin, and in danger of being everlastingly estranged from our Father, he sent his Son to reclaim us. And surely the Father had never given up the Son, and the Son had never given up himself to be a propitiation for the world's guilt, had man not been worth saving. God must have seen it to be worth while to open up for us a way whereby we might reach the many-mansioned home, and sweep the harps of gold to the praise of the Lamb throughout everlasting ages. To deny this is to libel the whole procedure

of God in the matter of the atonement.

Such a view of man's worth will dispose no one to self-conceit. On the contrary, it is fitted to lead us to respect one another. To multitudes, the accidents of birth, position, wealth, are greater than men themselves. Hence the disrespect shown by many of the wealthy to their less favoured fellowmen. Hence the readiness with which so many are disposed to "look down" on those who are only socially inferior. But in each man, however obscure his position and lowly his home, we see a brother for whom Jesus died, and whose voice may help to swell the song of Moses and the Lamb.

Again, the worth of man, when really and rightly understood, will lead us to eschew evil. Sin is beneath us. To pursue evil is to prostitute our powers and degrade ourselves. We are fitted and meant for something different and higher.

Again, the worth of man, when really and rightly understood, will lead us to cultivate fellowship with God. He alone can satisfy. All else is less than nought. In him alone we find all that we need,-" all our capacious powers can wish."

G. G.-S.

THE CHAIN OF WANTS AND SUPPLIES.

As that curve is most beautiful which tends most swiftly towards infinity, so that train of thonght is most delightful which most swiftly finds its issue in the Infinite One.

This I experienced when I happened on one occasion to be led out in thought along the chain of my soul's wants and supplies, and found it sweeping majestically away until it swiftly and surely linked me on to a Person of infinite mind and infinite heart.

All along the way, indeed, I found munificent supplies. But, notwithstanding their munificence, they left in me a craving which impelled my soul onward in search of complete satisfaction.

That which came first and most obviously was the pleasure afforded by the contemplation of the phenomena of outward nature. But amidst the profusion, variety, and extent of the grand and beautiful sights in nature, the conviction speedily forced itself upon me that the supply of my wants, which had thus come to me, was far from being final or complete. Even when gazing on the loveliest landscape, or inspecting the grandest celestial scenery, I felt weariness of soul ever and anon creeping over me. And in answer to the inquiry whether I should feel thoroughly at rest in the observation of such objects, if that alone were to be my eternal employment, I felt that without a single atom of hesitation, I should have to say, Never. These grand and beautiful sights may give, and do give, some satisfaction, much delight, but they could never yield perfect or eternal bliss to my soul.

I felt accordingly an urgent desire for something in advance. I experienced the want which Virgil experienced when he gave utterance long ago to one of the deepest sentiments of our

nature:

Happy the man, who, studying nature's laws,
Through known effects can trace the secret cause.

I felt that I could not exist contented without striving to find out the laws underlying the phenomena which I observed. And as thought sped on more swiftly than it can either be written or told, I pictured to myself my soul investigating, with intense avidity, the causes of the motions of some grand system of starry worlds, and discovering some simple but majestic principle which all the orbs of the system obeyed, even when the workings of their vast but silent machinery were most complicated. And, having discovered that, I fancied myself winging my way in quest of another system of worlds in some more distant region, where, after a patient but deeply interesting inquiry and comparison of facts observed, I again succeeded in unveiling the laws that are regulating all the movements there.

I fancied myselfthus going on for ages, ever reducing new phenomena under principles new or old. But in answer to the question "Should I feel perfectly satisfied in such employment for ever?" my own past experience supplied a prompt response in the negative. I had already, on frequent occasions, set some certain attainment in study before me, and had experienced an amount of happiness from the entertainment of the purpose, and still more from the actual pursuit of the intellectual game, and from resultant success. Yet I felt convinced that neither the amount of happiness connecting itself with the desire of an intellectual attainment, nor that linked to the pursuit of it, nor that resulting from success in reaching it was enough, or nearly enough, to fulfil

completely the strong yearnings of my soul, and settle its unrest to the depths. And so if rounds of purpose, pursuit, and success in the study of the arcana of nature's laws were even with the universe itself as my field of observation-to be my eternal employment, still the cry would arise from the depths of my nature, "What are mere principles to me? There is yet in my soul an abyss of want, that is unfilled."

There is thus a third link in the chain of my wants. I want a Person. I do not mean that, as a logical consequence from the consideration of the phenomena and laws of external things, a Person must be postulated; I mean that my soul wants a Person as the complement of its own emotional craving. Do Do you speak of natural selection? The natural selection of which I was most certain in the inner chambers of my being, was my own native and determinate selection of Person as the complement of the deeper wants of my soul. I felt that when drawn by the affinities which bind the universe I had arrived at Person, I had arrived at the delightful fulfilment of a deeper hope and joy than an acquaintance with all the phenomena of external nature and with all its laws could supply. If I am to believe what is to me the first authority in this matter, my own spirit itself, then I must hold firmly that Person desiderates Person, and finds in Person alone the first dawning of the hope that all its deepest wants will at length be fully satisfied.

But having shaped the course of my inquiry to this welcome source of supply, I found that in Person my soul desiderated, besides intelligence, another qualification that seemed indispensable to the full satisfaction of its wants. This was the fourth link in the chain of the soul's needs.

As neither with phenomena alone, however beautiful, nor with laws superadded, if ever so grand, so the final rest of my soul could never be with a Person of intelligence only, even should he be wise enough to devise and to govern and wield all the phenomena of the universe and all its laws. The Person who will satisfy me must be a Person of heart. I want the Person to feel a kind and loving interest in me. If he were simply intellectual, then, so far as my satisfaction of soul is concerned, he would be little more than a personal Bundle of the mere dry principles which regulate the phenomena of nature, and on which my heart has already pronounced sentence. Between a merely clever being, even though infinitely clever,-and me, deep would never answer to deep. The person in whom I am to find rest must feel and sympathise with me, as well as understand.

No. 6.1

K

[Vol. 2.