tion to thank God. There is far more than many see in the injunction of the grace that leads to glory. "Glorify God in your bodies." That is a psalmody of the material make and a logic set in worship. "I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

The genuine superiority of soul or spirit over flesh is to be disclosed in the ability of the former to handle and to hold the latter, not in the disposition to disuse it, to discard it, to despise it or to dread it. The supremacy of man over the lower animals is shown, not by his driving them away, or extirpating them with huntsmen, hounds and horns, still less by his fleeing from them in dismay; but by his taming them and training them. He is the good driver who is skilled to manage horses that are mettlesome, horses that are free and fast, full-blooded steeds and fiery chargers, and to bid them go, or to hold them in. Let him have the reins. Whereas many persons manage their material forces by feeble meddling with them, now flapping and fluttering the lines, now jerking and sawing at the bit, now chirping with incessant and monotonous cluck-cluck, "Get up there!" feverishly plying the lash, and in the same breath, frightened at the starting speed, shouting at them, "Whoa whoa!" Drive horses so that you can hold them. Hold horses so that you can let them go. And so sway the forces of your earthen nature. The engineer in the caboose, who knows the value of the train he leads, will lay a firm but limber hand upon the throttle. It is as important now for us to understand the philosophy of material heartiness as the piety of material holiness. Physical exuberance is not the exclusive right of those who are in "rude and bovine health," or animal spirits in their zest of ebullition. It can be a practice of refinement and of principle. You cannot fail to have observed, ere now, an invalid upon the couch, a valetudinarian within his chamber, who manifested more selfcommand and shed more magnetic sunshine than those who passed by in their

strident way, or stalked in their conceit of vigor. The grapple with pain and conquest of it, the grip of patience and power in it, the patience of peace, the pleasure of self-oblivion in considerate thoughts for others, the sensitive submission and the mantling gratitude-all show how far one that cannot have what he would enjoy can enjoy the rather what he has.

It is surprising how delicious is the frugal meal in the kindly cabin where household love lingers like the light of day: how the poor man munches his bit with savory relish: how blithe the blind can make themselves, and how spry the lame, and how sprightly the infirm, and young the old, when the heart is filled with tenderness to mankind and with trust in God! The elder of two little brothers just now exclaimed in exultant tones, "I am allowed bread with butter on it." The younger, trustful and content in the same maternal care, responded, "My mamma allows me bread wizout butter": and was no less pleased and happy over it.

The actual deprivation of material enjoyment takes place in the perversion of excess, the distortion of disordered functions. He who, unable to maintain the balance of power among his appe tites and passions, solicits foreign forces to invade his nature by way of their aid and comfort, and suffers them to establish a protectorate which is a domination and dominion, as the decayed, declining Roman Empire welcomed the invading Goths and Vandals, or the Russian Slavs the Variags, or the poor Khedive the Porte, he has so much force as to become forceless, and so much human nature as to have no natural humanity. It is the young man whose nerves are twinged and tweaked and twittered with tobacco, whose very pores are plugged until his vitality flounders between expectoration and suppression; it is the tippler or the toper, who, to sink his sorrows and to drown his struggles, scuttles his soul; it is the libidinous, who to slake his passions sates his pow. ers, spills his strength, and sells his being for a slave; it is the sloth, who by

muffling his agency, overlays and smothers it-it is such as these, who go sighing on their way, and tottering through time to tumble into their eternity.

Just as some persons can at no time properly be said to eat, so many spirits can never really be said to enjoy. I say that some never truly eat-not in the right sense of eating-never know, that is to say, from year to year, what it is to feast. As the Scripture says: "And never eateth with pleasure." Nowhere a square meal, really? Do you gulp? Then you miss it altogether. You did not realize how much there could be in that mouthful, or that morsel; how much taste, how much nutrition, how much satisfaction. Do you say, "I onght to know; I tasted it; I certainly bad it"? No, indeed, you did not have it; you just missed it. To gloat, to gulp, to glut, to guzzle, is no more to eat than to choke is to breathe; to swill and swig is not to drink. On the other hand, to drink is not to sip, and to eat is not to peck and pick and prink and pine. Even so, the illustration holds. It is not to have a happy life to have a giddy one. Frivolity snatches something, and hastily swallows something which it cannot relish after all. Dissipation musses with its food, and miserably messes uncongenial fragments. Hollow mirth has nothing that is sustenance or substance. Vain glory feeds on froth. Flattery essays to feed on sugarplums, and vanity goes famished amid the glittering of fancy dishes and of changing courses. True enjoyment must include the heart's leisure, liberty and plenty, the fullness of the nature in the fitness of the life. Beyond any question, in the development of man under the hygienic laws, the sanitary system, the regimen of righteousness, there is yet to be discovered and displayed a material existence, truer, higher, happier, when mankind shall have better learned to take care of themselves, because God takes care for them; when the laws of breath shall be so understood, that the human frame from infancy to age shall breathe God's air and not manufactured gases; when child

hood shall not be cramped or crammed, but fed and comforted; when infants shall not be wantonly and recklessly and cruelly hurled into the world, but gently and wisely brought forth and sensibly reared; when educational schools shall not be hot-houses and forcing beds, but gardens, meadows, groves; when a full grown man shall have time to think; when business shall not be a grinding wheel, nor trade a tread-mill; when dress shall not be a straight-jacket, but a flowing robe, and the tyranny of arbitrary fashion shall be superseded by the candor of philosophy, until the forces of the body shall get the benign rays of the sunshine and the balm of the atmosphere; when the advice of wisdom shall be understood in the fear of the Lord, and the thought upon His name. Men will be brought into judgment for all these things, not as erroneously now we receive it; but in all these things. "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thine heart cheer thee in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and the light of thine eyes; but know thou that in all these things God will bring thee unto judgment;" and when it will no longer seem an impracticable course to follow "live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life;" nor a description incomprehensible of the early Christians who were to be the early martyrs—“they did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart;" but in the goodness of the living God, who hath given us all things richly to enjoy, and in the charm of that company, of the Christ, that tenderness of humanity, who took it and did eat before them. Material nature shall be resuscitated, regenerated and reclaimed, fulfilling in its heartiness that happiness which is permitted and prescribed to you this day as an expression of it all. "Go thy way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared; neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."

I am aware that we are lingering too long upon the threshold of our thanksgiving, and that it is time to open ser

vice within the temple of the truth. But natural religion has its charms when it leads up to the stoop-steps of Gospel glory, just as in some rural village the neighbors coming up to the sanctuary from the lanes, and beneath the trees, linger to shake hands outside the church doors, and, as I have often thought, musing upon the spectacle on some lovely day of lambent atmosphere, find their minds softened for their song of praise by the whisper of the leafage rustle, and the mantling of the solemn skies.

Heartiness of sense has its power to serve the joy of spiritual strength, the strength of spiritual joy. If a true thanksgiving can translate itself in feasting, so can a real feast express a genuine thanksgiving.

Take up now this whole verse in its contextual connection. The occasion was the outbreaking and outburst of a delivering Gospel upon an overbearing and overwhelming promulgation of the law. Read from verse 9 to verse 12, inclusive, and you will get the view; a picture, such as when an April sky smiles out upon an April shower, or as when a child laughs and plays with tears still sparkling in enameled eyes; and the consideration and the conclusion of it come to this, that we have a reason and a right of heartiness, cheeriness, and charity in the world redeemed.

The

Now, recent skepticism denies this right point-blank, in theory. In practice, it foregoes this privilege. doubter and the scouter, in their new agnosticism, complain that they do not know what there is to be glad about. In the nature of the case they cannot know that there is such a thing as gladness. They may know, indeed, the sentiment or the sensation of one moment, but what can they know of the next? They cannot say that I know nothing, for they cannot be sure that there is any such real entity as I, and certainly they cannot tell by what evolution I may yet be evolved. They certainly will not permit me to insist that they know anything at all. or that they are anybody

or anything. They will not even let me esteem them to be agnostic, for how can I know that they exist? To know or not to know, that is the same as to be, or not to be. The universe, to such an one, divides itself between the unknowable and the unknown. But as to futures, there is nothing to be said. One can conceive of a positive unbelief or skepticism that sets out to reorganize uncertainty and to frame itself a possible hereafter, different from that depicted in any creed. Such a theory might have its enticements, its allurements, its hilarities and glees of expectation. But that which now passes for disbelief, is sheer negation of all things. It is a wail in space, a whine on earth. It crouches over the grave, and it has reason so to crouch. Now, a long-faced Christian is an anomaly; but a longfaced scouter is consistent.

What is there, O friend, to be glad about? What is there, or what can there be, to be merry over? True, one can bound or browse, as the cattle by the roadside; true, one can fit and flutter, as the minnow in the ripple. That is all so; but, then, be a bullock, be a minnow, and have done with it!

But, it is terribly hard to be a loving woman, or a working man, upon such terms as these. True, one can stand apart in doubt, dismay, defiance, of this unfinished and disordered creaturehood. Well, then, go out of it-go altogether out of it. Step aside and go out of it, at once. Leave-not just the terraqueous orb and the scenery which you call the "world," "earth," "time," and such like, with dialect of all familiar ignorance and ignorant familiarity, because other worlds, and earths, and times, and what-nots, elsewhere and otherwise, might be as bad, or worse; but go out-altogether out, if it may be; and, finding a realm to suit thyself, leave this perplexed, defeated God's creation to take its chances, or to meet its fate.

Well I know that the epicurean reasoning said its say, of old, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Sad 'funereal baked meats." They say it

still, to a wretch whom they are about to hang by the neck till he be dead. The very jailer supplies him with dainty dishes from his table. The pitying women sigh, "Poor man !" and proceed to deck his cell with flowers. His food, at the last day or two, is of the richest, and at his own ordering. The bill of fare, it is likely enough, will be published in the papers, as tinted menus are printed at a banquet. "He called for this,"" say they; "his dinner consisted of 'such and such.'" In the morning, while the crowd was gathering in the street outside, and the deputy sheriffs, filing in, were waiting, "he took a hearty breakfast." It is usually reported that he made a substantial meal, and his deglutition is described in the very journal that depicts the throttling of the throat that swallowed once, to swallow now no more forever.

One does not see much pleasure in it. But there it is. Now you have it, make the most of it. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." And such is the morose philosophy. There is no heartiness nor cheeriness, no charity, in all the whimpering of unbelief or all the levity and ease of man's mortality.

But, within the covenant of life to come, beneath the canopy of a providing grace and preparing glory, how can there be less than an abiding satisfaction and an enduring rest? "Oh, satisfy us early with Thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” "Eat, O friends! drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved!" "In whom believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

To us, this world is not a bad world, after all, nor a sad one. In the lustre of God's countenance, it shines like a planet in the firmament. So the moon shining in the midnight is an object of delight; so is the evening and the morning star steeped in the lustre of the skies. But, if you had to toil through one of its cañons or crevasses, or if you were peering down into one of its volcanoes, it is to be doubted whether you

would much enjoy the view. Study it as it is in heaven. And so survey this orb in its orbit, in its track of light, as they see it from surrounding stars. All is well. The world is by no means finished hitherto. Human history, so far as we can judge, is not complete. Man's story is not told. It is in progress and serial publication. The testimony is not all in. Wait until the other side opens; wait until God sums up. To us, who see not yet all things put under Him, but even now see Jesus, this is a spectacle large with promise, lustrous with its rapture and its peace.

What would you think of that household, in which an invalid, who had been dying-given up--suddenly rallies and revives, who should brood in melancholy and bitterness because the invalid might be still unable to go down-stairs, or walk out-doors? It is gladness enough, thereupon, to know that he can take his nourishment and sit up or lie on his couch. Thanks be to God for such relief as this, and hope to come!

The skeptic spirit that murmurs and that mourns in its discontent is like a person straying on the Alps, who falters at length, lost among the passes, and, lying down beneath an avalanche or precipice above a chasm, shudders that the way is lost. But if a traveler or tourist, who had lost his way, and wandering long had sunken, all exhausted, on the spot, should spy a little châlet in the dimness of the distance, and make his faltering track towards the herdsman's cottage, and have his fainting frame refreshed by the coarse bread and scanty fare, and feel the fire crackling on the chimneyhearth of the simple low-roofed room, while the blast roared outside-he would never criticise ungratefully the frugal morsel because he lacked the dainties, or missed the silver service or the damask napkins or other elegancies of refined society.

After all, then, taking things as we find them, we have come upon a possible and a tolerable life in a formative and comfortable world; a fair, decentenough sphere. It requires a good deal

in the way of improvement, it is true. The Lord knows that, as well as you or I, and He is busy with it still. It requires renovation and replenishment, expansion and invigoration. It requires to be sifted and set in order: "And His fan is in His hand." It demands repairs, and there is adjusted, and there is advancing, a time of "the restitution of all things." It is still to be enlarged, and you may discern of the Creator, as of any builder, that He strews and sorts His materials upon the ground of time. There is a reconstruction under the constitution. There is a correlation of forces, that can remodel all in all. The world is, here and there, a disordered world, distempered and distraught, but it is in process of redemption, recov ery, regeneration. The earth is not a ruin, after all; nor are the ages vain; nor are the centuries idle; nor are the periods barren. These times are not lost times, nor are these days evil days. Matters mercantile, commercial, political and social have their own confusions. In themselves they show prognostics as precarious as the weather in the clouds. Sages and seers, in their signal service, may issue bulletins of their forebodings. There are such periods as oppressing anarchies, and crank communisms. It is true that the social pressures are unequal, and may come to their upheavals-lateral or perpendicular. Things are in such disordered heaps, after all, because they are so redundant; as apples lie loosely in their heaps upon an orchard ground before they can be packed and shipped. Wealth and land-holdings lie in piles that should be dispensed and distributed more wisely and widely. Prices climb up too high, and values mount until they take a fall that hurts them, but does them good, at last; as tumbles teach rash, reckless urchins how to climb with caution. Times may be somewhat hard upon the speculators, the fanciers, the millionaires, the misers, the paupers, and the ministers; but the mechanics and the farmers keep the country comfortable and the land at rest, and this renders society too social to leave

any room for socialism. Government abides. Law and order settle it with liberty. Production is the safe protection. The nation stands. The schoolhouses ring with the children's eager, gladsome notes, and ring out the old rings of bigotry and ignorance that had usurped them.

The Church of Christ still lives. Christianity, that has been reported in some quarters wounded, dead, and dying, is too busy now to think of dying, and concludes it best to grow. Upon the whole, take it for all in all, and, as one might say, things being as they are, religion holds its own, and revelation sits there, smiling on its bustling critics. "He that sitteth in the heavens seems to laugh." The Lord appears to have these things in derision. And the memorials of our fathers are allowed to stand; even their gravestones, inscribed with hope, linger still. Look you well; there is not a man, woman, or child in ' this city, this day, who will not have a pleasant and a satisfying meal; not a boy in our orphan asylum, not a prisoner in that penitentiary, not a wildeyed captive in that lunatic retreat, not a tramp on the wayside, not a pauper in the poor-house-not a human soul, who shall not have a treat to-day. And we wait the hour to come when there shall not be under God's firmament-there need not be-a human being on the breadth of the whole territory, a human heart in all the world, that may not have a life, a liberty, a hope, a joy, a home, a fellowship in the goodness of the Most High God, in the largess and the love of the redeeming and restoring Mediator, Immanuel, God with us. "Go thy way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared; neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Even so; the joy of the earth is the joy of the Lord. The charm of good here is that future good is on its way. The joy of the Lord is to be understood as His anticipative triumph, now constituting the beatific vision of His glory, and so manifested to them that trust in Him.