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divine life. Let us seek with reverence to remove the errors which obscure the brilliancy of those rays, by giving earnest support to the laborious revisers of the Word of God, who seek to restore to us its original simplicity, and as devout students of the life which God has given to his creature, let it be our aim, with earnest faith and diligent care, to revive and reanimate the elements of a higher nature, and breathe into human life a breath of that divinity which once was, and which shall be again, and the new development or changed form of which, howsoever it shall manifest itself, if it hath its origin with God, shall yet be presented and effected by the hand of man.

NOTE.

It has been prophesied that in the last days of our present stage of existence faith shall still be with the few. Probably this expression is comparative; but if not, be it so. Few were those who with earnest faith followed Christ in his humiliation; but to how measureless an extent has their influence lived! If few be wholly his, in the spirit and the life, when he appears in his glory, shall we

attempt in imagination to measure the extent of spiritual influence which shall emanate from these "few," who, beholding their Lord with a spiritual eye, and transformed into his image at his coming, shall have power on this reconstituted earth, at his side, to labour in love for the recovery of the many who, subject to the just judgment of God, may yet be within the pale of his ultimate mercy? The work of Christ may be completed in a still further future, and the reign of the saints may be the manifestation of the power of the few, the redeemed Church united in glory with their Lord, which shall aid in the redemption of the "many,"-the bringing in, though it be but within the mere borders of the Kingdom, all but those who remain ultimately the willing subjects of corruption, the servants, figuratively speaking, of the angel of darkness, those whom no laws of God's grace can be supposed consistently to reach.

The Church

NEITHER CAN THEY DIE ANY MORE.

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HE soul's life on earth in its enduring influences prefigures its unending exist

ence in heaven.

"The Lord is not a God of the dead, but of the living." If he especially regard on earth those who live unto him, shall he not receive into eternal blessedness hereafter those who have apprehended the eternal principle on earth, and who have left its impress on the influences of their lives?

Those who are endowed with the power of giving enduring impress are the great, the spiritually great, of this world; this we believe to be indisputable.

It should therefore be a most sacred object with

us to express in our lives the ideas that live! and it should be our purpose to gather around us such forms as may be adapted to the expression of these living ideas. Such forms of lifeChristian and national-are valuable in proportion to their adaptiveness to contain this principle, and precious to us in the measure in which they manifest their form of the immortal; the forms of our Christian life lie at the root of all progress. From our Christian life our national life derives its spirit, from this our social life takes its tone; to this then primarily we would turn our thoughts; towards the influences of the Christian Church we would direct our aspirations. We would that our Church presented to us higher truths, suggestive of a nobler, a less literal practice, and that the principles that live unfolded themselves in her teachings, without stooping to discover the things that die.

We would that her eloquence were more creative in its influence-less merely didactic or simply personal; that the possession of

higher truth gave her higher tone, and her more exalted imagination presented to forms transparent, because penetrated with her idea. The highest sphere of spiritual cultivation, with its corresponding form and expression, is the true High Church.

It may have its varied individuality-may be more or less attached to its rubric, but in its power of unfolding undying truths in living forms of expression, and so creating a higher life on earth, and insuring a purer progress-in this is established its right to assume the preeminence; and below this, however excellent, must rank every sphere of more literal influence -every mere popular Church. Inherent truthfulness is the essential foundation of every moral

building that shall stand.

Whether it is true to its purest not to its received-principles, it behoves us to consider. Pure Church principles are spiritual principles, merely adapted in their mode of action to the conditions of humanity. These principles may originate forms of expression, but they do not

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