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geance of offended deity by gifts and pains, by sacrifice and death. One who wrote in classic heathendom, with no Scripture light, says:

'Guilt still alarms, and conscience, ne'er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.
Trust me, no tortures that the poets feign,
Can match the fierce, unutterable pain

He feels, who, day and night devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.'

The Unknown, then, is angry with me, and justly. I feel it. It defies argument. What can I do? Will He crush me? How can a man be 'just with God?' This sense of sin embitters my life, and fills me with anxious dread. 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' Is there one who will deliver me from going down into the pit, saying, 'I have found a ransom'?

3. I also have dreamed a dream which has gone from me: I dream of a possible Rest. Tossed by the restless surges of life, my bruised and beaten spirit has blurred visions of Happiness and Peace. Toiling and moiling amid the cares and anxieties of time; wrestling with multiplying ills, my weary spirit gets fitful glimpses of a state of Quiet. I strive to bear my trials and disappointments with a manly spirit, but I miserably fail. I am sad and weak and unable to dry my tears. I hanker after contentment, but I am still unsatisfied. I am a searcher after happiness, but my search is vain. All men seek it; but gold cannot buy it, honour cannot invest them with it, pleasure is a hollow, gilded substitute. I dream, the world dreams, of a golden age, but it has gone from me. I ask the 'wise men' of this age; I ask, with a tear in my eye, 'Is there a possible happiness for my poor soul to-day?' Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell?' 'There be many that say,' and my heart's cry mingles with the rest, Who will show us any good?' 4. I also dream a dream, which fills me with anxiety and unrest: a dream of an After-life. My mind refuses the idea of dying like the beasts below me. I am repelled at the thought of annihilation. I shall live! That is the innate conviction of my soul. The instinct is universal. The poor Indian dreams of happy hunting-grounds beyond the grave. All round the world man holds faith in a future life.

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What is there awaiting me in that unseen future? Beyond the dark river, whose solemn surges fall so oft upon mine ear, what are the mysteries of being? What is there across that bourn from whence no traveller returns? I dare not die as Hobbes died, crying, 'I am taking a leap into the dark!' My soul is horrified at such a venture. O mighty sons of Science and Philosophy! hold your torches over this profound! This question stirs my soul to its very depths: Soon as from earth I go, What will become of me?' I submit that these are primal questions. While these secrets are unrevealed, these problems unsolved, these dreams uninterpreted, what good will my birthright do me? I cannot live by bread alone. I cannot subsist on theories and propositions. This I, is spiritual and must have food

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consistent with its nature, and its needs. Nature speaks to my senses, and her voice is sweet; the sciences speak to my intellect, and it rejoices in their light. But who will speak to my soul? Who will recover and interpret my dreams, and bring me satisfaction and repose ? O ye wise men! Ye sages of to-day! I sit at your feet! I open my ears to your words. My anxious soul awaits your answer to these tremendous problems. Once satisfied on these matters; acquainted with God and Law, and Grace and Peace, and Immortality and Happiness, my poor life will be ennobled; my heart shall be glad, my glory shall rejoice. I will press graveward beneath a sky spanned with promise; 'my flesh also shall rest in hope;' and my whole powers shall combine to bless my Creator for the splendid gift of life. But leave me ignorant on these vital matters, and my life is chaos, existence is a riddle, death is a horror and the mysterious afterward a terror and a woe. All the things accounted precious by the worldly wise, all the discoveries of science, all the teachings of philosophy, all the triumphs of art, are to me but vanity, unless, first, you give me GOD!

'So runs my dream: But what am I?

An infant crying in the night;

An infant crying for the light,

And with no language but a cry.'

THE SILENCE OF SCIENCE.

II. The revelation of these Secrets altogether surpasses Human Wisdom. Nebuchadnezzar called to his aid the wise men' of his kingdom; the philosophers and scientists of his day; men who professed to read even the secret language of the stars. To these the king stated his difficulty. They honestly confessed that the matter was beyond their skill; that such deep secrets of the 'spirit' that is in man' are known only to the gods, 'whose dwelling is not with flesh.' This, I submit, is the position occupied perforce by the wise men of to-day as regards these solemn problems of the soul. In the presence of my questioning heart, science is voiceless, philosophy makes an effort to reply, flings a little border-light upon the mystery, and then the

oracle is dumb!

The Astronomer talks with me about the composition of the sun, he tells the number of the stars, he calculates their distances and gives them names. He so maps out the heavens that the aspiring mind may sail along the blue, coast round every constellation, touch at each revolving planet and steer unhindered through the deeps of space. But the azure scroll contains for him no transcript of the moral law of God. He knows no star to guide my spirit over the sea of life. He cannot tell me by what law my wandering soul be led to gravitate towards the Deity, and circle in the orbit of truth and duty around the Eternal God. The Geologist can inspect the wondrous scroll of the earth's biography; can repeat the testimony of the rocks, but he finds no rock on which my restless soul can build its hopes of a blissful immortality;

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he can find no hiding-place for a guilty spirit, no long-secreted fountain or internal fires for the purging of a guilty life. If he make the granite pillars of the globe to echo with earnest enquiry after the perfect good, 'The depth saith, It is not in me.'

The Zoologist thrills me with his descriptions of animated nature, from the ponderous behemoth to the polypus upon the sea-swept rock. But amid all the herds of Bashan, the rams of Nebaioth, the flocks of Kedar, or the wild beasts of the forest, he can find no blood of atonement for my sins. He discourses on all the winged denizens of air, from the eagle to the sparrow chirping amid cottage eaves; but he hath found no feathered messenger who can bring to human hearts, fearful and troubled, the true olive branch of peace. The Botanist, splendid sage, expounds the secrets of the vegetable kingdom. from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall, from the tropic palm to the lichen lying amid polar snows. But can the great 'magician' tell me where the true heart's-ease grows, to soothe the moral sores that run in the night? the tree of life whose leaves are 'for the healing of the nations'?

The Mathematician proudly calls his the exact science; but he cannot calculate the price required to redeem a law-condemned life. He cannot solve the all-essential problem, how the parallel lines of Divine justice and mercy may be made to meet and bind in the sure circle of salvation my sinendangered soul? The Geographer's eye ranges over the globe 'from China to Peru,' from the equator to the poles; he explores the broadest continents, and his adventurous keel ploughs the virgin waves of remotest seas; but he hath never found the river of life. O ye discoverers :

'Have ye found a land of rest?
Some golden sanded shore,
Some glorious islands of the blest,
Where mortals weep no more?
Where weary man may find

The bliss for which he sighs,
Where sorrow never lives,
Where pleasure never dies?
Tell me, O travellers, tell!

As far and wide ye roam,
Have ye found the land of peace,
The soul's eternal Home?'

If we were to travel round all the circle of the sciences; if we questioned thus at the portals of every school of philosophy, the answer of the Babylonian astrologers must come alike from all: There is not a man upon the earth that can show the King's matter.' Great, precious and important are all these in their own legitimate domain. All honour to the men who patiently explore the mysteries of nature and study the secrets of the mind. But there are higher studies, grander laws, surpassing interests; and on these we must seek a higher Light. Distrusting all secondary illumination, we must go to

the Fount of Light and utter our humble prayer to the Highest: "Teach me Thy statutes,' 'wondrous things out of Thy law!' Let human wisdom honestly avow its limits, and neither dispute my dream nor sneer at the dreamer; but with the candour of the Babylonian sages confess their ignorance, and, reverently bowing before the Wisdom of God, say, 'Behold, a greater than Solomon is here!' Then science will be a holy thing; philosophy will be irradiate with godliness and truth; and the marvellous 'magicians' of our time will stand high amongst the benefactors of our race.

'Who loves not knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper. Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail.

'But on her forehead sits a fire;
She sets a forward countenance,
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
'Half-grown as yet, a child and vain ;
She cannot fight the fear of death ;
What is she, cut from love and faith,
But some wild Pallas from the brain

'Of demons, fiery hot to burst

All barriers in her onward race

For power? Let her know her place,
She is the second, not the first.

'A higher Hand must make her mild-
If all be not in vain-and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side

With Wisdom, like a younger child.'

THE RESPONSE OF GOD.

III. These great Secrets, so important for man to know, have been revealed by God Himself.

Daniel received the desired knowledge direct from heaven: "There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets.' Even so hath God revealed these great and higher mysteries to the human mind. He hath reproduced the dream that had gone from us, hath showed the great necessities of our moral nature, and hath furnished, in His 'glorious Gospel,' an efficient satisfaction for every yearning of the human heart. Human wisdom says, 'His dwelling is not with flesh; 'Human need says, ' Will God in very deed dwell upon the earth;' Christianity responds, 'His name shall be called-God with us.'

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Jesus Christ is God's answer to man's questions; an answer redemptive and complete. Jesus Christ lived. The infidel cannot, does not now deny this. Jesus Christ assumed Divine authority; He declared Himself Divine. His biography is here. The facts are incontrovertible, and scepticism in these days contents itself with materialistic interpretations of them. Hear what

He says, 'Who was for to come.' He points with steady finger to a thousand prophecies uttered prior to His advent, detailing with even historic exactness, His birth, His life, His works, His death, His burial: such a display of prescience was God's pre-provided testimony to the royalty of Christ's embassy, the holiness of His character, the authenticity of His claims and the divinity of His words. Hear Him :''All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth;' 'The words that I speak' are 'not mine, but the Father's that sent Me.' We have then the voice of God. Then He produces another class of credentials and says, 'Believe Me for the works' sake.'

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'When God came down from heaven, the living God,

What signs and wonders marked His stately way!
The winds broke out in music where He trod;
Shone in the heavens a brighter, softer day.

'The dumb began to speak, the blind to see;
And the lame leaped, and pain and darkness fled,
The mourner's sunken eye grew bright with glee,
And from the tomb arose the wondering dead!'

They brought one sick of the palsy, and, unable otherwise to reach the Christ, they lowered the sufferer through the untiled roof, in the bed whereon he lay. The light of a living faith gleamed in his eager eye, and the heart of the Saviour leaped at once to such a call,-'Thy sins be forgiven thee!' The lookers on murmured, saying, Blasphemy: who can forgive sins but God only. Whether is it easier,' said the Messenger Divine, 'to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?' Both required the intervention of Divine energy. 'But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, and walk!' Leaping from the couch, the hitherto helpless wretch, stood up before them stalwart and strong, and in speechless gratitude, gathered up his bed and bounded home! Think of Christ's authoritative teaching! of his marvellously unique and perfect character! Think of the mighty transformations consequent on His mission! Think how He was 'declared to be the Son of God with power...by the resurrection from the dead;' and believe that this is indeed the Christ!

Come then and hear Him. His lips are touched by an unkindled fire, He speaks as 'never man spake ;' for He is 'the power of God, and the wisdom of God.' He hath come to answer the cry of humanity. Sit at His feet and propound your heart-questions. His answer is prompt, clear and loving; His words are bliss! Do you ask of God and your relationship to Him? When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven !'-The Law of God, the Rule of Life? He says, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;...and thy neighbour as thyself.' In the misery of guilt do you ask, 'What must I do to be saved?' He says, 'Believe in Me.' Do you ask for Rest? He says, 'Come unto Me;...and ye shall find rest unto your souls.' Do you require guidance and aid through all your life-path ?

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