the scenes of infancy and the dreams of youth; and there were hymnings, holy and divine. The spell was spoken; he bowed his head and worshipped. Reader, thou shalt hear the prophetic utterances: twenty-seven years of mysterious teaching, and the voice will break into being, and sing his dark, still thoughts.

The voice, what deep, wild power it hath! Issuing from some secluded corner, how hath it often shaped and moulded the chaotic mass of the world! Syllables have shaken, ever and anon, the wide-spread earth. The voice of One, scorned by rank, trilling from out Judea, threw beauty over man's hopes, and gave grandeur to his faith; and the voice, swelling onwards from the "mountain-cinctured retreat" of the Monk of Cluny, bound Christendom under one terrible rule; and it required another voice, bursting forth from the quiet convent of St. Augustine, some centuries after, to break the iron despotism, and give man back his freedom. The voice, those trembling but fervid utterances of the heart, oh, they make and unmake, they bind and unbind, they enshrine the spirit in all divine purity, and they sink it to those "abysmal depths" where the soul, once finding itself, wanders in the agony of despair!

This youth saw the realities of things; he was a true spirit; he seized hold of vital principles. All truth is vital; principles could not exist without it: truth must be at bottom, or else they could have no being. Every religion, whether the national belief of civilized or uncivilized kingdoms, is not wholly void of truth, else it could not thrive; wither and perish it must. Were it a lie, a chimera, it could not become a people's faith;

that is impossible. Some fine, sublime verity exists in each.

One elephantine empire, and the soul's transmigration is the creed: great doctrines here. Strip it of

all semblance; lay it bare; peel off its outward falsities and meretricious ornaments, what have we? These glorious truths:-The spirit's distinct and separate existence; its immortal nature; future rewards and punishments. Realities these! Here is the life-the living source; otherwise, the huge nation would have broken the spell long ago.

Nearly all systems teach the atonement in some way or another; dim and mystified it may be; that we question not. The gods must be appeased, and appeased, too, with man's most precious possessions. This world's lost condition and offended Deity recognised here! Wondrous this! Humanity, in its most fallen, most abject state, still has some belief in the sublime doctrine of the redemption. Weak and shadowy it may be, when compared with the pure and unsullied faith of Christians; but ah, it is far from a semblance even with them! It is no fantasy; it is reality.

Mahomet-true prophet: had he been false, credence Iwould have been withheld. No marvel this. This great, wild, strong-hearted man, brought up among grovelling idol-worshippers, without light, without even a glimmer, arises, and spreads abroad the holiest of verities. This quick-eyed Arab, surrounded by nought save wooden gods, comes forth and preaches celestial doctrines! Had he been false, he would not have been heard-no man would have listened; nay, he himself would not have believed them. The deep

epic roll of the blue-twinkling, silver-glancing stars was reality; he beheld it; he gazed on the idols; they made that spangled firmament? Never; they were semblances. Hence he rejected, despised, overturned them. He clung to the true: God is one; God made all things. The divine music of the infinite universe gave him knowledge, trained and disciplined him; with nature he communed spiritually; he learnt reality.

Islam-there is one God; he is great; we must be resigned to him; all he sends us, whether joy or grief, life or death, is good; in his presence is the highest, holiest heaven: realities these! They reached men's hearts: had they been semblances, the first puny breath would have scattered them in a thousand directions. They were truth; hence their existence now.

The soul which worships some rude rock, some fine, outspreading tree, some star twinkling ever brightly in the blue immensity, holds truth; else he would not so worship. In that upturned eye, and that bended knee, and that low, solemn voice, there is fact recognised; belief in a superior Being; in the Supreme. It matters not by what name he calls his god, the doctrine remains the same; it is still reality; a diviner Influence, a diviner Power is acknowledged.

The Epicurean doctrine is not without truth; it had one of the aims of Christianity at heart; and dimly, one of its glorious revelations.

One evening, a fine majestic form was seen leaning on the bosom of an Asiatic maiden; ever and anon, he gazed upwards into her deep blue eye; then again hid his face in her soft bosom. The twilight was calm and quiet; there was no sound, save when some bird flew by to its nest; the sun threw its crimson and

golden colourings on the dark forest which stretched far away in the distance; the gnats had ceased their busy play; the gazelle had gone to rest; the sound of the swelling river seemed to deepen the silence. Then came a gentle gust of wind; the leaves, and the grass, and the wild wood-flower trembled; then all was peace again. Still, still, all stillness. The young Oriental gazed upon the features of his beloved, and she returned the gaze; their love was sweeter than the witchery of that hour. They embraced, and rose, and parted; she to her rude. hut beside yon towering cedar on which the sun now glances, and he onwards to the mountains. He looked up, and uttered the fulness of his heart; his soul was as light and as bright as Vesper's beautiful star. He leapt, he ran, and as he passed, every tree and every bush seemed greener, in the gladness of his breast: he lived over the hallowed endearment, and "sought through nature for similitudes." He loved with all the spirit's affection, and she whom he loved was true and good. His eye caught glimpses of the moon just rising above his own dim mountains, and he thought of heaven. What was it?-where could it be?-might it not be in that soft, silvery crescent? That there was some flowery, odoriferous region beyond the grave, he knew for certainty, for his father had taught him so. The inexpressible bliss he had just felt was something more than mortal: could it belong to the land above? Ah, then it passed over his mind that heaven would be the blessed abode of connubial love: so he thought. He uttered it; he gave it birth; it was clothed in words, and it glanced on the new creation; the Eastern lovers repeated it to each other; it was their feeling, it became their faith. Heaven consisted in love; ah!

was there no truth here? Strange that it should be the symbol of our own creed.

Man must ever have some being on whom to rely; some gigantic power on which to depend; some fair haven of repose in which to take refuge; some Divinity to whom he may go and supplicate for assistance; some bright, smiling Deity to whom he can pour out his gratitude; some shrine at which to offer his praises; some altar whereon to burn incense; some glorious and everlasting Supreme, who can sanction his vows of unchanging affection and determination of good; some mighty, stupendous, majestic One, on whom to lean for ever. Man's thoughts must be hallowed; he feels it; and the splendid cathedral rises with its magnificent architecture to the soft blue skies, alike with the simple but beautiful village church. Even the banner, ere it floats over the troops of a nation, must be consecrated.

The dark, leer-eyed Atheism has something of reality; it has a God-it is denominated Chance. This men worship. Fatal and blind as it is, it is yet a power. "Who made all that ?" once asked the world's Scourge, when pointing upwards to the mighty heaven. Chance! Did they say that it came together under no influence, never a heart would believe. It is ever thus. Soul-weakening, soul-degrading, soul-damning as is this impious faith, yet does it set up some divinity,amid all the jargon, and unmeaning logic, and hollow argument, and hoarse denials, do we find them bending lowly at a shrine, and reverencing humbly a deity.

We have found some reality in all these; semblance, however, has darkened it. The naked, bare reality is ever mighty in its effect; semblance alone nullifies. We cling to forms-vague, dim, unsubstantial