with our own sense of responsibility, or accepting anything merely because this or the other person alleges it; but weighing and pondering what appear to us the "leadings of providence," in what others say to us, and in what life brings to us, as those who desire to learn and are not too proud or too self-willed to be taught.

There are two great errors, into which those, who are failing of God's plan, may have fallen, or be falling. There is the error of being self-confident, impatient of all authority, advice, control, even of such control (a parent's for instance) as is one of God's own ordinances, one of the abiding bonds of human life, which cannot be broken without the family or the society in which it is broken suffering loss, and at last dissolution. And there is the error of yielding absolutely to some authority (other than a natural authority) to which you submit your own reason and conscience, and for which you resign your own responsibility. God never asks us to do this, even for the natural authority, the only one His word recognizes, of the parent. He says, "Children, obey your parents, in the Lord:" not in whatever they bid you do, but whatever they and your conscience bid you do. But what He has not demanded for the authority of His own appointment, men have been found to claim, in the name of a church or a priesthood, for an authority of their own appointment, a submission which none ought ever to ask, which none ought ever to yield.

We should beware of either of these errors. And lest we fall into them, we should use our reason and our conscience diligently, in striving to find out the will of God for us; and if ever it seems hard to find, if crossing lights throw confusing shadows on our path, and if conflicting voices stun our ears, so that we cannot discern a plain word of counsel amidst the noise; then there is the refuge of work and of prayer to resort to, until the dawn of light and peace. There is always some little work or duty you can be doing, be it ever so little, until greater work or duty is clearly seen. There is always an answer to the prayer for light. There is always help, growing faculty of discernment, increase of sober wisdom in judging and acting, for the mind and spirit which are not hardened and darkened through turning away from God, as though there were, and could be, no help in Him for the mind and spirit that are humble, self-forgetful, ready to be taught, conscious of ignorance, and that are enlarged and upheld by the faith that God is and that He is the rewarder of them that seek Him, and that in His light these shall see light.

It is a great thing to trust God; to have faith in Him and in His goodwill and loving purpose for us, really to believe that we are children in His family, and scholars in His school. Such faith is the root of strength, hope, patience and courage, in human life. That is the idea of the text. Mischief, sorrow, and

disaster have come about because of headstrong and unrighteous selfishness and self-will, because of refusing to listen to God the teacher and guide. "O! that thou hadst hearkened," says the Lord's voice through his prophet, "then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." It is His voice to us, as truly as to His people of old. For us, as for them, both alike God's children, and God's scholars, it is true that in His way lies our path of peace, in His will is the secret of our blessedness. To live and act in this faith is truly life and peace.

And now to God the Father, with the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be all glory in the Church, world without end. Amen.

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XIV.

RELIGION AND MATERIALISM.

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.-PSALM xiv. I.

N David's time it was "the fool" who said "in his

IN

heart" " "there is no God." In ours it is the philosopher that proclaims it on the housetops, and invites us all to bask in "the mild light" of the science which has made this, as its last and highest discovery, and to purge our minds of the superstitions of religion.

Now, it may seem to some to be out of our way to advert to questions and discussions, which touch the very roots and very foundations, not only of our faith, but of all religious belief whatsoever, because we may feel our faith too steadfast, our religious belief too firm, to be affected by any such discussions, or perplexed by any such questions. The discussions and questions may seem to lie beyond us, and quite out of our reach; and the speculations of presidents of learned associations to be affairs with which we have

nothing to do. But we never can tell how near us these questions may come; in what shape we may find them meeting us, affecting our ways of thinking, and the opinions and the conduct of people we meet, and with whom we have to do; working down from their first learned announcement, through a hundred channels, into the ordinary thoughts and feelings of ordinary men, and their subtle influence reappearing there in forms, on which those who set them forth at first perhaps did not calculate. You may have seen a coat and hat which at their beginning were articles of handsome clothing, and were worn on Sundays and in good society, descending through various vicissitudes, until at last perched on a stick in a turnipfield they performed the disingenious function of a scarecrow; and just so an opinion or a theory which at first was started on a solemn occasion, and by a philosopher, may filter down through minds of less intelligence, until half understood and misapplied it serves only to mislead, and fulfils purposes altogether different from those which it served originally. As even in S. Paul's days there were those who were ready to turn their Christian liberty into antinomian licentiousness, so there are always many who, through infirmity of principle or of understanding, are ready to grasp at any new truth, or teaching that professes to be truth, and to ride off upon it after their own devices, making the new theory, which in its real