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Thou art, O Lord, too strong for me; I yield,
For who with Thee can cope? When in the field
Thy banner waves, the very mightiest must
Before Thee, conquering hero, lick the dust.

What strange delusion compassed me about!
Methought 'twas with my bitterest foe I fought;
The spell dissolved, and, petrified with woe,
I saw of friends the dearest in that foe.

O Love, that won me in the fiery fight,
How did I still with scorn Thy toils requite!
Pardon I crave-I knew not who Thou wert,
Or none but Thee had ever won my heart.

13.

Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Full many a fathom down I went

In learning's mines obscure,
And studied day and night intent,

Her treasures to secure.

But all in vain! Till Wisdom spake,

He who would win me for a wife

Must with the heart his courtship make;

KNOWLEDGE IS BUT THE MIRRORED FORM Of Life.

JOHN, xiv. 6. "I am the way, the truth, and the life." JOHN, vii. 17. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

MATT. v. 8. "The pure in heart shall see God."

Disciple.-It is written, "He that believeth not shall be damned." 2 Does this mean, he that will not believe although he can, or he who cannot believe although he will?

1 The divine wisdom manifested in Christ.-Matt. xi. 19; Luke, xi. 49. Mark, xvi. 16.

Master. And who, then, cannot believe?

D. He who has experienced the truth of the apostle's averment that "Faith is not given to every man."1

M.-You know, however, who they are to whom faith is given ?

D.—I know a class to whom it certainly is not. It is not given to them who want to see before they believe.

M. And I know to whom it is given. It is given to them who hunger and thirst. Do you hunger and thirst?

D.-Why should I not?

M.-For many reasons that might be assigned, and for this, among others—no one hungers who is full. Is that the case with you?

D.-No.

M.-What then do you lack?

D.-I cannot rightly express it; but, if you please, I will say, The instrument is out of tune.

M.-What! have you already advanced so far? Tell me, now, which of the strings is sprung.

D.—Perhaps more than one.

M.-But do you not know the Artist whose hand can mend the broken ones, and put in tune those that have lost the pitch?

D.-Yes, and No; for He whom you mean has made a condition with which I cannot comply.

M.-What is it?

D." Not to see and yet to believe." 2 I set a great value upon

my eyes.

M. For the present put that aside, and answer me this question, can any one tune the strings unless he has the true pitch within himself?

D.-No other can.

M.-What, then, think you of Him who has put the stone of stumbling in your way? Has He the true pitch within Himself?

1

2 Thess. iii. 2-Luther's vers.

2 John, xx. 29.

D.-I cannot answer No; for there is that about Him which might well make one believe that He has.

M.-What is it?

D.-Well, sound and colour are sister-streams from the same hill. What the verdure of the fresh-sown field in spring is to the eye-something on which it reposes with complete satisfaction-that, I confess, in many a quiet hour on which no eye but Heaven's looked down, has been to my spirit the contemplation of His image. I must confess that I then felt as if I had reached the summit of a hill so lofty that around its tranquil crown the storms are silent.

M.-It almost seems to me that while your words dispute, your knees already bow to the Son of God and man.

Do you

D.-There, we are again upon different roads. mean the Son of God who ascended from earth to heaven, or the one who came down from heaven to earth?

M.-In His own Word I read: "No man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven;"1 and again: "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." I do not, therefore, understand the distinction which you draw. Moreover, a man can receive nothing, except it be given him from on high.3 Can he manifest God to whom God has not manifested Himself? D. You express what I think; and as for bending the knee

Why should the knee not bend to all that's fair,
If God's bright image glows reflected there?

M.-That, my son, is a posture in which I rejoice to see

you.

Bold and erect we stand upon our feet,

When for support on our own strength we lean.
"Tis meet that he should kneel who must receive.

As you acknowledge Him to be the only One who has the true pitch within Himself, you will also accredit Him with the John, iii. 27.

1 John, iii. 13.

2 John, i. 51.

power to put others in tune, and will be willing to receive at His hands.

D. Yes, I would like it much, only I love my eyes.

M.—And so do I. But you do see; and your own words testify that what you see is something amazingly great.

D.—Yes, I see a mystery; and therefore, with eyes that see, I am still blind.

M.-Does the compass less safely show the mariner the way through the stormy waves because it is a hidden mystery to him why it points to the north?

D. He is the Way-that I have long known; but He himself says that He is the Truth.

Not

M.-And because He says it that also will be true. only is He the Truth, but He is likewise the Life. If, then, He promised to you also the truth, why do you not trust Him? D. I confess I saw a Way, but I have not found the Truth.

M.-You say, I saw and have long known the Way; but did you also follow it?

D.-Ought I to blush if I answer that I did not? O master! I boldly aver before thee and all the world that Wisdom is the great goddess to whom I pay my court.

M.-And so you love the Life only to know it?

Yours is indeed a curious taste,

Content to smell rather than eat the feast.

D. You disparage my goddess, and yet I am not ashamed of her. Would that in her majesty she were not ashamed of me! Knowledge-the word is far from expressing that for which my soul longs with a burning thirst. One may know all things by rote-God, angels, the world; but that which we merely know by rote, neither satisfies nor tranquillises the mind. No; not for so paltry a prize as that did my soul sue. The knowledge for which I sued is of so inward a kind, that were the firmament itself to become a book, and every star a letter, I should still deem it far too small. I will learn the

knowledge for which I long from no volume but my own spirit. I have a boding impression of its being of so vast a compass, that all that is in heaven, and all that is in the heart of the Only-begotten, and all that is in the heart of God Himself, will be comprehended in it. And what say you to the Master's own averment, that "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent "?1

M.-Several things I should have to say. But now I shall say but one. If life be the offspring of knowledge, what if knowledge itself be the offspring of faith, and of faith alone? What if the correct order be, as St Peter shows, "We believe and are sure" 2 (surely know); or, as it is expressed in the words of the prophet, "I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness (faith), and thou shalt know the Lord" ? 3

D. Methinks that way a hard one.

M.-It has often happened that a man has confided in a loving hand, and, when bidden, has gone the way it led blindfold, until the time came to take the bandage from his eyes. You say the way is hard, but, my son, it is you who are indiscreet. You refuse to trust Him, and yet require of Him to trust you. Do you not know what is written,-" The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him "?4

D.—I can only repeat that faith is a beautiful child, if only it were not blind.

M.-Do not sin, my son. Faith is not blind; for how could it possibly love if it did not see? Its eyes are not bound; for what says the apostle,-" Now we see through a glass darkly" ?5 Accordingly, faith sees its own objects-nay,,it also sees something more; it sees why it believes. And tell me, you whose eyes have gazed upon that One who of all the human race alone bears the true pitch within Him, can you say that in trusting Him you did not know the reason why?

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51 Cor. xiii. 12.

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The ancients had metal mirrors, which showed the objects

less distinctly than is done by ours.

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