pure river of water of life, clear as crys tal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there a tree of life, which bear twelve fruits, (twelve crops in the year), yielding her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in throughthe gates into the city."

On these passages of Scripture Dr. Cobb has written: So, then, the tree of life is standing yet, in the midst of the garden of the Lord, and is fresh and flourishing, never barren, bearing twelve fruits in the year, every month loaded with both blooming flowers and ripened fruit. And the enlightened Christian believer has access to it. And the flaming sword of the Cherubims, the angel of Justice, is there too, at the east, the entrance of light, rendering it impossible for the impenitent guilty to share of the tree of life, aionion life.

How beautifully and solemnly true we find the elder Scriptures, upon our most natural and exegetical theory of interpretation. And what wonderful internal evidence, and accumulating corroborative evidence we obtain, of the Divine inspiration of the doctrines of those venerable records.

And now, having found that the tree of life is yet fresh and green in the garden of the Lord, that it is CHRIST or CHRISTIANITY, we will try to simplify, scripturally, the fact of its availability to our recovery from the fall, or, in other words, our life from the death of sin. This availability is in our access to it through faith-faith in the gospel. And the ministry of Christianity, speaking in the name of its author and head, proclaims to us all, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting (aionion) life; and shall not come into

condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." John 5: 24. This is precisely the result which the old record under consideration ascribes to the eating of the tree of life. "Lest man should put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat and live forever,"-cis ton aiona.

This the law could not do, because it is not adapted to the deliverance and elevation of man from the power and worldly lust and above the dominion of the animal nature. "Therefore," says the apostle, "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, upon all them that believe.Rom. 3:20. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

And this is the recovery from the fall. It is a recovery from death unto life; as St. Paul says, "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." But the other form in which we have hinted at the nature of the recovery, is now beautifully evolved. We have seen that though, in the premonitory announce. ment of the penalty of sin, it is called death, in the subsequent judicial record it is described as consisting in multiplied sorrows in life's relations and responsibilities, and enslavement to the world when we should be its lord and proprietor. Now this lost dominion over inferior nature, which is the result of our transgression and the condition of our woe, is recovered through faith in Christ. By faith we mean what the language properly signifies, the possession of Christ as a verity, in spirit and truth. To this point the Master saith, "Unto him that overcometh will I give to sit with me in

my throne, even as I have overcome, and sit with my Father in his throne." The word throne, here, is used for the kingdom of Christ. This kingdom is the reign of heavenly principle; it is authority and dominion over all evil; and over all inferior nature to subject it to its appropriate uses. All the animal appetites and passions are good in their appropriate places, held as our servants but never given rein as our masters. When the moral nature is in the ascendant, full of the light and spirit of Christ and sharing his throne, all the appetites and forces of the lower nature, disciplined and controlled, are made to minister to life's pure enjoyments. Then is man restored to his primitive lordship in this mundane sphere; aye, and to his legitimate ownership likewise. For to him the language of the apostle is a testimony of a living fact, "All things are yours."

A CHEERING FAITH.

The mere act of dying does not extinguish personality. It would be treason to the gospel of Christ to imagine such a result. On the contrary, personality will be revealed, kinship will be discovered, love will be unbound, when the blots and the blurs of evil have been purged from the spirit. We shall see then, what we knew and loved in part on earth revealed in its wholeness, and know for the first time what to live and to love may mean. We know not what forms the recovered ones may wear. We know not how the dead are raised up, nor with what body they will come. Enough for us that the great Forerunner, the great Leader of the host, was raised in His human wholeness, each line, each touch, of His dear humanity more perfect, than when He was with us in the weakness of His mortality. The Lord took all by which man might know Him, through death into the eternal world. He took it visibly, that we might have assurance of the Invisible; and that we might hold fast the faith,

that whatever may have perished of our dear ones, whom we have loved in the Lord, and lost awhile, all that made their dearness lives on, and has grown to a Divine completeness beyond the touch of Death. With such a faith a man may truly say with St. Paul: For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD.

And another of his disciples said urto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, follow me: and let the dead bury their dead. Matt. 8: 21, 22.

It is generally agreed that the word dead is used in two senses in this passage. 1. Those who were destitute of spiritual life, or who were dead in sin. Eph. 2: 1; Col. 2: 13; 2. It denotes those who were physically dead, or whose bodies had ceased to live. The meaning is, let those who are spiritually dead bury the physically dead.

All the common offices of life can be performed by any one, while the gospel could only be preached by those who were called.

It is not at all certain that this disciple's father was dead. Some think that he was only advanced in years. An unwilling mind never wants an excuse, and some think that this disciple's request was simply an excuse for neglecting his duty, while Jesus required men to forsake all and follow him.

SENSIBLE MEN.

The Rev. Dr. Emerson, of the Christian Leader, made the following statement some years ago:

More than twenty years ago, we heard Father Balfour offer a prayer in a Bible class. It was less than two minutes in length. After making his acquaintance, we recalled to his memory the circumstance, saying that the brevity of the prayer seemed to us remarkable. He assured us, in effect, that if we would

carefully read the Lord's Prayer and measure the time, we should find his prayer too long!

On a certain occasion, Dr. Ballou read the Scriptures at an installing service in Boston. He devoted just three minutes to the service; whereupon a distinguished Unitarian divine exclaimed, "I have long known Dr. Ballou as a very learned man -I am glad to find him a sensible man!" At the general convention of Universalists, which met in Buffalo in 1850, Rev. Dr. Sawyer, on occasion of an evening service, read a Scripture selection, and offered prayer. Both exercises were most appropriate the prayer in particular was earnest and comprehensive. His part in the service was completed in a trifle less than five minutes. We had long known him as a learned man, but the identical words which, at the moment, came to our lips, were, "Sensible man!" At one of the Conferences at Portland, one brother, without preamble or apology, said most excellent things in three minutes. It was our reason, as well as our gratitude, which mentally exclaimed, "Sensible man!"

But the excellence of brevity is rare. This gives it some of its value, as rarity makes the diamond precious. Macaulay gives a notable example. The occasion was the trial of the Seven Bishops. There had been many speeches, probably very long ones. Macaulay adds: "Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes, but every word was full of weighty matter; and when he sat down, his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established!" It is needless to add, Somers got his case. He proved himself a “a sensible man."

Let us not be understood to say, that long speeches are never advisible. Of course, they are sometimes demanded. Burke's speech against Warren Hastings, though very voluminous, is none too long. We would not strike a paragraph, or even a sentence, from Webster's reply to

Hayne. Rantoul once spoke eight hours to a jury and saved his client. But the weakness is pitiable that does not see that such are exceptional cases. Unless the occasion calls for a prolonged effort, put your speech into the fewest words and the briefest space-do this, if you would have your delighted hearers exclaim, "Sensible man!"

DEATH-BED TORMENTORS.

"Miserable comforters are ye all."

Job.

It is quite a common thing for those who believe that death closes all opportunity for reformation or hope, to undertake to atone for their neglect of the irreligious in life, by tormenting them in death. They have lived within a few rods of them, perhaps, for many years, have passed them every day, in going to and from their business, and talked with them freely upon every conceivable topic, but the awful danger to which they believed them exposed.

But let sickness overtake them, enfeebling both body and mind-let the shades of death begin th gather around their couches, and their friends will be suddenly transformed into death-bed tormentors. And they will seemingly try to atone for past neglect, by persistently representing that every conceivable danger and horror lies just beyond the deathbed in eternity.

But where is the propriety of delaying a matter of such infinite moment, until so late an hour? If it is important that the dying should be apprised of their danger, is it not equally important that they should have health to appreciate that danger, and strength to escape it? Is it fair to expect that God will accept of a prayer for mercy, wrung from lips already becoming cold in death, by the fear of what lies beyond, as an atonement for a wasted life? To suppose that such words are all that is necessary, if uttered before death, and that no amount of peni

tence will deliver the soul from suffering, if uttered afterwards, is to hang eternal things upon a very slender thread indeed.

The living should have the fact continually rung in their ears that the first and greatest danger of sin lies in becoming a sinner. But that after sin has been committed, its penalty must be endured, for God will by no means clear the guilty. This would put an end, I think, to depending upon death-bed penitence for salvation, and enable us to dispense with death-bed tormentors at once and forever. Those who have formally acted in this capacity, could devote their time to instructing the ignorant and reforming the vicious, and leave the death-bed to manifest the brightness of hope, or the darkness of unbelief, according as the life had been improved or wasted. However, as long as men teach that the just reward for sin may be escaped by timely repentance, or show their faith in such a theory, by laboring to get some expression from the sick and dying, upon which they hang a hope for their future safety, so long there will be those who will undertake to enjoy the pleasure of sin, and then secure the enjoyment of heaven by death-bed repentance. And the fathers of the partialist church have described the natural effect of the theory, admiting their doctrines to be true by saying that "hell is paved with good intentions."

A happy death is the legitimate result of a devoted, blameless life; but no words that the dying can utter before death, nor the minister afterwards, can possibly atone for the want of this. It is not words, but condition, that God requires. It is not safety, but deliverance from evil, that we need. This is true now, it will be true at death, and after death, and the sooner we learn that truth, and manifest it by loving God supremely and our neighbors as ourselves, the better it will be for us and the world. God will always deal justly but kindly with men; his object is not to produce suffering, but

reformation and obedience; but still it will always be true that purity alone can bring abiding peace and joy.

THE PROPHETS.

The question is sometimes asked, how should the Hebrew prophets be regarded? Learned men in our time, as well as in the past, differ in opinion in regard to this matter. Ralph Waldo Emerson is on record as saying: "Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eyes the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me." This language intimates that the prophets, and Christ (for Mr. Emerson asserts that Jesus Christ belonged to the "true race of prophets,") had knowledge that was not

common to men.

But Rev. A. N. Alcott says in the recently published volume of Essays, page 53: "The prophets, whatever their race, came by their knowledge, however infallible it may be, in no other way essentially than we come by ours."

But the apostle Peter, had a different view of the matter, for he said: " For no prophecy ever came by the will of man; but men spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost. 2 Peter 1:20.

AN UNWISE ATTEMPT. We think that it is very unwise to attempt to make a difference in our estimate of the reliability and worth of things absolutely revealed by God, in one portion of the Bible, over things revealed in different portions of the same book. Yet we find a writer in the Universalist, using the following language:

"The use to which the Bible is put is of the most unscholarly sort. Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, the Gospels, and Paul's epistles are of equal authority,' equally inspired, equally divine. What

Moses said is of as mnch value as the words of Jesus; the account of Jonah or Joshua is as valuable in the making of our souls pure and holy as are the injunctions in the letter to the Romans. There are no discriminations."

We make no defense of verbal inspiration. We do not believe it. Neither do we suppose that all the history of the Jewish nation given in the Old Testament, was inspired by God. But we cannot imagine that St. Paul would have written the following statements, if he really supposed that his own writings were more valuable and important, than the oracles of God, to which he refers. "What advantage hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly because unto them were committed the oracles of of God."Rom. 3: 1, 2. "For whatsoever things were written were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Rom. 15: 4.

"Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 2 Tim. 3: 15, 16, and 17.

"But abide thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work." 2 Tim. 3: 15, 16, 17.

WHAT CHURCHES MAY DO. The conspicuous obstacle to the progress of church work and to the spread of the gospel is intemperance, and the social-drinking usages and the liquor

traffic, of which intemperance is the fruit. In the proportion that a man or women comes under the dominion of abnormal appetite for strong drink, in a corresponding degree does he or she drift away from wholesome, saving Christian influ

ences.

Complete abandonment to inebriety means also the complete cutting loose from all religious restraint. The saloon is everywhere and in many ways inimical to the church-the true church. The temperance reform belongs, therefore, pre-eminently to the Christian church. By members of churches especially it should be encouraged and strengthened to the uttermost.

What may, and ought, churches to do in the premises? First the church should be itself a safe refuge for the weak and tempted. As alcohol is their tempter, alcohol should have no place in the church, either in the wine cup of the communion service, or upon the tables or at the firesides of the members or pastor. Any church which harbors alcohol in either of these forms is not a safe place for either the victims of the drink-appetite, who are trying to reform, or for the children and youth of its own membership. No fellowship with alcohol, for either sacramental or beverage use, should be the motto and standard of every church which takes the name and assumes the discipleship of Christ.

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Second, every church should make special provision for the prosecution of temperance work in some form, through a standing temperance committee otherwise, within its own borders. Especially should this be done with reference to the needs of the young. The saloon influence, wherever saloons are tolerated, is always active, and the young are always more or less exposed thereto. The pernicious example can be shorn of much of its peril to the young with the right kind of instruction, often reiterated, concerning injurious social-drinking usages. Every church should make due