My subject is, the spirit in man; or what is the same, the fact that we are, as being spirit, permeable and inspirable by the Almighty.

The word "spirit," means literally, breath, and it is applied to the soul, not merely because of its immateriality, but for the additional reason that the Almighty can breathe himself into it and through it. The word "inspiration,” as here used, denotes this act of inbreathing, and it will serve the convenience of my subject to use it in this meaning in my discourse; though it is not exactly coincident with the more common meaning attached to it, when we speak of the inspiration of the writers of Scripture. I certainly need not apologize for the use of a term, in, at least, one of its Scripture meanings. I only notify you that any one is inspired, as I shall here speak, who is breathed in, visited internally, and so, all infallibility apart, raised in intelligence, guided in choice, convinced of sin, upheld in suffering, empowered to victory. In this more general sense, Bezaleel was inspired when he "was filled with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and in understanding, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber." Any one is inspired, as we now speak, just as far as he is raised internally, in thought, feeling, perception, or action, by a Divine movement within. In the capacity of this, he is called an inspirable creature, and has this for one of his highest distinctions. What higher distinction can he have, than a capacity for God; to let in the Divine nature, to entertain the eternal spirit witnessing with his spirit, to be gifted thus with understanding, ennobled in impulse, raised in power, and this, without any retrenchment

of his personal freedom, but so as even to intensify his proper individuality.

Just as it is the distinction of a crystal, that it is transparent, able to let the light into and through its close flinty body, and be irradiated by it in the whole mass of its substance, without being at all more or less distinctly a crystal, so it is the grand distinction of humanity, that it is made permeable by the divine nature, prepared in that manner to receive and entemple the Infinite Spirit; to be energized by him and filled with his glory, in every fac ulty, feeling and power. Our accepted doctrine of the Holy Spirit really implies just this, that we are made сараble of this interior presence of the divine nature; that, as matter is open to the free access and unimpeded passage of the electric flash, so is the soul open to the subtle motions of the Eternal Spirit, and ready, as it were, to be the vehicle of God's thought and action; so of his character and joy.

As to the manner of this divine presence, or working, we, of course, know nothing. We only know, reverting to comparisons just given, that, as matter conducts electricity, so the human soul becomes a conductor of the divine will, and sentiments. Or as we can not see how the crystal receives the light, or how, being a perfectly opaque body in itself, it becomes luminous without the least change in its own organization, so here we can understand that the human soul, or spirit, is made capable of the di vine spirit, without any loss of its own human individuality; but, the manner of the fact is, in both cases, uninvestigable and mysterious.

The Scriptures use a great variety of figures to represent this truth, and gives as a vivid practical sense of it, but

they do not undertake to show us the manner. They compare it to the wind that bloweth where it listeth-thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. They speak of it as teaching he shall teach you all things. Drawing, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. Quickening-it is the spirit that quickeneth. Begetting anew,-born of water and of the spirit. Sealing,sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Dwelling in the soul, the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. Walking in it,—I I will walk in them. Leading,-led of the Spirit. Strengthening,-strengthened with might by thy Spirit. Witnessing reciprocally with us,-bearing witness with our spirit. By reason of a certain analogy that pertains between the works of the Spirit in lost man, and the working of the life principle in bodies, it is also called, comprehensively, "the spirit of life." In which, however, nothing is explained to us respecting the manner; for we do not know, at all, how the life-principle works, we only know its effects; that it quickens the dead matter, organizes, vivifies and conserves it by its presence, and that, somehow, the matter, without ceasing at all to be matter, obeys it.

Let us now consider what and how much it signifies that we are spirit; capable, in this manner, of the divine concourse. In this point of view it is, that we are raised most distinctly above all other forms of existence known to us. When it is declared in the scripture, that the Spirit of God moved upon the waters of chaos, it is not meant that he was inspiring chaos, but only that he was acting creatively in it. So it is not understood, when all the host of heaven are said to be created by the breath of the Almighty, that the stars are inspired creatures; much less, that the brute animals are inspired, because they are

said to live, when the Almighty sendeth forth his Spirit. The will, or force of God, can act omnipotently on all created things, as things. He can penetrate all central fires and dissolve, or annihilate, every most secret atom of the worlds, but it can not be said that these things receive him. Nothing can truly receive him but spirit. He may pass through things and have them pliant every where to his touch, but they derive nothing from him that is personal. to him. No creature can truly receive him, save one that is constitutionally related to him in terms that permit correspondence; there must be intelligence offered to his intelligence, sentiments to his sentiments, reason to his reason, will to his will, personality to his person. To speak of an inspired mountain, or planet, or breeze of air, an inspired block, or an inspired brute, has even a sound of irreverence. Not so to speak of an inspired man; for man is spirit, a nature configured to God, and therefore able to receive him. And by this, he is separated from, and set above all other of God's creatures, and shown to be scarcely less different from them in kind than the Creator himself. True, he is a creature, but a creature how gloriously distinguished; one that can partake the Infinite Creator himself, and come up thus into the range of his principles, motives, thoughts and powers. Not even the obedient worlds of heaven can so receive him. Following in the track of his will, and filling even immensity with their stu pendous frame of order, they yet have nothing fellow to God in their substance, and can not, therefore do what the humblest soul is able; can not receive the communication of God. They can be shaken, melted, exploded, annihilated by his will, but they are not vast enough, or high enough in qual ity to be inspired by him. Spirit only can be inspired.

We sometimes undertake to magnify the dignity of man by dwelling on the wonderful achievements of his intell gence. He creates and uses language, makes records of the past, enacts laws, builds institutions, climbs the heavens, searching out their times and orbits, penetrates the secret affinities and counts the atoms of matter, bridges the sea by his inventions, commands the lightning itself to think his thoughts and run upon his errands in the ends of the world,-none but a stupendous creature, we suppose, and rightly, can be manifested in acts of intelligence like these. And yet, to be penetrated and lighted up from within by the mind of God, to have the understanding of things unseen by the inspiration of the Almighty, in one word, to be spirit, and have the consciousness even of God, as being irradiated and filled with his divine fullness; this, after all, is the distinction that makes any mere show of intelligence quite insignificant.

We sometimes dwell on the fact of the moral nature in man, conceiving that in this, he is seen to be, most of all, exalted. And our impression is right, if by the moral we understand, also, the spiritual and religious nature, as we often do. But, in strict propriety, the moral nature is quite another and vastly inferior thing, as respects the scale of its dignity. The spiritual is even as much higher than the moral, as the moral is higher than the animal. To be a moral being is to have a sense of duty and a power of choice that supports and justifies responsibility. It is that in us which recognizes the supremacy of moral ideas or abstract notions, and acknowledges their binding force, as laws or principles. Animals, for example, have a certain power of intelligence, but they have no sense of duty, or law; that is a point quite above their tier of