Inner powers are ready to be quickened into life by our manifold senses: we see-not with the eye; and hearnot by the ear; faculties enabling the soul to discriminate between spirit and spirit, explain many marvels, occult phenomena, and give proof of our continued existence after the physical body is disorganised and dissolved. A cultivator of positive science, endowed with healthiest of human brains, Sir Humphry Davy, by inhalation of nitrous oxide, was abstracted from all external things, lost perception of them. Trains of visible images, strangely linked with words, passed rapidly through his mind; so that he "existed in a world of newly connected and newly modified ideas." On awaking he resolved that the universe had its chief reality in the mind. If so slight a cause, till then unknown, gave exhilaration, elasticity, vigour, refreshing and doubling the grandeur and might of intellectual man; it is certain that many occult influences run through all creation; and our present faculties, duly heightened, might establish communication wherever beings live and think. We are on the way to this by means of the late revelations of telegraphy apart from connecting wires. Consideration of these phenomena enables us to make a profitable study of Holy Scripture. The examination aims at showing that the Infinite Spirit has entered finite Nature; that the Voice which past generations believed to be the Voice of God revealing deep mysteries, was a true Voice; that Christianity is a definite positive body of truths admitting neither addition nor diminution except by Divine Authority; and that the Bible is not such a book as man would make, if he could; nor could make, if he would. The Bible shows that man's physical body possesses an organised spiritual form with corresponding organs and development, the inner man. Death separates this duality. The inner and outer person are capable of attaining higher life, of receiving mental and moral impressions from spirits, and from the eternal God. The indications of unity in the Bible, despite being the work of many writers who were separated by wide intervals in time and space, are proof of a plan running through the whole, and render it impossible for the Book to be a work either of chance or of human contrivance. More varied in its contents, in its writers, in its ages, than Sublimity of the Bible. 439 any other book; it raises unwearied testimony against the universal tendency to polytheism; everywhere maintains a sublime doctrine of monotheism; and alone of all books declares of the one God-" His the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is His; and He reigneth over all." : With the unique spiritual sublimity, is an inversion of the seeming relative importance of events. The rise and fall of empires, changes and revolutions which fill nations with terror or triumph, sure to be recorded on human page, have little or no mention. A small people, domestic scenes, family trials, traits of personal character, are invested with peculiar greatness, and connected with moral government by the Supreme Ruler. The world rings with the fame of great captains, the earth shakes beneath the tread of innumerable legions, and the writers of this strange Book are not deaf; nevertheless, the Bible is silent and unconcerned as sun and stars: only those events are regarded as great which bear on the development and issues of that spiritual empire, or Kingdom of God, which is being founded and builded in the world. While crowns and sceptres lie about as neglected things, the foundations of earthly morality are established on the fact of our intimate connection with heaven. Human laws derive their sanction and authority from Divine Will: Will, determined by supreme rectitude, wisdom, power, enjoining what is good, claiming supremacy by right, and subordinating everything to the ultimate triumph of a spiritual empire. Other systems form two different spheres of duty-religion and morality. Religion, separated from its chief root, fails even to maintain the soul's consciousness of God; and morality, apart from Divinity, becomes utterly corrupt. The Bible alone co-ordinates morality with religion: "The primal duties shine aloft, like stars; The charities that soothe and heal and bless, William Wordsworth. History shows that human nature, left to itself, would never have devised the moral code of Scripture; any more than a worm claim the attributes of an eagle. Patience, humility, meekness, spiritual purity, reliance on God, forgiveness of injury, are not, in the world's estimate, constituents of heroic character, nor most worthy of applause. Refined selfishness, systematic shrewd culture and indulgence of the natural appetites, self-assertion, are the worldly graces. Nevertheless, the wise adaptations and comprehensiveness of Bible religion are so great, that millions declare “every mood and necessity of our moral and spiritual life are therein exhaustively expressed." The morality and doctrine are exquisitely adapted to the circumstances of the nature which it guides, sustains, exalts; yet, so out of the range of all that unassisted Nature would suggest; that the best men, emulous of good, find their hearts filled with joy in realisation of the good; and no more doubt concerning the Divinity of its definite and positive body of truth than they doubt the evidence of their senses. The Old Testament honours the Jews; but, far from glorifying that nation, calls them " a perverse and stiffnecked generation," refusing alike warning and reformation till they become a "hissing and a by-word among the nations; " nevertheless, as Pascal says, "they preserve it at the expense of their life.” 1 It is certain that they could not have invented it; not in barbarian, nor Jewish, nor Greek, nor Roman nature, do we discover elements out of which the Bible Religion could have been spontaneously evolved as a growth of national genius and culture; nor as an ideally conceived deliberate fiction; nor as an aggregation of myth and legend. Human nature, far from being able of itself to erect a kingdom of immortal glory, is ever going down to mouldering rubbish, to perpetual desolation, forgetting to take God into account at all; but God, by patient endurance of human folly, by merciful forgiveness of sin, by a holy law to work beautiful humility and desire after holiness, prepares men for a reign of righteousness. We hear a sound, not from halls of philosophy, not from prince's palace, not from assemblies of statesmen; the sound as of ocean on distant shore, or a sweet strange melody of men and angels, concerning an invisible spiritual empire. Christianity, far from being a natural growth of Jewish nature, has roused, for nineteen hundred years, the undying 1 "Cependant, ce livre qui les déshonore en tant de façons, ils le conserve aux dépens de leur vie."-Pensées, tom. ii. p. 189. If Evolution be True, the Christ is Future. 441 animosity of that race. The meek Messiah, though plainly prophesied of, shocked their national prejudices, wrecked their hope of martial dominion, evoked fierce indignation, and they crucified Him. The few, however, who knew Him best, accepted Him, made Him known to the nations, and were the faithful expositors of His will. They painted no fancy portrait, but a true likeness; showed how the man, Christ, transcended manhood, in Himself antedated and realised the ultimate perfection of our race. Christ is clearly beyond the plane of unaided human nature-a phenomenon to be expected, if evolution be true, in the future; not one who has already for two thousand years fixed the admiring gaze of mankind. Scripture, as a whole, far from being an outgrowth of human reason and philosophy, is well-nigh for ever in opposition to the wisdom of the world. Moreover, the antiquity of the writings places them at an earlier age than any in which such an evolution was possible. If the writings are not ancient and genuine, but modern and forgeries, how and when were they palmed on the nation as true? It must have been so cleverly done that not a murmur of complaint has come down to us; not only so, the conception of such a Messiah as Christ was antagonistic to the Jews' deepest prejudices and principles. The spontaneous and natural projection by Jewish mind of a Messiah, whose humble origin and condition, character, teaching, and ignominious death, have ever made Him an object of hatred to the race, is incredible and impossible. The only allegiance, moreover, which this Messiah accepts is voluntary, founded on love of truth, practice of piety, exhibition of holiness; yet, He claims universal empire; and predicts His own supreme rule over heart and mind and will throughout the world. In connection with, and a means of winning, such wide domain, is an intense spirit of proselytism: the gospel must be proclaimed "to all nations under heaven," and preached "to every creature:" but no sword must smite, no violence compel, no persecution hurt opponents; every victory must be gained by truth, graced by purity, illumined by love. The rights of conscience are held sacred, and the principle of toleration is consecrated. Such a system, to the Jews, a paradox; to the Gentiles, contemptible; to the natural tendencies of our race, contrary; could neither originate nor continue unless by superhuman illumination and power. The genius of man, the wisdom of man, the civilisation of man, whenever departing from this Faith-whether for esoteric mysteries, or rationalistic interpretations-have overshadowed and blighted doctrine and morality. The way to understand the Book is peculiar-" He that doeth the will of God shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God;" and is the surest method of advancing in the knowledge of Divine Truth; indeed, the only way of learning things of a sacred and practical nature. It leads to, and keeps in the right path, true-hearted men, like the Apostles. To worldly wise men the path is hard to find and harder to keep. The soul, possessing this rectifying instrument of obedience, detects fallacies; and discerns between the living and the dead. A second peculiarity. While an unspiritual man works that he may justify himself and win merit; Scripture requires abnegation of self, and leads a man to rely wholly on God for power whether to think or do. From this death of self, the believer goes forth in the power of new and higher life. ... A third peculiarity is the union of opposites--wisdom and zeal, moderation and wonderfully comprehensive morality, free from minute rules, govern heart and mind, word and deed. Striking, and some think absurd, precepts —“ pluck out even a right eye . . . give to him that asketh ... love your enemies .. do to others as ye would that they should do unto you"-bring more riches out of the Treasury of God than do the cases, judgments, casuistical tomes, of a thousand secular writers. Go to the Scriptures with robust good sense, moderation, charity; go in a childlike spirit; you will have light to walk by, and strength to walk. As to "becoming all things to all men;" the manifestation of liberty and comprehensiveness, of charity for "the weak brother," yet maintenance of "unity of spirit; these assign the crown and glory of religion to Love, yet exalt Faith. The fourth peculiarity is the skill with which social and political rocks are avoided. Principles are laid down which purify society, and ultimately ensure upright government; being first efficacious for the individual, afterwards for the |