But in what way compass it? Where all had failed,

Could he dare expect any different fate?

"He could try it." And off through the church he sailed Through the varying shadow: he would not wait.

Long and fatiguing his anxious search

For some ray of light the pathway to guide
To where, all day, the great sun bathed all
With life and warmth in his genial tide.

The other windows were equally tight
And dry with their dusty web-drapery;
Until, feeble and tired, he closed his sight
In a feeling of utterest vacancy.

But the gods, watching equally flies and men,
Touched one of the thousand springs that lurked

To cover with victory all souls, when,

Having toiled, they sleep. In this manner it worked.

A human - a boy -saw a cat one day

Fast asleep, and, to see her go, he shied
A dornic: the D-ickens scaled it away,

And it shot through this window. The hole gaped wide.

The commotion within it was fun to see;

For the wind sucked through, as it always will,

To brighten the air and make to flee

All fogy methods of lying still.

The old ones said 't was the Tempter made
This yawning rent; and was there, no doubt,
Just outside, snapping blasphemers up
Who would have this God-given window out.

But the sleeper, fanned by the zephyr, turned
In his sleep, and dreamed he had gone to heaven;
And, breathing in vigor and health and hope,
To him at last was one more chance given.

The newness and fragrance, filling his heart,
Very shortly awoke him, and up he flew ;
And, heading alway 'gainst the strongest part
Of the current, the window soon came into view.

"See!" said the old flies, "even the breeze
Makes haste to get in here, away from sin"
But he thought of the spider, shut his eyes,
And right in the teeth of the gale dashed in.

Into the world, where fulness dwells;
Out of the prison, where leanness thrives
To a greater leanness, he feasted and rolled
Through the golden fields whither plenty lives.

Yet once, long after, went back to survey,
And it made them drive and tumble still more:
He could not well see, toward the dark so; but they
Could see his fat body behind and before.

'T was doubtless an urgent temptation to them,
To dangle his wealth before their meager sup;

But he thought to persuade some to come out with him,
And he looked for the break, it was all puttied up!

And a fast-clinging cobweb attached to his foot
Gave him ominous hint that it would not do
To stay in that dangerous twilight; so quick
To the sunshiny strips of Elysium he flew.

Where we leave him.

- Food for the body, say I,
When hunger comes; for the strong lungs, breath;
And the wakeful eye was intended for light.
Never fear for the soul: God continueth.

C. W. C.

A

INSPIRATION.

PRIME assertion, and perhaps the most hopeful one, of every really spiritual theology, is that of the unobstructed mutual access between the divine and human spirits. His self-revelation is a necessary element in our conception of Deity. A God who should not make himself known would be no God. Is it asked, "Why so? Was God compelled to beget the human race? or, having begotten, was He compelled to make Himself known to them?" Surely not, I reply, by any (so to speak) physical necessity; so far as His power only is concerned, He might have called us into being or not, according to His pleasure. But let one contemplate the point thoughtfully till he pictures clearly to his mind a God having the power to procreate a spiritual family, and enjoy the happiness of beneficence towards them, and of their love towards Himself, and yet withhold

ing Himself from this joy, and it manifestly becomes morally impossible to a Being whose Almightiness cannot exist unaccompanied by All-Wisdom and All-Benevolence. In short it would be inconsistent with the attribute" of lovingness, which is a necessary element in the idea of a Spiritual God. Still more so with that character of God, the assertion of which, if not peculiar to Christianity, is yet the notable peculiarity of Christianity, namely the Paternity of God. God were no Father if He did not desire the existence of offspring, and intercourse with them. To suppose Him ungenerative, or undemonstrative, makes Him un-paternal.

In some sort, every phase of the religious consciousness, from its earliest germinant condition, to its highest and most refined development, recognizes this truth. Fetishism and Christianity alike imply converse between Deity and Humanity. But converse is reciprocal, it implies mutual or correlative action. This converse between God and man, then, has a double name according as we look at it from below or from above. The approach of man to God, we call Prayer: the approach of God to man, we call Inspiration.

Now as the history of religion is the history of gradually refining ideas of the nature of God and of man; so likewise is it in regard to this intercourse between them. The God of the Savage is a bloody tyrant-savage; the apprehension of Divine Paternity is the culmination of civilized and enlightened thought; and men's ideas of Divine ways and methods have corresponded in each stage of their progress.

Hence, as in the savage era we have for prayer outcry, gesticulation and self-inflicted torture, altars reeking and fuming; so the expected response must needs be gross and material, and its method anthropomorphitic. The worshipper hopes that Baal will respond to his shouts and self-stabbing; or Jehovah to his pious imprecations with lightning-fires, because his purpose is good and for the glory of his Deity. After considerable progress he expects God to answer the express stipulations of his prayer with accordant benefactions. He prays for rain, or drought; for bread, wealth, safety, health. Does the ship stagger? he goes down upon his knees. He piously establishes a charity, and it may be sincerely supposes that the clothes and food and pounds sterling which pour in from every side, are not merely the responses of tender or superstitious hearts, who have read of his faith in the papers, but actual answers of Providence sent by those channels direct.

A little later (or a good deal), and he learns that the whole reality of Prayer is spiritual intercourse; taking the form of petition or of thanksgiving according as want or plenitude gives fashion to his self

expressions. He discerns that Deity deals not in loaves or clothing, but in new purities in the mind; new sympathies in the heart; new aspirations in the soul. In short, just as he becomes himself mentally refined, delicately apprehensive of his own spirituality, he apprehends the spirituality of God; and not only distrusts, but abhors anything which impairs that conception. If he prays for daily bread he does so not because he expects it through his chimney-flue, or brought by raven's beaks; the petition expresses his sense of dependence on Providence, and his will to be kept faithful to the industry and honesty which are the means of earthly livelihood. He prays that he may keep himself in sympathy with God. And though the prayer be imperfect, yet he perseveres in prayer, he would rather approach as nearly as he can, than not approach at all to his fatherly Benefactor. Words are nothing, things, food, comfort, prosperity are nothing intercourse with the Source of all strength is everything.

But intercourse has two factors,—in sympathy there are two hearts approaching and beating together. Hence prayerfulness, or receptivity, is the condition of inspiration. God can enter the soul only so far as it is prepared and willing to receive Him. What is it to say this? Observe that it only reäffirms the law of intercourse which holds good among all spirits, as much to-day as it ever will, and from the necessity of the case as much forever as to-day. Spiritually, that is really, you approach your friend, your neighbor-spirit, by sympathy. How often have you not felt conscious, in the company of a fellowman where no sympathy existed, that though your lips moved in the habit of courtesy, your spirits were in no sort of contact, but rather shut from each other by barriers as of iron which no effort could pass? That is to say, really there is intercourse between two human beings (i. e., two embodied, finite spirits), just so far as they sympathise, or as Christianity would say "love each other." In this world of sense there may be simulations; the spiritual world is a world of realities only.

Now as by the law of "love," Christianity obligates us, who stand to each other in the fraternal relation, to draw nigh to each other; breaking down all barriers of prejudice, pride, or fastidiousness; so in affirming the paternal-filial relation between God and man, she asserts the fact of similar contact, the possibility of similar intercourse between Deity and Humanity. In other words, what men's relations as brothers enjoins, their relation as children of a Father presupposes. The thought, therefore, of Christianity, - the canon of a rational theism becomes that of the universal, impartial presence of God with Man. If all men are bound to love each other, how indubi

And as no man may

tably true must it be that God loves all men. cherish partiality without sin, how manifestly would any partiality on God's part violate our idea of His perfect justice, and perfect love. Various as may be His gifts, then, to His offspring, various as may be His manifestations of Himself among them, a real equity in His approach to them is an indispensable element in a right religious system. As we cannot rest happy in such a distant abstraction as the vague absent God of pagan philosophising, so we cannot any more in the unsympathetic, arbitrary, capricious Monarch of Calvinistic theologising. No pretended revelation and no logic can make us accept either of these. We demand for our hearts' content the Paternal, ever-present God, of Jesus.

This ever-presence (if I may coin the word) is what we mean by Inspiration. In-spiration; the in-coming of God's spirit to ours. Its postulate was expressed by David, (perhaps, characteristically, the most inspired man of all his notably inspired nation): "The Lord is nigh to all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth." The law which governs it was stated by James, " Draw nigh to Him and He will draw nigh to you." Jesus affirms the condition imposed upon the recipient of it, "God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." As I just now said, it is conditioned by receptivity.

Let us now see some of the consequences of this Law (I mean the Law of Receptivity regulating Inspiration). As we look about us through biography or society, how very un-equal seems this approach of God among men! The first man you meet may perchance appear instinct with spiritual life; his soul kindled with fire from God's altar; some Fenelon or Channing. The second may be a brute whose highest idea would rise no higher than a dollar - to whom the simple word "GOD" (to hear Parker pronounce which, was to imbibe a whole lesson in piety,) would seem to have no significance, except to point an oath.

Be it so yet I reäffirm that in these two souls, and in all others, He is impartially present,—just as He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain alike upon the just and unjust.

To discern this, we have only to place along side the law of receptivity, the law of progress. However savage or degraded or sordid the heart you may look into, you may search history in vain for an example of one which had not at all the sentiment of religion. Or if you find one, it will be so exceptional as only to prove the rule. In other words, "Lo! God is there!" however dimly seen and feebly felt. So much for the germ of the religious idea.