breathing of soft persuasive voices, in low heavenly music, stealing through that wondrous world-a music that comes and goes, that rises and falls,-that waxes now loud and jubilant, and sinks again into softest, wildest plaints,—and all by laws beyond our reach. And now, perhaps, we shall suspect that much of the mysterious charm of music for us arises from the dimly-perceived fact that it is an outward representation of the life of the spirit. It is the mysteries of our own spirits we hear in music, the pleadings of our better nature, the rejoicings of gratitude and triumph, the tremblings of hope and fear, the discordant voices of lower principles, the deep earnest yearning for some unattained beauty, the plaints of disappointment and penitence. But who is it that writes these pictures and breathes this wondrous music in the soul? It is not some blind stream of power or subtle fluid. No, it is another living, thinking mind like our own, but infinitely grander. And these wonders in our mind are necessarily hints and tokens to us of the secret wonders of that infinite mind. Thus we see how the study of the phenomena of the inner spirit introduces us more particularly into the presence of God, where we read his awful handwriting, where we hear his solemn whispers, like the whispers of the deep woods, or the sighing of the eternal ocean, but far more articulate than they. And may we not at this thought feel again the reverence and the holy fear that we may imagine the young prophet to have felt when-in the temple of the Lord, where the altar of God was- -he was startled from his sleep by the voice of God calling unto him, and felt, as it were, the very breath of the Holy One and the presence of the Most High upon his spirit? Why should we not realize this, and say, as Samuel did, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth ?” And yet, how awful is the thought that we are thus in the presence of God! For what is it that we are near? It is infinite and awful might, in whose immediate presence our insect power rests. It is the being whose voice could rend the universe in atoms with a thunder peal, at which all life should perish with affright-speaking to us in calm but earnest whispers. It is clear-eyed, profound, infinite thought that reads us through and through, and before which our poor knowledge is like the attempts of the blind to conceive of the glories of the heavens. It is perfect and unbounded truthfulness, before which our little fallacies, and

self-delusions, and greater falsehoods are set, like poor insect webs, in the burning light that penetrates them through and through, and reveals their beginnings and their ends. It is perfect sanctity, that is ever conscious of all noblest and grandest, all most loving and beautiful purposes, standing close, and looking upon us with infinite sorrow that we can be so weak and sinful. And it is infinite love and sympathy, too, with which we are in contact, which can never forget us, for it converses with us every moment.

And now, in what words can we express the religious emotions which these contemplations give us? In the words of Jacob, "Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not”the words of the Psalmist, " Oh Lord, thou hast searched me and known me," &c.-Psalm cxxxix, to verse 6.

CHAPTER XV.

BUILDING IN THE COURTS OF HUMANITY,

CONTINUED.

LESSON I.

BIOGRAPHY.-INTELLECTUAL INTERPRETATION. -OBJECTS

AND METHOD OF STUDYING BIOGRAPHY.

WE have, then, laid the foundations, at least, of the first compartment or sanctuary in the temple of knowledge-that of mental science; and have erected there an altar before which to offer up our worship to the Most High. We have surveyed the mysteries of our own inner life. What is the next department of study to which we must turn? Why, we look round and notice that we are encompassed, and have been preceded, by a world of human life-by millions of human spirits like our own; and, having found the study of our own life so deeply interesting, we feel a powerful curiosity to look into the life of others. What do we want to know? Whether other minds are characterized by the same general laws which govern our own. We soon find that they are. Then we want to know how-being very much under the same conditions as ourselves-they have proceeded-how they have been influenced-what has been the result in their lives. But especially when we come to know that the grand thing for us in this world is, to realize the five-fold life; then feeling that it is the one thing for others, too, we want to know to what extent they have realized this life-how they have succeeded and how they have failed. If it were possible for us, we could take an interest in going over the whole human race, and noticing the history of each individual life; but as this is impossible, as only comparatively few such histories have been laid open to us-and as even of these we cannot find time to study the whole-we are obliged to make a selection. And upon what principles do we make it? Why, those who have most realized any of the higher forms of life

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are ever the most interesting to us. It is because they have attained this nobler form of life, that we wish to know more particularly how they attained it, and what was its precise character and history. Hence, besides the Scripture lives, let us study together the lives of Augustine, Jerome, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Latimer, and Ridley, George Fox, Fenelon, and Arnold, as men who have attained to a large measure of the religious and holy life. Let us study the lives of John Howard, Oberlin, Neff, Pestalozzi, Mrs. Fry, and Robert Walker, as illustrations of the benevolent life. Let us study Pascal, Milton, Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Columbus, Galileo, Heyne, William Hutton, Ferguson, and Arkwright, as illustrations of the intellectual life. The busts and epitaphs of these illustrious persons are scattered about this building, in those aisles which you know form the compartments sacred to biography.

We commenced our lessons in the chapel of the mind, which lies at the corner of the building. Thence we now issue into the aisles of Biography; and this latter compartment runs round the whole building and flanks the chamber of every study, to signify that every study is also best illustrated by the biography of those who have been distinguished therein. And it is by keeping in mind why we study biography, that we shall know how to study it. In studying any one's history, we should first strive to ascertain what is the kind of life for which the individual is remarkable; then what was the particular form of that life,-how it stood related to all the different kinds of life which we are to realize,-what difficulties he had to contend with in attaining the life realized, -how they were overcome,-what failures there were,-what motives the mind seems to have obeyed in its different actions, and what judgment our mind gives as to the nobleness or ignobleness of the conduct pursued and the character exhibited in the various passages of life.

LESSON II.

BIOGRAPHY-MORAL INTERPRETATION.

BIOGRAPHY is a writing out, in the lives of others, of the principles existing within our own minds. Whenever we read, then, of any one remarkable for the attainment of the higher

forms of life, we are reminded of what our own minds-or rather, God's teachings in our minds-are always prompting us to be. Now, as long as we rest on ourselves alone, we are too apt to be distrustful of these teachings-too apt to find them weak and timid; but when we seem to hear them speaking in the noble lives of many others, then our faith and trust in them is strengthened; our better nature, which before spoke in a whisper only, seems now to take to itself the voices of a multitude of similar natures, and to speak to us with the overpowering force of many waters. And how shall we ever more hesitate to give ourselves up to whatever our souls tell us to be most noble, now that we see that Howard, and Oberlin, and Pestalozzi, and Arnold, and Pascal, and Milton, and a host of others, have lived the nobler life before us? Biography, then, gives us faith in our own higher nature. When we read such noble lives, that higher nature within us begins to speak to us with new and persuasive power. "Go and do thou likwise." It reproaches It says, us, and fills us with shame that we are so far behind the noble ones of whom we read. It persuades us so eloquently, that a new ambition awakens in our bosoms, and makes us determine that we will be like them. This study of biography also gives us courage and faith in our capacities. We see that those who have risen to so noble a life have been men like ourselves; and we think that what men have done men may do. The study of biography acts upon us more powerfully than the study of the abstract principles of religion and duty; because it meets a tendency in us to enact or personate any character that excites our admiration.

Biography also gives us deep insight into the moral character of actions and dispositions, by laying open to us, as in a picture, their consequences, even the most distant. It thus makes us feel sin to be exceedingly sinful, and goodness to be exceedingly good and blessed.

In biography we watch some seed of evil-some bad disposition or action once harboured in early youth-take root and develope itself, until it corrupts and withers the whole character, and causes misery to many connected with it. We see some noble tendency once entertained, in the same way become habitual, and grow and strengthen, until it becomes a governing principle of the mind, fills the life with noble aims and deeds, and sheds blessing on all around.