glowing reflection of the delight which the sight of of saying it, for I find that they keep us apart. I her called up in his. "I am so glad to meet you, dear Harold; but I must not forget to tell you that I have a message from Cyril. He wishes to see you, and he desired me to tell you to hurry home, and go at once to the library, where you will find him waiting." "Wishes to see me, and at once! Do you know what it is about ?" "No; I have not the slightest idea." "So it's Cyril's sovereign pleasure that I hurry home to see him. Well, he must wait until I have had my talk with you. I have a great deal to say, Lucy, and the present time may be my only chance am in trouble, little sister, every day drifting further away from those who ought to love me." "Oh, Harold! don't say that." "I must, Lucy, for it is true; but will you get down, and walk with me a little way?" "Oh yes, Harold, I shall enjoy it." He assisted her to dismount, and Roberts having received his instructions, took Dasher's rein from Harold, and led him slowly along the road, leaving the brother and sister to walk under the arching trees. Little did they think it was the last they would take together for many months to come! (To be continued.) B ELLIPTIC ORBITS, AND STARS IN THEIR COURSES. BY THE REV. J. B. OWEN, VICAR OF ST. JUDE'S, CHELSEA. EFORE the discovery of the polarity | vagrant phase of mind in some professing Chrisof the needle, mariners had only the tians. A living minister remarked: "The compass sight of the North Star by which to on board an iron vessel is very subject to aberrasteer their ships. Hence the peril cf tions, yet for all that its evident desire is to be true a fog or a cloudy night, and even daily to the pole. True hearts in this wicked world, of the daylight itself, when no star appears, and and in this fleshly body, are all too apt to swerve; their only guide is obscured in the major light but they still show their inward and persistent of heaven. The needle in the compass does not tendency to point towards heaven and God. On dispense with the need of the star; but, just as board iron vessels it is a common thing to see a the Bible is not God, but shows the way to God, compass placed aloft, to be as much away from the so the compass is not the Pole Star, but indicates cause of aberration as possible-a wise hint to us where it is, by ever pointing to the heavenly to elevate our affections and desires; the nearer to fixture, night and day, fog or cloud. The value of God the less swayed by worldly influences." This the star to navigation is its fixedness; and the sentiment is at once charitable and admonitory. compass, like its magnetic centre, must be fixed in Charitable, as it makes allowance for religious its proper place in the vessel, or it will point to the eccentricity on the score of carnal infirmity, like the star in vain. tenderness which coxdoned unseasonable slumber, by avowing, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak;" admonitory, as our position in a world full In these views, scientific observations in nature are suggestive of analogous laws in grace. Such are David's definitions in Ps. cxii. of the experience of temptations resembles the compass in an iron and privileges of the upright, unto whom "there ariseth light in the darkness." Guiding his affairs with discretion, he is not "afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." It is the absence of these characteristic features of spiritual navigation which occasions so many shipwrecks of faith. "It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats," i.e., not with perpetual change of dish, variety of doctrine, and vacillation of fellowship, but with the sovereign grace which, like its Divine Author, is "the same yesterday, today, and for ever." The term "wandering stars implies that men, like the original angels, may be stars, and yet subject to irregularities of orbit. Apart from the control of Divine grace, the loftiest intellects are liable to spherical aberration. It is possible, after a fashion, to be religious, yet to be erratic and eccentric in religion. It is useful to xamine the causes, general and particular, of this vessel, whose loyalty to the pole is subject to irregularities incidental to its surroundings. Consequently, we have need to watch ourselves-to mind the points on which we are steering-from time to time to examine the chart, and correct the log, by observing that Day-star from on high, whose blessed office it is to guide our feet into the way of peace. There never was a time in the annals of the Church when the caution was more needed; viz., "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God." Secular literature displays an effrontery of assertion or of denial, as it suits its purpose, in relation to historical records, which is to a large extent emulated in sundry schools of theological thought; and the sole efficient refuge from the delusions of the latter is in the honest and intelligent resource of the Bereans, who "searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so "-which they seldom ELLIPTIC ORBITS, AND STARS IN THEIR COURSES. are. At all events, whoever the teacher, and whatever the teaching, "if it be not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." This statement may sound trite and familiar, but it is just the most familiar truths which are most apt to be controverted, and which we are most prone to doubt. Our very familiarity with religious elements suggests their probable adoption without previous sufficient inquiry; and thus, because we had not been "rooted and grounded" in the faith, we suspect with equal carelessness that the faith itself has no root nor ground. To examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith, implies, first, acquainting yourselves with the faith itself, otherwise how can you ascertain whether the faith in which you live is the simple "truth as it is in Jesus?" Having possessed yourselves of what should be believed, through the operation of the Spirit, who takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto you, thenceforth, if you would grow in grace and sanctifying knowledge, you must pray to be kept steadfast and immovable; not as children, driven to and fro with every wind of doctrine (except the wind of Pentecost), but to quit you like men, strong in the faith, and helping by precept and example to keep others steady also. The habit of frequent changes of doctrinal views and Church fellowship is unfavourable to progress in personal piety. It is easier to extend the vocabulary of cant than to enhance the depth of religious conviction. Following the latest novelty in dogma, like the world in pursuit of its fashions, dogma and fashion both successively passing away, the risk is, to find ourselves at each remove farther from God. Some who did run well, having begun in the Spirit, fancy themselves made perfect by the flesh. It is a serious interruption and loss in educational advancement to shift a boy from school to school; the effect is scarcely less prejudicial to spiritual attainment, to be from time to time varying our religious premises. It is like tacking in navigation, which presents more beating about than making way. In the course of a vessel under the prevalence of contrary winds, there may be no alternative except to tack, or let her drive, or return to port. But in the course of sincere Christians "the wind that bloweth where it listeth" is never contrary to "the haven where they would be," and whither they are chartered and bound. It is this yielding to the vagrant instinct, indigenous in man, which occasions those intermittent fevers of divergence, which so often end in a faith foundered and gone down. It was so with the angels who kept not their first estate. Their fall demonstrates that no perfection of communion will of itself secure its members from wandering. It did not exempt even those who were stars of heaven; and tergiversation among men, the indulgence of the wandering propensity, although of an 55 intellectual star of the first magnitude, is no necessary evidence against the constitution of the religious body forsaken. Assuming the sterling Scriptural organisation of the Church within whose pale the providence of God has placed us like the infant Moses assigned to the nursing of his mother, there is neither wisdom nor safety in the act of casting ourselves into other hands. Nor is the influence of roving to and fro among the ministries of the same church, without reasonable occasion, at all wholesome, or tending to edify. It is more significant cf itching ears than of being spiritually minded. The series of moral oscillations may be the effect of prejudice, or of partiality, or sheer love of variety, or want of appetite for solid food, or the outcome of religious errantry, or desultory lounging of indecision, but it is not religion. It is the mind offering to the Lord that which costs it nothing, except to please itself, which is a cheap and easy devotion, too cheap to be good for anything, least of all, good for the soul. It is an echo of the old shibboleth, "I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ;" which last in their own narrow, bigoted, shallow, un-Christlike exclusions, they all pretend, and few realise. What a temptation it is to our natural vanity, unchecked by the self-denying vigilance which takes up its daily cross, instead of the fancy of an occasional creed, to affect the elliptic orbit of the comet-to be striking for one's singularity, and an object of attraction to public interest by one's supposed rarity, instead of imitating the obedient, persevering stars in their unvarying order, from age to age, night by night, in their heavenly courses for ever! Scripture often alludes to certain didactic phenomena of the stars. Thus, on their ushering in the birth of the young world, to whose inhabitants they were to officiate for signs and for seasons; to indicate the perfect harmony of their volutions, the image is, "The morning stars sang together." To illustrate the protecting providence of God, always hovering over whatever concerns his people, the defeat of their enemies is ascribed to his appointment of "the stars in their courses to fight against Sisera." To intimate the direction whither the discoveries of astronomy should conduct us, the new star in the east leads the wise men to adore the mystery of "the new thing created upon earth "-the incarnate Son of God. And to point the fatal and eternal aberration of the first apostates from Divine law and order, they are described as wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." Even stars, by their wandering, so far from magnifying their brightness, forfeit it, and sink in darkness; a standing memento of the peril involved in moral tergiversations of all kinds, in a blind or blank misuse of talent and privilege, Its as it is written, "If the light that is in thee financial calculations, and by even a few fallacies in become darkness, how great is that darkness," political data. gathering intensity from its own reaction! deep judicial shades are contrasted with the "path of the just, as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Thus the heavenly bodies serve as an illuminated sheet of revelation, declaring the glory of God in his created laws of harmony in diversity, like the various instruments in an orchestra, all co-operating after their kind to accomplish the purpose of their Divine Contriver. Inferior things, whether stars that beautify the fields of heaven, or flowers that stud with gems the bosom of the earth, obey their mission with a greater fealty to their instinct, than men or angels have displayed fidelity to the infinitely higher laws of their conscious being. Thus instinct is the suggestive lesson to reason. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." We don't sufficiently consider this great maxim, that duty is the highest style of dignity, whether its proper course lie in the obscurity of a mass, like the myriads of the Milky Way, or in the nearer conspicuous brilliancy of the evening star, which, like a minor nocturnal sun, casts the hosts of its luminous competitors into comparative shade. Every beam of beauty depends upon its adherence to the fixed laws of motion which regulate its action. A star out of course would be, for aught we know, a catastrophe to annihilate a globe. A man out of course implies a greater calamity, the wreck of an immortal soul. Yet how easily we suffer ourselves to be drawn aside from the particular line of duty in which Providence prescribes our work! Instead of abiding in our calling, and glorifying God there, we choose rather to glorify ourselves elsewhere, and affect to be honouring him by the violation of his own allotments. There is more of seeking honour one frem another than of contenting ourselves with the honour that cometh from God only. Instead of shining, like stars in their courses, we think to shine anywhere rather than in our own orbits. We risk the peril of becoming wandering stars, and our light, such as it is, shines before men, not to guide them to glorify our Father which is in heaven, but to glorify ourselves who are on earth. This is so entirely of the earth earthy as to smell of the dust whence it comes, and whither it returns. Working out theories of our own, and even theories that wear a guise of plausibility, we may be actually doing most harm when we flatter ourselves we are doing most good. Small departures from principle open the door to great apostasies. The most trifling inclination beyond the line of the centre of gravity is pregnant with the most fatal issues. This truth is illustrated, not only in religious incidents, but by the effect of small errors on The awful desolations of Paris recently and at this moment are a normal specimen, on a scale of infamous intensity, of the results which naturally follow the setting up of ideas of government equally opposed to the prescriptions of revelation and to the conclusions of human experience. The French Commune was a high crime and misdemeanour -a contradiction of sinners against God and man -which gave the lie to all religion, and a blow to all statesmanship. It proclaimed to atheism in its most revolting forms, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness;" and blazoned it abroad in the lurid, incendiary fires which spared neither palace of kings, nor house of God-neither the houses of the populace, nor the centres of their industry, nor the asylums of the sick and poor escaping the indiscriminate carnage. Its practical version of political liberty was the abolition of all law, the assassination of all rulers, the confiscation of all property, and the most shameful relapse from civilisation into aboriginal barbarism. The clock of history was put back to ages anterior to a Book of Chronicles. It proved not only the inherent danger of eccentric theories, but the incidental mischief and misery inseparable from the malignant villany and ignorance of such instruments as alone can be found to put them into practice. The conceits of philosophy may raise a political sluice, to find morality and freedom only the first of the series of the bonds of society borne away by the flood. None but minds of insufferable egotism, unlimited as their phrensied fanaticism, would risk such a catastrophe as that which has degraded, even more than it has ruined, unhappy France, for the sake of visionary theories, but real felonies, whether in religion or policy. The philosophers of 1793 inaugurated their school with its homicidal hecatombs, and their sacrilegious successors of 1871 have cumulated the oblation by kindred holocausts; and the culminative remedy for their victims is to include the perpetrators, like the priests in the house of Baal, in the exterminating sacrifice. I could weep for the poor murdered Archbishop of Paris, and the unhappy priests who shared the cruel fate of their diocesan. Personally, I believe they were exemplary men; but, alas for themselves as well as others! they were agents of an ecclesiastical system, rather than ministers of God for man. That system failed in its hour of trial; it was weighed in the balances and found wanting. Every system, and every particular opinion which cannot stand the test of the sanctuary, cannot but damage those who trust in man's devices, instead of contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. Our train of thought may be summed up in enforcing the greater peace and security to be when we have taken up some other belief, made 66 enjoyed in pursuing that steadfast, straightforward There is always the peril in departing from the path which the Scriptures describe as "turning faith of never returning to it; and least of all neither to the right hand, nor to the left." If God's word proclaims a curse on the presumptuous sin of adding unto or taking away from the letter of the standard of truth, the caution is equally applicable to the completeness and inviolable sanctity of its spirit. Any dogma, emotion, or practice out of harmony with the inspiring spirit of Christianity incurs the like judgment which is denounced against a trespass on its sacred letter. I believe the Articles of the reformed faith to be as fully complete as the standard of Divine oracles whence they are derived. There are no new doctrines to be drawn from the Bible, nor any, whether new or old, to be tolerated from anywhere else. Believing the book to be God's book, it is not sounder theology than logic to believe theological laws to be no less perfect and immutable than science discerns the laws of nature to be. We act with confidence on the laws of nature, so far as they are known; it is inconsistent, as well as immoral reasoning, not to obey with at least equal faith the revealed laws of grace. If we did, we shall perceive a Gospel in the Scriptures, no other beauidéal of human perfection will be tolerable, except the Divine study-the man Christ Jesus. Instead of losing time, wasting thought, and making less "increase with the increase of God," by having recourse to philosophic theories and oppositions of science falsely so-called, we shall avoid what Job calls "the old way which wicked men have trodden -which were cut down out of time," and ask for Jeremiah's "old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and find rest for our souls." The best and only preservative against being seduced into error, and being perplexed by its endless conflicts and weary controversies, is "to receive the truth in the love of it," to "buy the truth, and sell it not again." "Where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also;" but if our affections do not embrace the principles which our understandings admit, and even appreciate, we shall be always liable to go astray. The raven and the dove both wandered away from the ark, neither of them found rest upon the world of waters, but only one of them returned to Noah. All safe progress, whether in religion or policy, must be based on fixity of principle. Should a general act without a reliable base of operations, his army will be deficient alike of a refuge in retreat, or of a rallying-point round which to centralise his forces. "The name of the Lord is a tower of strength, the righteous runneth into it, and is safe." "His bow abides in strength." The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion." "I am Jehovah, I change not." Marked by a like characteristic of invariable affiance in him, are all they that put their trust in him. On a voyage I may trust the ship's captain, and no thanks to me, for I have no one else to trust; but if I chose the ship before she sailed because it was his, that is real special confidence in the commander. Lord, make my faith in thee, like a true charity, not given grudgingly nor of necessity, not trusting thee at one time and something else at another, but choosing thee for thine own sake, and joining myself to the Church of thy redeemed, as Ruth clave unto her mother, with the filial, loving vow, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God!" 眼 DAVID AND GOLIATH. "And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee."-1 Sam. xvii. 37. HERE is silence through Elah-and, mute Stand the warriors of Israel in battle array; As the giant of Gath draws exultingly near. |