outline of it. God first comes to the soul either through the printed page or through the living voice. Truth knocks at the gate of the mind and seeks admission. But the mind is pre-occupied, and says, "I cannot attend to you." Truth knocks again and again, and finally secures an entrance. It then exhibits before the bar of the mind its credentials; or in other words, submits its evidences; and after examination these are accepted and pronounced sufficiently valid and convincing.

Conversion however, has not taken place yet-very far from it. This is only intellectual or historic faith; the main part of the work is yet to come. The mind sends down word to the heart or moral nature that Divine truth is present, and is earnestly claiming its loyalty, its obedience, and its affection. The heart can now take one of two courses. It can hesitate and refuse this obedience and love; it can take the will, which is the bolt of its door, and snap it into its fastenings, and thus bar the truth out, saying, "The throne of my affections is already occupied by my own selfish interests, and I don't want to be disturbed; I have no room for another King;" or, it can throw back the bolt of will and open the door, and give the truth audience, and listen to its claims; and, discovering them to be of paramount and supreme importance, it can say: "I yield. Cast down Self that has so long occupied a throne of power, and do thou reign in and rule over my heart, my interests, my life. I do now give myself up in unreserved consecration to thee, and will henceforth live for thy glory, as I should have done long ago." Truth then comes in, occupies the throne of love, the intellect

yields its obedience, and thereafter Christ is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; and thus the soul truly and savingly believes and passes from death unto life.

POWER OF FAITH.

Having thus glanced at the nature of faith, let us now consider the second main thought proposed, viz.: The power of faith. This world and the next are almost always represented in the Scripture as opponents, each claiming dominion over life, over time, and action. And faith is held up as the agent by which this world is overcome, and a victory gained for the other and better world. Or, stating it in other phraseology, this world stands as the representative of finite and created good, and the other, of infinite and eternal good; the one of things seen, the other of things unseen.

Every one knows by experience that the eye takes in evil by seeing it, and opens the soul to all the attractions and pleasures of this world, to the serious detriment and disadvantage of those interests which pertain to the next. We all know, too, that the soul is ever ready to follow the eye; that desires are enkindled by sight; and that the connection between the soul and the outward world, is not only intimate and close, through the bodily senses, but also most dangerous to its spiritual life and welfare. And hence the need of some power or principle in the soul by which the inordinate influence of this world upon one's spiritual well-being, can be at least partly counteracted.

And just this power of principle, God in his rich

goodness and mercy has given us in the power of Christian faith; the power of taking hold of the unseen; the power which can bring down eternal realities into our souls, and make them even more vivid to us than the scenes of ordinary life; the power which can envelope us in a spiritual atmosphere; the power that can make us regard every action here, as the starting of a wave of influence which stops not in its course until it strikes against the shores of eternity.

Now, if any one asks how faith brings about this most desirable result, we answer: In the same way that the morning sun puts out the stars, by eclipsing them; by overcoming them with superior light and glory, by extinguishing them in brilliancy of a higher and stronger order. God does not act so unwisely as to command us to crucify our love for this world, and then give us nothing to take the place of it. On the contrary, by this divine and miraculous power of faith, he enables us to so connect ourselves with the future and eternal world, that its superior attraction shall overcome and render harmless the seductive evils and pleasures of this.

WHAT FAITH BRINGS TO VIEW.

Thus, to take the place of the splendor and pleasures of earthly cities, Faith brings to view the city of the New Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God, whose walls are jasper, and whose gates are pearl, and whose foundations are eternal; and Faith enables the soul to live within those gates, and to walk those streets, and to sit down beneath that tree of life. In

the place of these earthly treasure-houses, Faith summons us to deposit enduring riches in heavenly vaults where no casualty can befall them, and where no burglar ever penetrates. To keep us from loving our homes with all their conveniences and luxuries too fondly, Faith points to a heavenly mansion in our Father's home above. To enable the soul to release itself from a thraldom to social folly and the gay vortex of pride, and vanity, and display, Faith lifts it up into communion and companionship with the holy and pure society of heaven, and bids it slake its thirst at fountains whose waters inspire, but never degrade or intoxicate. For robes of earthly beauty, Faith speaks of garments of glory that wax not old, and of a robe of righteousness in which all-perfect heavenly dress, our souls may forever shine. And while we are necessarily engaged in earthly traffic and commercial pursuits, Faith invites us to carry on holy trade and barter with the land that is filled with heavenly spices and provisions for immortal wants. And thus, at every point, Faith provides the soul with that which will offset and counteract the influence and deadly fascination of a life in the flesh.

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH.

The victory that overcometh the world is only secured by this power of a living faith; by being so persuaded of the truth of God's Word, and so filled with its light, and so surrounded by higher and better realities, and so impregnated with love for spiritual things and spiritual communion, that earthly objects and attractions shall lose their hold upon us, and

cease to withdraw our feet from the heavenly highway to a truer and better life.

Does any one say that all these blessed results and consequences can never be realized in an earthly life? Then turn to the Bible and read of Abel, and Noah, and Abraham, and Sarah, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Samuel, and then ask, Were these men and women more favorably situated than are the favored dwellers of this nineteenth century? Did they have more light than we, or more spiritual advantages and privileges? Were they not of like passions with us, just as faulty and full of sin and the love of the world? And the answer to these questions will shame such a thought out of any candid mind.

Said Sir Humphrey Davy: "I envy not quality of mind or intellect in others, neither genius, power, wit or fancy; but if I could choose what would be the most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious faith to every other blessing. For it makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes when all other hopes vanish; throws over the decay and destruction of existence the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; calls up the most delightful visions of plains and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, and the security of everlasting joys. And where the Christian believer sees and enjoys all this, the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation and despair."

The fact is, faith as a power in life is even stronger