he perceives and feels the soul-satisfying nature of the answers they supply to ultimate questions. Thus set forth, even when they fail fully to satisfy, they rarely, if ever, fail, in any reasonable mind, to suggest a pause and a reconsideration of the subjects to which they refer. This pause and arrest of judgment is often found to be the one thing needed. Second thoughts can be given and often are given; and these second thoughts, under the directive influence of the Holy Ghost, are afterwards thankfully discerned to be those that at last brought conviction and peace.

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But if truths when presented under the speculative aspects we have been lately contemplating are often found thus to exercise a beneficial influence over minds in reference to doubts and difficulties, still more will they be found of the most vital importance in reference to life and practice. Suppose that our speculative view of the deeper meaning and connection of the old truths that we have just been considering is just and reasonable, what ennobling views it presents of life and its mysteries; what a destiny it reveals; what a veritable high calling in Christ Jesus it points to; what mighty conceptions of the manifoldness of the over-ruling wisdom and providence of God it discloses to the Christian thinker. What an answer it gives to a question already alluded to,-a question which may truly be defined as life's deepest question to each one of us,-Why were you born? Why was I born?" the Christian thinker now may say; "why, to be an actor in a mighty drama, and through Christ to be a fellow-worker, as an Apostle has reminded me, with a restoring Creator. If it be true that there was a lapse in a race higher than my own, and that man was created to succeed to that which was forfeited, then, O the greatness of my loss when sin entered by disobedience, and when the first of my race transmitted to me the dread heritage of a naturally averted will. Yet, O the greater greatness of my gain, when I realized a Saviour, and knew that such were the depths of the divine love, that all that was lost in my forefather Adam, and, it may be more, may be vouchsafed to me in Christ; yes, that my very knowledge of good and evil may be that which will serve to enhance the final moral victory, and that I, weak, frail, and fallen, but saved by my Redeemer's Blood, may be a very instrument in instrument in my Creator's hand in that mighty working wherein with the weak and despised things of this earth He will confound and judge the

strong, and finally consummate the victories of His eternal reign. Such, then, is my high calling; not to live for myself, but for God; not selfishly to merge every thought in the salvation of my soul, but rather, for Christ's dear sake, and for my Creator's glory, to strive to keep my baptismal vow, and to do, through the power of the Holy Ghost, that which faithfully done will involve in itself the salvation of my soul, and will place me for ever and for ever, through His love and mercy, in His kingdom and in the reserved and yet waiting seat. And that is why I was born." Such an answer as this is surely a very noble answer. Surely any conceptions that enable us to make such an answer on conviction, and with full persuasion of its truth, cannot be otherwise than among the most edifying and most morally useful that the meditative spirit can entertain.

And now we may close our somewhat lengthened Essay. We have been naturally led over a wide expanse of Christian thought, but we may suitably return whence we started, by the reiteration of the opinion,-now, we will hope, substantiated, that we are arrived at a more momentous epoch in modern thought than any that has preceded, that now much may be done towards the restoration of belief, but that if this season pass no similar opportunity may ever return. On the one hand, as we have seen, there is a steady drift towards a subtle and pervasive Socinianism, -a Socinianism willing to acknowledge our dear Lord as our only and greatest exemplar, and yet inferentially denying the merits of His sacrifice,-a Socinianism willing even to admit His resurrection, but prepared to deny His divinity, or to accept it only under reservations that either involve contradictions in terms, or, at any rate, are inconsistent with a true faith in the declarations of Scripture and the fundamental articles of the Nicene Faith. On the other hand, we have seen in the awakened feeling for religion, and in the gradual evanescence of the more immoral forms of doubt that presented themselves at the commencement of the period, a clear gravitation towards old truths if set forth intelligently, and placed in their proper relations and connections. These are the two considerations which seem God grant that each earnest man of them according to the measure

clearly brought home to us. among us may act in regard

of the grace given him, and act at once, for the crisis is great, and the time is short.

We now commend these thoughts to the Christian reader. They bear, we know only too well, the traces of interruptions almost numberless, and of constant recommencements that may, to some extent, have marred the continuity and force of the arguments. But it could not be otherwise. The duties, from which the hours have been abstracted wherein to write this Essay, are such as give none of those serene spaces of unbroken time which, we well know, are necessary for the proper treatment of such a subject as that on which have undertaken to write. Still, we have the lingering hope that we may have supplied aid to some anxious thinkers at a very critical time, and have presented, at any rate, some elevating views of life and its duties to the young and the sensitive. If it be so, our efforts, hindered and interrupted as they have been, may yet receive the blessing of not having been made utterly in vain.

Nov. 22, 1869.

C. J. GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL.

ESSAY II.

THE STATE, THE CHURCH, AND THE SYNODS OF THE FUTURE.

BY WILLIAM J. IRONS, D.D., Oxon.,
PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S AND VICAR OF BROMPTON.

CONTENTS OF ESSAY IL