down into our nature, but there are depths which even its brightest lights cannot illumine. It is thus the philosophy which is given us in the word spirit vindicates itself against all materialistic tendencies, and is borne out by the common consciousness of humanity, by language, by law, and by the common responsibility of the race. In its nature spirit is other and higher than flesh, and lives and moves on a loftier plain.

Such is our nature; and we know also our origin. We can tell whence we came. We are not simply the products of a playful creative power, but the children of a wise love. We can speak of our Father. Evolutionists may affect to laugh at us when we speak of our high origin; but even out of their very laughter we extract a justification of our high claim. For when we have read all that Darwin can say about laughter, and all that Herbert Spencer can say about "an efflux through the motor nerves to various classes of the muscles," and all that Professor Bain has said about the physical and mental causes of laughter, we still find that even over that subject darkness reigns till we have lifted it into the light of the joy and gladness which the Father of spirits confers upon His child man. Thus it is that coming

from Him we bear His image. He is more to us than our Maker. A maker may be wise, mighty, and benevolent, and yet not be a father. That which he originates may be no child. A man may be a maker, and the products of his power and skill may be a poem, a statue, a picture. It may be a machine ingeniously contrived, and of great practical value; but a child is another thing. And so God may make worlds and systems, group systems, sun systems, cluster systems, nebulæ systems, ulterior systems, and an ultimate system, and yet not be a Father. There might be a central heaven, and yet no circles of living loving children there. The Maker might not be able to see in that which He made anything that could intentionally reflect His thought, reciprocate His feeling, or imitate His acts. Nothing that appears in books, in lectures, or in any aspect of popular teaching, must be allowed to make us overlook the fact that we have not only a Maker, but a Father.

Surely, then, the noblest of all human occupations is to keep ourselves in "subjection" to One who occupies so lofty and yet so close a relation to us all. There is nothing higher for childhood than that. Our loftiest duties centre there. What manner of human spirits

may we hope for when once the eye is open to this august and glorious parentage? Having intellect, affections, and will, man, as God's child, is able to show by his nature and conduct what the heavenly Father is. When the human spirit thinks truth, loves purity, and wills high and holy deed, not only is it shown that man's Father has a nature that is spiritual, but that He has a character that is glorious. The spirit of a Shakespeare, a Milton, a Dante, a Goethe, arrayed in all the beauties of possible holiness, with every element of power in willing and loving subjection to the Father, would be a mighty rebuke to a materialism that dreams of getting along without God, or soul, or immortality. Surely, then, some moral splendour may be expected to surround a child whose Father is God. Subjection to Him can never degrade. The lowliest will be the loftiest. The spirit that bends most lovingly touches the very pinnacle of glory. By the discipline he receives the nobler childhood reveals itself. The despair of the philosopher and of the moralist just now is the difficulty that is felt in securing the proper discipline for man. They cannot agree about the quantity or the quality of it, because they cannot agree about that which is to be disciplined. They

cannot fit up a proper school for man, for they cannot quite make up their minds what kind of scholar he could be or should be. But the Father of our spirits knows how to teach us to profit.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE FATHER OF ALL.

THEOLOGICAL Writers regard the Fatherhood of God as having a general and a special aspect; He is the common Father of the race, but He is peculiarly the Father of men who are "born again." There are those who question the distinction, who in fact deny the twofold relation. Nothing is easier than to exaggerate the importance to be attached to the fine distinctions that men draw, or to descant on the consequences that might follow by lessening their value. The mind can easily become dramatic as it pictures the results of any departure from its own point of view. It takes alarm at any effort to modify its conclusions, and marshals its forces for defence and attack as if the foundations of the universe were about to be disturbed. Becoming suspicious, it becomes irritable, and regards every phase of opposition as a conspiracy against truth. It is forgotten that finite minds require

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