the very sound of his axe in the forest depths-is sublimer than all the solemn symphonies of autumn winds sweeping through its majestic aisles.

Grant that matter and sense are man's teachers; and consider these teachings in their very humblest form, in their very lowest grade-what they teach perforce, and in spite of man's will. What are they? Materialism itself suggests to man the thought of an immaterial principle. The senses awaken within him the consciousness of a soul. Of a soul, I say; and what is that? Oh! the very word, soul, is itself soiled by a common use, till we know not what it means. So that this universal endowment of humanity—this dread endowment, by which infinity, eternity, nay and divinity belong to its innate and inmost conceptions, can be at once admitted and almost overlooked, in the account of human existence.

In man the humblest instruments reveal the loftiest energies. This is not enthusiasm, but philosophy. The modern French philosophy has the merit of having distinctly unfolded this principle; that all our mental perceptions suggest their opposites-the finite, the infinite: the seen, the unseen; time, eternity; creation, a God. The child that has tried his eye upon surrounding objects, soon learns to send his thought through the boundless air, and to embrace the idea of infinite space. The being that is conscious of having lived a certain time, comes to entertain as correlative to that consciousness, the conception of eternity. These are among the fundamental facts of all human experience. Such, to a man, in distinction from an animal, is the instrumentality of his very senses. As with a small telescope, a few feet in length and breadth, man learns to survey heavens beyond heavens, almost infinite;

so with the aid of limited senses and, faculties does he rise to the conception of what is beyond all visible heavens, beyond all conceivable time, beyond all imagined power, beauty and glory. Such is a human life. Man stands before us, visibly confined within the narrowest compass; and yet from this humble frame, stream out, on every side, the rays of thought, to infinity, to eternity, to omnipotence, to boundless grandeur and goodness. Let him who will, account this existence to be nothing but vanity and dust. I must be allowed on better grounds, to look upon it, as that, in whose presence all the visible majesty of worlds and suns and systems sink to nothing. Systems and suns and worlds are all comprehended in a single thought of this being, whom we do not yet know.

But let us pass from these primary convictions which are suggested by matter and sense, to those spheres of human life, where many can see nothing but weary labor, or trifing pleasure, or heavy ennui.

Labor, then-what is it, and what doth it mean? Its fervid brow, its toiling hand, its weary step-what do they mean? It was in the power of God to provide for us as he has provided for the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven, so that human hands should neither toil nor spin. He who appointed the high hills as a refuge for the wild goats and the rocks for the conies, might as easily have caused marble cities, and hamlets of enduring granite, to have been productions of nature's grand masonry. In secret forges and by eternal fires, might every instrument of convenience and elegance have been fashioned; the winds might have woven soft fabrics upon every tree, and a table of abundance might have been spread in every wilderness and by every sea

shore. For the animal races it is spread. Why is it not for man? Why is it especially ordained as the lot of man, that in the sweat of his brow he shall eat his bread? Oh! sirs, it hath a meaning. The curse, so much dreaded in the primeval innocence and freedom of nature, falls not causeless on the earth. Labor is a more beneficent ministration than man's ignorance comprehends, or his complainings will admit. It is not mere blind drudgery even when its end is hidden from him. It is all a training, it is all a discipline-a developement of energies, a nurse of virtues, a school of improvement. From the poor boy that gathers a few sticks for his mother's hearth, to the strong man who fells the forest oak, every human toiler, with every weary step and every urgent task, is obeying a wisdom far above his own wisdom, and is fulfilling a design far beyond his own design-his own supply, accumulation, or another's wealth, luxury or splendor.

But now let us turn to an opposite scene of life. I mean pleasure and dissipation. Is this all mere frivolity-a scene that suggests no meaning beyond its superficial aspects? Nay, my friends, what significance is there in unsatisfying pleasure? What a serious thing is the reckless gaity of a bad man? What a picture, almost to move our awe, does vice present to us? The desperate attempt to escape from the ennui of an unfurnished and unsatisfied mind; the blind and headlong impulse of the soul to quench its maddening thirst for happiness in the burning draughts of pleasure; the deep consciousness which soon arises of guilt and infamy; the sad adieu to honor and good fame; the shedding of silent and bitter tears; the flush of the heart's agony over the pale and haggard brow; the

last determined and dread sacrifice of the soul and of heaven, to one demoniac passion-what serious things are these? What signatures upon the soul, to show its higher nature? What a fearful hand-writing upon the walls that surround the deeds of darkness, duplicity and sensual crime? The holy altar of religion hath no seriousness about it, deeper, or I had almost said, more awful, than that settles down upon the gaming table, or broods oftentimes over the haunts of corrupting indulgence. At that altar, indeed, is teaching; words, words are uttered here; instruction, cold instruction, alas! it may be, is delivered in consecrated walls; but if the haunts of evil could be unveiled, if the covering could be taken off from guilty hearts, if every sharp pang and every lingering regret of the vitiated mind, could send forth its moanings and sighs into the great hearing of the world, the world would stand aghast at that dread teaching.

But besides the weariness of toil and the frivolity of pleasure, there is another state of life that is thought to teach nothing, and that is ennui; a state of leisure, attended with moody reveries. The hurry of pursuit is over, for the time; the illusions of pleasure have vanished; and the man sits down in the solitariness of meditation; and "weary, flat, stale and unprofitable, appear to him all the uses of this life." It seems to him, as I once heard it touchingly expressed even by a child, "as if every thing was nothing." This has been the occasional mood of many lofty minds, and has often been expressed in our literature.

"Life's little stage, (says one) is a small eminence,
Inch high above the grave; that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude; we gaze around;
We read their monuments; we sigh; and while

We sigh, we sink; and are what we deplored;
Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot!"
"To-morrow," says our great dramatist,

"and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. * * ** **

Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

But bound up with this poor, frail life, is the mighty thought that spurns the narrow span of all visible existence. Out of this nothing, springs a something-a significant intimation, a dread revelation of the awful powers that lie wrapped up in human existence. Nothing more reveals the majestic import of life than this ennui, this heart-sinking sense of the vanity of all present acquisitions and attainments. "Man's misery," it has been well said, comes of his greatness." The sphere of life appears small, the ordinary circle of its avocations, narrow and confined, the common routine of its cares insipid and unsatisfactory-why? Because he who walks therein demands a boundless range of objects. Why does the body seem to imprison the soul? Because the soul asks for freedom; because it looks forth from the narrow and grated windows of sense upon the wide and immeasurable creation; because it knows that around and beyond it, lie outstretched the infinite and the everlasting paths.

I have now considered some of those views of life which are brought forward as objections against our