Jesus. Everything else is sand or mire. Scheme out your life of pleasure-it is the baseless fabric of a vision. If you know not what it is to feel the power of the Gospel in changing your own heart—you are living to no good purpose you are wasting-infinitely worse than wasting --all your toil.

But suppose you have the foundation. You have been converted to God. You know what it is to have passed from death unto life. What are you doing now? What are you building on this foundation-what have you built already? Have you followed the plans of the Great Architect? Are you building for eternity? Are you gathering and rearing an edifice of durable material? What will remain of your work when life is over? The man that does his work as a Christian, will rear that which can never perish. Worldly men scratch their names on the sand of the sea-shore, and the next wave washes out what they have done. But if you perfect your own soul in righteousness-if you live a life of devotion and prayer-if you leave the impress of a hallowed influence on the minds of others, your work will endure. The fires of the last day will not consume it. It will attest in the judgment your fidelity to your Master.

But if it be otherwise-even if your own soul is saved, which is barely possible, your work will perish. You will see it all melt away and vanish. It will consume like the stubble. It will be a pile of ashes. The winds will scatter and drift it away. And where will you beif saved, yet saved so as by fire-liko a man escaping from the flames and leaving all behind?

Remember what a firm and noble foundation is yours. It is the Rock of Ages. It will sustain a devoted, faithful life. Let your career, then, be worthy of it.

ONE

XXV.

THE LIVING TEMPLE.

"Ye are the temple of God."-1 Cor. iii. 16.

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NE of the finest passages in the writings of that grand old Puritan, John Howe, is the one in which he describes the desolating, ruining effect of sin upon the soul of man, which he compares to the unsightly remains of a decayed and neglected temple. It was destined to a noble use the worship and service of the Most High. But it has become desecrated and polluted. Even in its ruins, however, something of its old grandeur clings to its crumbling walls and its fallen pillars. "The stately ruins are visible to every eye, that bear in their front (yet extant) this doleful inscription-HERE GOD ONCE DWELT. Enough appears of the admirable frame and structure of the soul of man to show the divine presence did sometime reside in it; more than enough of vicious depravity, to proclaim he is now retired and gone."

What thoughtful mind does not feel the truth of this? The soul of man is the most wonderful of all God's works. It was intended for his special service, and was made the object of his special favor. It has become polluted and desolate, and the object of Christ and of the Gospel is to purify it again for himself.

The soul of man is the most wonderful and admirable of God's works.

Which is greatest, St. Paul's Cathedral or its architect-St. Peter's, or the genius of Michael Angelo that spanned its lofty dome? There are human works that hold us spell-bound by their beauty or their grandeur while we gaze upon them. What must Solomon's temple have been, which a Roman emperor strove to save from the flaming torch? What is the Taj of India with its massive walls, its stainless marble, and its grand proportions? Yet these are all inferior to the architect's ideal. In his own mind are thoughts greater than can be hewn or piled in stone.

The painter, the sculptor, each produces works which entrance us almost. They are called "masterpieces." But what is the confession of their authors? The rude stone is not plastic enough to yield back the pattern of their nobler thought. The mind, the mind is greater than all.

But what are human works to God's works? What are the pillars of Karnac and Luxor to the pillars of the mountains? What is the painting of the ocean in storms to the grand original? What is a sun on the canvass to a sun in the heavens? What is the cannon's roar to God's thunders and earthquakes? Without lifting our eyes to the broad heavens or surveying the lofty and overpowering proportions of nature's great temple, this earth we tread, with its rivers and lakes, its cliffs and mountains, pours contempt on temples, and palaces, and pyramids, and Chinese walls.

But the soul of man rises sublime above all these. It weighs the globe as it were in scales. It soars to immensity. It travels back to an eternity past, or anticipates an eternity to come. It glows with love, or burns with lofty passion. Its spiritual history is the romance

of creation, before which the story of land or sea, of monsters or earthquakes grows tame; and even in thought it stands on the ashes of a cindered globe, exultant in a destiny that has just begun when worlds have ceased to be. It is grander than the mountains, richer than the mine, brighter than the jewel, and more glorious, when consecrated to its true end, than all the array of suns and stars. It is the crown of creative might. It is "the jewel in the ring of the world." It is the picture for which the wealth of Croesus, the power of Cæsar and the splendors of empire can furnish no fitting frame. Even with all these, it may well seem like a gem set in clay. When its true worth is developed, it pours contempt on them all.

Without man, without the human soul, what is this globe, but a mere curiosity of creative might? It is upon the soul that the very wealth of infinite wisdom, power and love seems lavishly poured out.

But the soul was intended for God's special service, and as the object of his special favor. No one can doubt it. The proof is in its constitution and workmanship. He evidently designed it to be what it is capable of being. And what is that? Who can tell? When you see a persecuting Saul become the Apostle Paul, and hear from his saintly lips, amid prison glooms and rigors the language of angelic triumph; when you find the gentleness of the beloved John ripening into a heavenliness of tone and feeling, and hope and joy, till it seems scarcely strange that his Patmos Vision should become a daily experience; when you find a plain man like John Howard, by the power of consecrated charity transformed into an angel of mercy, so that amid the foul air of jails he seems to breathe the atmosphere in which angels

sing; when you find even commonplace gifts and a commonplace lot transfigured into the means and features of an earthly paradise by the presence, and prayer, and devotion of a spirit that has bowed at the cross; when you see the lowliest of mortals, a servant, or I had almost said a drudge, bearing about with him in his daily petty duties so much of heaven, that the greatest and wisest― like Archbishop Secker-on a dying bed send for him, that on the fervor of his petition the departing spirit may be borne as it were up to the throne; who dare say to what any one, even the humblest may not attain; what virtues may not chrystallize into a crown for his brow, what riches of reverence, and love, and unbought honor shall not embalm his memory?

Yet all this is only to what fallen man, by the grace of God attains! Did God create the soul without designing this? Did He make it capable of being a “king and priest unto himself” when He only meant it to drag a muck-rake and gather straw? Did He endow it with affections that can soar to heaven, when He meant it should scratch the dust and pick at crumbs?

No! The soul of man was meant for all that it is↓ capable of being. And its highest end-by the side of which that of imperial aspirants is but the ambition of an ant-hill-is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. The soul is to be yielded up to God, that His will may work in it and through it. It is to be plastic to the great purpose for which He made it. In a word, it is to be holy as He is holy; it is to be His consecrated, His living temple-His sacred name inscribed on its portalall the wealth of time and probation a willing sacrifice upon its altar.

And how consonant and accordant is this with the