Preached Sabbath morning, August 7th, 1859, in the OldSchool Presbyterian Church in Peekskill, N. Y. It is inserted here as affording, more comprehensively, perhaps, than any other sermon of Mr. Beecher's, a general view of the nature of true religion, as founded in love.

LOVE, THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW.

"But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."-MATT., xxii., 34-40.

In this brief word Christ has drawn away the veil from the heart of God, and let us see its very central secret. It is love.

The most wonderful work of art in all ages, doubtless, was that of Phidias—the famous Jupiter. No artist has ever equaled Phidias; probably none ever will; for we shall probably never have an age again whose deepest life will be expressed by the instrumentality of art, and only such ages can produce such artists as Greece had before Christ, and Italy afterward. This wonderful statue of Jupiter which Phidias made was wrought of ivory and of gold. It was a carved figure sitting upon a throne with majestic air, holding in its left hand a statue of Victory, and in its right hand the sceptre of empire. So vast was this extraordinary work, that, sitting in the chair of state, it still towered forty feet in height. Into no other figure and face had art ever thrown such astonishing majesty. Men made pilgrimages to see it. He was counted happy who had seen, and he was counted unfortunate who died without seeing, the Phidian Jupiter. It was placed at the end of the temple; and historians say that if it had risen up it would have carried away the roof and the

ceiling with it, so tall was it. Before it was stretched a purple curtain to hide it from common observation; but on appointed festival days the crowds of citizens-excited by an uninstructed religious fervor, wild with exhilarating dances, odorous with the fragrance of costly perfumes through whose smoke they passed, as censers and altars shed them forth at every corner, and in multitudes along every square-drew near to the temple; and now, when sacrifices were made, and the vast throng were hushed with silent expectation, at a signal the priests drew back the purple curtain, and the vast statue, white as snow and yellow as gold, shone forth with such amazing lustre that the crowd were subdued to tears; some fainted, some were caught into a nervous furor that was counted an inspiration; and not one was there among them who, for the moment, doubted the reality of the divine Olympian Jupiter.

And yet this was a statue that spoke not a word. No heart throbbed there. No light waked in those eyes. It was a mere idol, that thought not, moved not, felt not, but sat silent amid ages-silent as the elements of which it was made the cast-off trunk of elephants in African forestssilent as gold buried in the mountains. Not one of all that throng but had more life, more intelligence, more scope and magnitude of existence than that majestic lie before which they cast themselves down, the slaves of their own imaginations!

No carved stone, no ivory and gold, have ever sought to express the majesty of Jehovah. These things were good enough for Jupiter; they were unfit for Jehovah. From the beginning, the Hebrew mind could find nothing on earthnot even in the framework of the globe itself to represent their conception of Jehovah. The morning light was but the golden fringe of his garments. Not even the locks of his hair were to be so likened. His slightest look they called lightning. His lowest tones were sonorous bolts of resounding storms. And when the mightiest rendings of nature were

ended, there came forth a prompting voice, saying, "These are parts of his ways, but the thunder of his power who can understand ?"

God is a spirit. Mortal eye can not behold him. Were God to appear corporeally, it could not be God, but only a representative form. He is to be known spiritually; that is, by thought and by feeling-not by eyesight, but by insight of heart. In this manner Christ, in the words of our text, drew back the veil from Jehovah, and disclosed this God of love! He drew back the veil from the counsels of his heart, and revealed love as the secret of his wisdom, the end of his thought, the genius of the divine disposition. He drew back the veil from Time itself, and revealed the workings of history, and made known to us that to secure the dispositions of love all those events and arrangements were framed which occupied the first four thousand years of the world, and whose outlines constitute the Old Testament. He drew back the veil from the future, and revealed to us that this same central element is to be the fulfilling of the law in ages to come. And since the days of Christ, the divine Helmsman has been steering the ship of human affairs right toward this light-house of the universe-Love; for such do I suppose to be the unrolled and interpreted meaning of the words, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." All that was recorded in the past or foreseen in the future pivoted on this one golden centre-Love.

If men do not understand what God expects of them, it is not for want of explicit teaching. Words can not be plainer, nor are they contradicted by cross-passages that obscure the meaning. The whole New Testament is uniformly consistent in declaring love to be the whole duty of man.

The human mind is a kingdom of powers or faculties which are very different one from another, but which may be made perfectly to harmonize. When they are influenced aright, they, like the instruments of a band of music, blend and enrich each other; but when they disagree, they clash,

and, as with an ill-assorted orchestra, though each instrument be good, the whole effect is discordant and detestable. Now how shall a man carry his mind at peace with itself -in co-operative harmony? How shall he carry himself in harmony with his fellows? How shall he discharge his duty, in short, to God, to men, and to himself? Is there any royal road to this? There are a great many ways in which men affect to discharge this duty, according to the different ideas entertained by different individuals in respect to what constitutes right living. One man says that we ought to be governed by reason in all things, and that where men are governed by reason they will live as well as they can be expected to live in this world. Another man thinks that we ought to be just. He looks upon conscience as the governing element of a well-ordered life, and says, "If men were only just, how perfectly would they live!" Another man regards worship as the controlling principle of our conduct in life, and says, "He that reveres God, and walks humbly before him, can scarcely go astray." Another man believes honesty and industry to be the prime characteristics of right living, and says, "He is sufficiently good who is both honest and industrious." Another man esteems good citizenship to be the most essential quality of human conduct. But, high above all these, the voice of God says, "Love is the fulfilling of the law;" and he who wishes to know how to carry his mind aright must learn the philosophy of love. He who wishes to know how to shape his life aright among his fellow-men must learn the way of love. There is but one pilot from the cradle to the grave-there is but one pilot from this world to the eternal sphere-and his name is LOVE. He never steers the ship upon the rocks, and no other pilot ever carried it through the voyage of life unwrecked.

I propose this morning, first, to examine what is the indisputable testimony of Scripture on this doctrine of love; secondly, to ask what is included in this feeling; thirdly, to inquire what is the condition in which it is to exist in us; and