that law or principle has once been pointed out, multitudes who could never have discovered it for themselves may be quite able to verify it. The law of gravitation was unknown to man for ages, till one great mind arose, of grasp sufficient to penetrate into the arcana of nature, and bring to light this great secret of her order; but, now that the discovery has been achieved, all men of ordinary intellectual capacity can apprehend its evidence, and satisfy themselves of its truth. Viewed merely as what is knowable—involved in the laws of human thought—all Euclid is in the mind of a savage; but whilst minds of the rudest cast may easily be educated into the capacity to verify Euclid, how very few of the whole human race could have struck out his discoveries for themselves! All abstract science or philosophy, in fact, is but the evolving of the latent contents of our consciousness-the bringing to light by observation, reflection, analysis, of those truths which implicitly are possessed by all; but though, virtually, these truths would never become really ours, they would never be known at all by common thinkers, but for the aid which the discoveries of high and philosophic minds afford them. So again, to what is it that the great poet owes the power to charm and thrill the minds of men— what is the secret of the spell which his genius

exerts over multitudes, but this, that he gives expression to their own indistinct and unuttered thoughts and feelings-to thoughts and feelings which, though none but men of rarest genius could articulate them, the common heart and soul of humanity recognises as its own? Millions can perceive and appreciate the power, the reality, the trueness to nature, of the great writer's productions, who could never themselves have produced them. There are multitudes of "mute inglorious Miltons," though there never lived but one who could write the "Paradise Lost." Dim, indistinct, nebulous, the thoughts of beauty and truth lurk in many a mind, but it is only the creative voice of genius from without that condenses and shapes them into visible beauty-gives to them local habitation and name-and so, by interpreting ourselves to ourselves, commends its utterances to every man's consciousness in the sight of God.

Now, to apply this principle to the case before us-It is obvious that the appeal of Scripture to man's reason and conscience does not by any means imply in man's reason and conscience a capacity to discover divine truth by their own unaided exercise. Here, too, is a case in which it is possible for the human mind to recognise and identify that which, of itself, it could not have

found out. There may be, and we shall in the sequel attempt to show that there are, in the soul, latent beliefs, dim inarticulate yearnings, unexplained hopes and aspirations, which are to itself unrealised and unintelligible, till the outward shining of divine truth pours light and meaning upon them. There may be, and we maintain that there are, inscribed on the mind and conscience of man, the characters of an unknown language, to which revelation alone supplies the key, and which, read by its aid, become the truest verification of that which interprets them. Bring "one that believeth not, or one unlearned," face to face with him who speaks the Word of inspiration, and, as he listens, there will be roused within him a something that claims in that Word a strange affinity with itself; "he will be convinced of all, he will be judged of all; the secrets of his heart will be made manifest, and so he will worship God and report that God is here of a truth." In that world of eternal and invisible realities to which, as spiritual beings, we belong, there are heights too vast for human soaring, mysteries too profound for fallen humanity, of itself, to penetrate. But though by no unaided "searching" could we "find out God;" though, again, the conception of a pure and holy moral law, or yet again, the vision of a glorious immortality, be

unattainable by any spontaneous effort of human reason, yet there is wrought into the very structure of man's nature so much of a divine element, there is a moral standard so ineffaceably inscribed on the conscience, there slumbers in the universal heart a desire and yearning after immortality so deep and strong, that that Bible, which contains in it the revelation of God and Holiness and Heaven, finds in the awakened soul an instant response and authentication of its teachings. Divine truth, therefore, undiscoverable by human reason, is yet so in harmony with it; inaccessible to the human mind, yet so accords with all its half-acknowledged principles and aspirations; inexpressible by human lip, yet so expresses for man things which he thought but could not utter for himself that it "commends itself to every man's consciousness in the sight of God."

2. Again, in averring that the truths of revelation commend themselves to the consciousness of man, not only do we not ascribe to the consciousness a power to discover those truths, but we do not even imply tha tthe consciousness in its unrenewed and imperfect state is qualified fully to recognise and verify them when discovered to it.

It might be admitted that the mind of man, in its unimpaired and perfect state, is so in harmony with the mind of God as at once to echo and re

spond to the utterance of that mind in his revealed Word. But the mind of man is not perfect and unimpaired. The moral reason has become dimmed and distorted, so that, instead of affording a perfect, unerring reflection, it breaks and refracts the light of truth into a thousand unreal forms and phantasms. It might be possible for the inner eye and ear, if endowed with all the soundness and delicate susceptibility of health, at once to recognise the beauty and harmony of divine things; but the vision of the soul is blurred, the spiritual ear has lost its sensitiveness to heaven's music. How then any longer can the soul be regarded as the criterion of truth-how can it be asserted that the truth commends itself to every man's consciousness? Is not such a statement at variance with that other doctrine of Scripture, that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned?" And if, in answer to this, it be said that there is a restorative operation of the Spirit of God on the minds of those who receive the truth, still it may be rejoined, that it is by the truth, apprehended and believed, that the Holy Spirit works in restoring or renewing the mind, and that therefore the apprehension or recognition of the truth must be, in some sort, prior to the restoration of the mind to purity and good