they are compared with other systems, and especially the more they are practised. Whether another great teacher will ever be sent to help us still further onward, it will be time enough to inquire when Christendom begins, in good earnest, to try the experiment of practical conformity to his religion. He has uttered the great diapason tone which would bring all discords into harmony. If only one nation would conscientiously obey his laws, in her internal and external regulations, she would be lifted up, and draw all the nations unto her. War and slavery, the gallows and prisons, would disappear from the earth. No miracles recorded in the wildest legends of the Middle Ages equal the power of Christian Faith to cast out Evil Spirits. No prophecies of a blissful future are too golden to describe the sunshine of universal Love.

On each individual soul devolves the duty of helping to produce this sublime result; and this can be done only by reverent obedience to inward convictions. God has not made conscience an infallible pope, to decide what is right or wrong, true or false; therefore, the most conscientious men may conform to a very imperfect, or even a wrong standard, on some subjects, while they adopt a very high standard with regard to others. This has been the case in all ages and countries, and under all forms of religion. It cannot be otherwise with beings who are formed. by influences from two worlds. But it is an established law of our being that disobedience to our own consciences darkens the condition of our souls; while sincere reverence for that inward voice brings us gradually into greater and greater light. In this way, individuals who are true to their own convictions are always helping the public conscience to rise to a higher plane. A large majority of men, in all ages, are guided almost entirely by popular opinion; and that opinion derives its power of growth from individuals, who become mediums of Divine influence, by fearless obedience to their own internal light. The heroic old monk, who rushed into the amphitheatre to separate two gladiators, commanded to murder for the amusement of the

Roman populace, was put to death for obeying his own conscience, more enlightened than that of the people; but his voice afterward became the public voice, and gladiatorial combats were forbidden by law. Clarkson incurred much odium and persecution by denouncing a traffic, sanctioned by all the merchants of his time, licensed by the government, and not rebuked by the clergy; but eventually, the public conscience rose to his level, and Christian nations thenceforth branded the slave-trade as piracy. Once thoroughly impressed with the utter wickedness of the trade, he naturally came to the conclusion that a system originating in such monstrous violation of justice and humanity must also be wrong. His earnestness influenced other minds. Elizabeth Heyrick learned from them, and, with woman's spontaneous insight of the heart, added that if slavery was wrong, immediate and entire cessation from it was the only right way. The interior perceptions of these honest souls, fearlessly proclaimed, became the moral sentiment of the British nation; as they eventually will be of the whole world. In every village, there are a few individuals striving, on some subject or other, to live up to a standard higher than the community around them. Their truthful natures yield to a strong conviction that their own consciences ought to be obeyed, whatever men may say. Very often they see no further than this; and continue to labour, year after year, uncheered by hopes of changing the current of public opinion. But though they know it not, they are working for the ages. Each, in his own way, is a medium of the Holy Spirit.

While sincere and earnest individuals raise the standard of their own times, the age, improved by their efforts, educates other individuals, who, being thus raised to a higher point of view, can command a more extended vision than their predecessors. By obedience to a law within themselves, above the existing laws of society, such individuals help to raise the moral standard of succeeding ages to a plane still more elevated. By this mutual action and re action between the public and private conscience, the world

is slowly rolled onward toward its long-promised Golden Age. It is a glorious privilege to help it forward, even the hundredth part of an inch. It is a fearful responsibility to retard it, even a hair's breadth. Every one of us can aid in the great work, if we always look inward for our guide, and follow the voice of conscience, which to each one of us is truly the law of God.

"Reverence for what's oldest, truest,

Friendly welcome to the newest;
Cheerful heart and purpose pure,

So our onward way is sure."

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