in the "inner man," or it will be dry, formal, unfruitful, dead. It is something more than dry formalism, cold assent, and barren orthodoxy; it is an active principle, a spirit, and a life.

In order to be truly religious, it is necessary, indeed, that the mind should be enlightened and the intellect expanded. But it is possible for a man to possess much religious knowledge to be well acquainted with religious creeds and theological dogmas, and still possess a hard, unfruitful heart. Piety does not consist in mere profession, morality, sacramental efficacy or orthodoxy, as some suppose. No; it is something infinitely superior to all this: it consists in a right state of heart. "The kingdom of heaven," says Christ, "is within you," and the " root of the matter" was found in the good old patriarch.

III. RELIGION IS A VITAL REALITY IN THE SOUL-"root.” By this we understand religious principles-the germs of religious character. Some read the expression thus: "The substance of piety," &c.—the sum, the essence, or principle of goodness. The root is used to denote the basis of anythingthat by which any object is sustained; "the figure is taken from the germ or root of a tree—the seed or living principle of a plant." We take it to mean, therefore, the elements of truth— the principles of religion. Those principles are the seed, the springs, of religious character. The tree with rotten roots soon withers and falls before the storm. So we may say with regard to man: if destitute of religious principles, he cannot stand in the day of tempest. "When persecution or tribulation, because of the word, comes, by-and-by he is offended," and the reason is, "because he has no root in himself;" but the man who acts from principle, who is grounded and rooted in truth, will bear any test of character. Persecution, temptation, sorrow; all these confirm his faith, and strengthen his hope. In every storm he strikes his root deeper and deeper into the soil of everlasting truth.

Every building has its foundation, every language has its

alphabet, every tree has its roots. So also every religion has its principles-its elementary truths-and every man ought to possess fixed, decided, religious principles. This is essential to healthy activity-to progress in the divine life.

for

IV. RELIGION IS A VITAL REALITY IN THE SOUL, EVER DISCERNIBLE. It is "found" in man. It cannot be concealed any length of time: the goodness of the heart is soon seen in the life. The passage has been rendered thus: "The root of the matter is disclosed in me." It is "found" first by God, the searcher of the heart; he can see it when no one else can. This was a source of consolation to Job at this time: he felt that this goodness was in him, and he knew that his Maker saw it, when his fellow-men regarded him as a hypocrite. "The Lord knoweth them that are his;" he "understandeth our thoughts afar off." "All things are naked and open to the eye of him with whom we have to do. It is found or cannot remain

discovered, too, by the man himself. He ignorant of it long; he must know his own character. He knows what he loves, what he hates. It is "found" also by his fellows. A man is known by his conduct as "the tree is known by its fruit." He cannot be known in any other way by his associates. Where religion exists in the heart, it will manifest itself in the life and conversation. It is not a "candle under a bushel, but on a candlestick." It"shines before men" it enlightens the family, the town, the country, and the world. The seed is not for ever covered by the soil. It appears, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the The leaven influences the "whole lump"; the well of water bursts forth through the ground, and will, by and by, find the ocean; the light "shineth more and more till the perfect day." The "root of the matter" also is disclosed and made manifest.

ear."

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Every principle, good or evil, develops itself. It is progressive in its character. Principles are developed by circumstances-adverse as well as favourable. Nothing tends more to develop religious principles than sufferings. This

truth is exemplified in the case of Job. The furnace of affliction purified and refined his moral character: after being tried, "he came forth like gold." He was "made perfect through sufferings." Joseph, David, Daniel, and the three Hebrew young men, are other scriptural instances. Difficulties are essential to greatness of character, and he is but a poor soul who cannot brave them. Sufferings strengthen all true principles. The storm fans the spark into a conflagration. Rains and winds strengthen the fibres of the tree. So to the good, "all things work together for good”—the cloud as well as the sunshine, the frown as well as the smile. Let us pray for that religion that will bear the test of suffering -sorrow and death.

Reader, bring the subject home to your own heart. Can you say, truly, "The root of the matter is found in ME"? If you have not the "root of the matter," you have another root in you" the root of bitterness"-the root of sin-which will, ere long, spring up a deadly plant to poison your whole being. Pray for the "root of the matter," that you may grow up as "plants of the Lord"—" trees of righteousness"-which will be transplanted at last in the paradise of God.

HENRY P. BOWEN.

Middlesborough.

Analysis of Homily the Sixty-first.

"But we have the mind of Christ."-1 Cor. ii. 16.

SUBJECT:-The Mind of Christ.

MIND here we regard as meaning, not the disposition, but the thinking, conscious agent-literally, mind. There are two senses in which we may be said to have the mind of Christ-REPRESENTATIVELY and PERSONALLY.

There are three ways in which the minds of the great men

of past ages come down to, and represent themselves, to us: through the character of their disciples, literary records, and their historic influence. First. True disciples ever reflect the mind of their teacher. Thus the conduct of the docile and affectionate child represents the spirit of its departed father, and thus the philosophic schools of antiquity represented for ages the mind of their founders. Jesus had his school. He put his few disciples in possession of his mind,-both its great ideas and governing sympathies he left the world. They faithfully represented his mind to others. They died; but their followers, in their turn, transmitted the mind which they received; and thus on to the present moment. We look at the true church, and we can see in it the mind of Christ. Thus, over the long line of eighteen centuries, His mind has come down to us through the souls of his devoted followers. Secondly. The minds of great men come down to us from remotest antiquity, through literature. A man's book is a kind of second incarnation of himself—a body which he makes for himself in which to travel this earth, ages after his fleshly tabernacle has crumbled to dust: it is a kind of ark, in which the mind of its author comes floating down over the flood of centuries. Men of oldest times are still working here in their books. Homer sings to us now, the voice of Demosthenes still fulminates on our ear, and the thoughtful Socrates is interesting the thinkers of this age with his sage and suggestive talk. Thus the mind of Jesus has come down to us. Though he wrote, perhaps, no book of his own, he had sympathetic and infallible amanuenses-men who recorded his thoughts and deeds, his sufferings and sayings. The New Testament is full of the Saviour's mind: there it glows and corruscates. It pulsates as the vital current through every part. And then, thirdly, the mind of great men come down to us in their historic influence. In reading the history of mankind, the names of persons come under our notice who create epochs, and leave their footmarks upon the destinies of many generations. Such persons, though they might never have had a disciple or wrote a book, still have their minds reflected

in the institutions and genius of nations. Christ's mind has come down to us in this way. His existence in this world eighteen centuries ago is the great interpretative canon of history: it explains the mental proclivities, the refined sympathies, the moral honesties, the social benevolences, the civil liberties, and the true religiousness of the civilized world. The undeniable and ever-increasing influence of the despised Galilean upon the general thinkings, customs, and institutions, of mankind, through all subsequent times, is a historical phenomenon without any parallel, and admits of no explanation on the common laws of human influence.

But we have not only "the mind of Christ" representatively, but personally. Whether the minds of departed men are personally present with us is a question belonging exclusively to the speculative realm of thought. They may or may not be: it does not become us to dogmatize, for we have no data to guide us in the inquiry. The case is different in relation to the mind of Christ: he has distinctly assured us that he― not his mere influence, but himself; not by mere representation, but in person-is with his Church always, even unto the end;-with it to enlighten, sanctify, guard, and strengthen it. This fact gives the Bible a wonderful advantage over other books. I take up the work of a departed author, and I find many things which I cannot understand, but I have no help; he has long since departed this life. I have no reason to believe that his personal mind is present with me, that he knows the perplexities of my mind concerning his thoughts, or that he either would or could assist me to comprehend his meaning. But when I take up the Bible-though it has been written for centuries-its Author is by my side; he knows every thought it awakens; and he not only can, but does, help every earnest inquirer.

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We shall now proceed to draw, and illustrate two general inferences, from this wonderful fact. If we have the mind of Christ, then

1. WHETHER WE RIGHTLY ACT IN RELATION TO THAT MIND