HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY. 



25 



understand except as the image in a warped and tiny mirror 

 of a grandeur elsewhere existing, over which such limits have no 

 sway. Man has a Will so weak as to be drawn aside from the 

 right by the most unworthy allurements, daunted by the most 

 despicable difficulties, palsied with ignoble sloth ; yet capable 

 of holding its own purpose and choice against the world. He has 

 an Intellect, weak enough to be befooled by transparent fallacies 

 and led astray at every step by prejudice and passion ; yet 

 powerful enough to measure the distances and motions of the 

 stars, to track the invisible sound-waves and light-waves in their 

 courses, and to win from Nature the key of empire. He has 

 Love, which wastes itself among the dregs of life, or sufiers 

 selfishness to wither it at the root ; but also which is able to 

 lift him to the sublime height of self-sacrifice and is the in- 

 exhaustible fount of the deepest and purest happiness he knows 

 or can imagine. He has Conscience — the sense of right and 

 wrong — easily perverted, and which has by turns justified every 

 crime and condemned every virtue ; yet which nevertheless 

 proclaims that right, not wrong — everlasting righteousness, not 

 self-willed injustice — is the imperial law of the universe. I ask, 

 Is the scale in which these attributes are seen in man their true 

 scale ? Is it reasonable to think so ? Do they not assure us, as 

 with a voice from the very depths of our being, that there must be 

 a Supreme Will, irresistible, unswerving, pervading and con- 

 trolling the universe ; the source of all law, but a law to itself ; 

 guided unchangeably by infinite knowledge, absolute righteous- 

 ness, perfect love ? 



" The teaching of Christianity is definite on these points. It 

 encourages the hope that in a higher condition of existence our 

 best aspirations shall be allowed a wider scope. There will be 

 provision for increase of knowledge : for here ' we know^in part,' 

 but there shall ' we know even as we are known.' There will 

 be assimilation of character to Him who is supremely good : 

 for ' the pure in heart shall see God.' There will be limitless 

 accessions to happiness : ' blessed are the dead that die in the 

 Lord.' There will be abundant room for the exercise of our social 

 sympathies, in ' the general assembly and church of the first- 

 born, which are written in heaven.' There will be, what is pre- 

 eminently congenial to the Christian heart, intimate fellowship 

 with Christ Himself : for there ' shall we ever be with the Lord.' 

 There will be eternal security and felicity : for ' they go no more 

 out.' " 



