If terrestrial things are not to prove a snare, we must cherish the elevated mood and dwell in the secret place of the Most High. One side of the dangerousness of human life is to misconceive the place and purpose of the secular world, and therefore to exaggerate or despise it; but the man of spiritual thought and devout feeling, he who is familiar with the larger law and purpose of God, he who abides in the secret. place of the Most High and makes that his standpoint of judgment, has got the true perspective, knows the just proportion, and uses the world without abusing it. He weighs all things in unerring balances, measures them with the angel's golden reed. We are naturally the slaves of the best, the biggest, the brightest that we know, and nothing can emancipate us from the dominion of the present but to see, to taste, to follow the far grander conceptions of a godly life. The roses of the summer may entice those who have not known the fadeless amaranth; broken cisterns charm the thirsty who have not tasted the upper springs; rifted lutes are sweet to ears ignorant of celestial music; and the pedlar's toys of human pride are alluring to those who have not grasped the jewels of spiritual proprietorship and dominion. We are safe from the world only as we transcend it. We must all be Dantes, familiar with the holy laws, the far-off horizons, the solemn imagery of the eternal world, if we are to estimate aright the interests, relationships, pleasures, and sufferings of this present life.

We fight successfully positive temptations to sin only whilst we draw our motives and inspirations from the highest sources. Every step taken into a higher,

holier life secures a completer immunity from the power of evil. Virtually there is no temptation to those who climb high enough; they still suffer the trial of their faith and principle, but they have no evil thought, no affinity with evil, it exercises over them no fascination, it is to them as though it were not. Never deal with temptation on low utilitarian grounds of health, reputation, or interest. If you have a vice, convict it at Sinai; arraign it at the bar of the Judgment Day; make it ashamed of itself at the feet of Christ; blind it with heaven; scorch it with hell; take it into the upper air where it cannot get its breath, and choke it.

And chok'st thou not him in the upper air

His strength he will still on the earth repair.

Migratory birds invisible to the eye have been detected by the telescope crossing the disc of the sun six miles above the earth. They have found one of the secret places of the Most High; far above the earth, invisible to the human eye, hidden in the light, they were delightfully safe from the fear of evil. Thus it is with the soul that soars into the heavenly places; no arrow can reach it, no fowler betray it, no creature of prey make it afraid; it abides in the shadow of the Almighty.

XXVI

ELEVATION AND PEACE

The mountains shall bring peace to the people.—Ps. lxxii. 3.

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EACE originates in strength and loftiness; elevation is the condition of power and calm.

Peace within ourselves can be established only by the very highest and most penetrating considerations. What an abyss of contradictions and conflicts is the human breast! The cosmic struggle is reflected in the heart of man. Our deepest discontent and misery spring out of this schism and internecine warfare. And how trivial and unavailing are the efforts of the natural man to reconcile himself to himself, to get rid of the burden and friction of a nature at war within itself! Our Lord indicates this. "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful." "Not as the world giveth." The natural man attempts to rid himself of the cruel burden of the soul by boldly denying its existence; he plots to evade the painful sense of interior discord by distracting and absorbing his thought upon the outside world; he snatches intervals of unconsciousness in the anesthetics of fashion or indulgence; but whatever is done is shallow and ineffectual, he never

establishes peace within himself, at best only a truce. We know a war picture entitled, "A Quiet Day in a Battery"; it represents artillerists enjoying precarious moments of leisure and refreshment ere they are summoned to imminent action by the peal of the trumpet and the thunder of the guns. Intervals of rest in the warfare of the soul are after this sort; the painful struggle of the spirit against the flesh, the reason against the passions, the conscience against the inclination and will, may be momentarily suspended, but it is not finished, anon it breaks out again as bitter and fierce as ever.

"Not as the world giveth, give I unto you." The disorder of our nature can be successfully treated only from above. The method of the New Testament is to satisfy the conscience by the atonement of Calvary; to destroy the virus of evil which poisons the heart; to vivify the affections by the enthusiasm of love; to strengthen the will in righteousness. It is miserably disappointing to deal with the anarchy of our nature on the low, superficial grounds to which the world invites us. If we covet the radical pacification of a warring soul, we must go for our motives and specifics to a transcending world; great thoughts, stimulations, and succours are indispensable. We must tremble on Sinai, see the vision from Nebo's top, prove the virtue of the green hill beyond a city's wall, drink in the teachings of Olivet, and know the transfigurating grace of Tabor. Only in heavenly places can we treat effectually the tumult, malignancy, and weakness of the heart. J. F. Millet has a saying: "Art lives by passion alone, and a man cannot be deeply moved by

nothing." True holiness is born in passion, it lives by passion alone, and here specially a man cannot be deeply moved by nothing. The consciousness of God, the knowledge of His everlasting righteousness, the experience of the truth, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ, the sense of eternity-these high truths can deeply move us, restrain us, inspire us, guarantee our utmost salvation, and nothing else can.

Peace amid the frictions and wounds of outward life is only possible whilst the soul is uplifted and invigorated by heavenly virtue. Only as we transcend our troubles can we master them. The greatness and loftiness of the mountain must pass into our mind, the wideness and depth of the sea into our heart, if we are to live untroubled by the vicissitudes of human fortune. A thousand pretentious maxims and manœuvres designed to keep trouble at a distance are little less than absurd; vexation and pain must be swallowed up in thoughts and consolations not of this world. The psalmist bemoans himself: "Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness. I would haste me to a shelter from the stormy wind and tempest." There is a truer way than this out of a painful situation.

Mr. Hudson tells us that in Patagonia he was much surprised by the behaviour of a couple of sweet songsters during a thunderstorm. On a still, sultry day in summer he was standing watching masses of black cloud coming rapidly over the sky, while a hundred yards from him stood the two birds also apparently watching the approaching storm with interest. Pres