spirits to the heirs of salvation. We have heretofore stated the grounds upon which we believe that a sainted class from the human race have already risen into the rank of the highest form of spiritual being-the glorified manhood of Christ. Others may be in lower stages of progress to this high estate. But that, of those who have gone before us, there are many who are now our defenders and helpers in this battle of life we are confident. We all confess this as concerning the Head. Why should we deny it of the members of His body through which the Head performs His ministries of power and grace? We cannot, therefore, assume any attitude on this subject which virtually denies that the invisible realm about us is peopled with spiritual beings, the most powerful class of whom are our own guardians and friends. Nor dare we assert that all avenues of communication between them and us are closed. Nor can we forget that the whole drift and energy of that divine operation in and for mankind, which began with the resurrection of Jesus, is toward this very end-the opening up of the now hidden channels of intercourse between the natural and the spiritual worlds, between earth and heaven. "Hereafter ye shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." The closing chapters of the Bible depict this marriage between earth and heaven. It is quite possible, yea, it is to be expected that, as that day draws near, there will be increasing activity along the border line that separates these regions. Counterfeit presentments of spiritual verities may be expected to be multiplied, so artful as to deceive, if possible, the very elect. And, on the other hand, we may expect increasing glimpses

of the true wonders that there lie hidden, as the veil that

While we reject the false ourselves to the true.

hides them grows more thin. we must be careful not to blind There are those indeed who believe that the darkness must grow more dense, and that the opening up of the spiritual world can only come by the sudden descent of the now absent Christ through the parted clouds. But such interpreters mistake, we think, the symbolism in such Scripture language for the substance. We see no reason why the uniform law of development in all divine operations should not prevail here also. Development indeed does not exclude crisis. Transformations are sudden when everything is ripe for change. But a ripening implies previous growth and progress. And so we are to view all the changes and activities around us as part of the ripening process by which all things are being made ready. And therefore we are not to be surprised-we are to expectthat the barriers that now shut us out from things unseen, and bar the access to us of agencies from the spiritual realm shall show signs of breaking down, and that some glimpses will be afforded of things that lie behind the veil. In the early days of Christianity such foretastes of unseen things were viewed as the normal accompaniment of the new light that had come to the world from heaven. We now look upon them as miracles confined to that era. But they were due to the same divine and eternal energy that is ever operating in all nature, and in all life. If we had the early faith, it would remove mountains that shut us out from such fellowship with the invisible world, and open up for us and in us the secrets of life and of power that lie hidden there.

THE DIVINE LOVE.-It is the universal quality and attribute of the Divine Love'that it seeks to impart itself and its immortal blessedness to everything; and the condition of receiving it is to be willing to receive it, to desire it, to hold the soul passively open and upward toward it, and to believe and trust that it is saving us. Fichte has truly said, "that we must already be in a certain sense that which we would become, in order to become so." Desire of more and better life is its commencement. Hence Jesus affirms, "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth" (Matt. vii, 7). This is absolutely true. The reason, the cause, the hidden spring of our asking for more life, or for any spiritual good, is because we have it in a degree already. We must recognize the truth and reality of this. And since belief or faith is the ground of all reality, as everything is real to us in the same proportion as we believe it, we come into actual possession and mental appropriation of it by faith only. God can give us nothing except through faith. Hence Jesus says: "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive, and ye shall have" (Mark xi, 24). The faith is the reality of the thing itself, for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hence it is not only philosophically reasonable, but absolutely certain from one of the deepest laws of our being that the prayer of faith shall save the sick. And this is no departure from the laws of our nature; in other words, no miracle, but only the operation of a higher law, for in the realm of spirit what is viewed as supernatural by the psychical mind or man, becomes there perfectly natural.-W. F. Evans in "Esoteric Christianity."

A CONTRAST.

We have recently been interested in reading a brief history of the life and times of Cotton Mather, who, nearly two centuries ago, was the most influential PuritanPreacher in Boston. The most influential preacher in the Boston of to-day is doubtless Phillips Brooks. In reading of those old days, one is forced to reflect upon the contrast between the theology and the type of Christian living then prevalent and that of these days. Cotton Mather was a stern and rigid Calvinist, holding that out of the reprobate mass of mankind only the elect were saved, and that it was the one great business of life to discover the evidences of one's election and then to make that calling and election sure. The elect class, also, in his view, was the only class who had the right of rule in this world. Hence, the Puritan's attempt to establish the ideal state in the form of a theocracy, in which men like Mather were the vicegerents of God. And the right and duty of the state to gather out the things that offend and to destroy the works of the devil was illustrated in the zeal of the authorities of that day, urged on by Cotton Mather, to extirpate witchcraft. The story of the inquisition and execution of many persons at Salem and elsewhere, who were believed to be thus possessed, is a well-known and marked feature of those days. It almost seems like a nemesis when we read of the disappointments and domestic troubles through which Mather was compelled to pass in the later years of life; his oldest son, on whom his heart and hopes were set, turning out a reprobate, and his third

and last wife, seeming to be herself, at times, almost possessed with an evil spirit.

And yet we cannot but greatly admire the sturdy devotion to truth as they conceived it, the self-sacrifice, the fidelity to conscience and to duty, the lofty aims and ideals of those old Puritans, from whose virtues-transmitted as a heritage to their descendants-the state and social life of New England still derive many of their best and most enduring elements. What is most missed to-day in the social system which these men founded is their stern devotion to duty, their commanding interest in great spiritual realities, their determination not to sacrifice the future for the sake of ill-gotten gains and pleasures in the present.

Nevertheless, who would be willing to exchange our present for that stern past? Those men believed in a God, sovereign indeed, and yet arbitrary and vindictive, a large part of the human family cut off from any fatherly or loving relation to Him and doomed to an eternal hell. Their human sympathies were thus shut up in narrow channels. The skies above them were covered with a pall, the shadow of a curse rested on the earth, and especially on its highest creatures made in God's image. The struggle of the human mind to break through the fetters of this dark and degrading doctrine of God and of man has been attended with dangers-no good is ever won without risk-but the gain has been immense, and it will, in the end, be proved that the atmosphere of hope and high expectation is vastly more favorable to the progress of the human race God-ward, in righteousness and purity, than was the old environment of gloom and despair.