32. In the event of a doctrinal dispute in a Church, who is the proper authority to appeal to, and how should the question be determined?

PHILOSOPHUS

33. What are the grounds for identifying, as is frequently done, the Babylon of prophecy with Papal Rome, there being so many particulars in which they disagree? QUERE VERUM.

LOVE BEGETS LOVE. "The sentiment of love is realized by love. We cannot know God except by becoming the image of God. Indeed only in so far as man is thus, thinks thus, can he give the reason of any. thing that God has made. Spiritual truth is apprehended by being spiritual. The flight from evil,' says Plato, 'consists in resembling God, in becoming holy, just, and wise.' The mind,' observes Channing; 'alone is free; which, instead of stopping at the material, and making it a prison wall, passes to its author beyond, and finds in the radiant signatures of the infinite helps to its own enlargement.' At times we are as very angels, till things inferior steal in upon us and rob us of our better selves. In truth, we are of a spiritual nature, however much that nature may be dimmed, and the reality of virtue fills the heart with ineffable joy. But the bondage of matter falls away one day, and the soul, rich in spiritual wealth, coming to itself, proceeds heaven-ward, fit associate for angels indeed, all the sons and daughters of God. When gifts celestial descend upon the soul, then do we discern what it is to

be of the divine image, and of the spiritual nature which never dies." H. MCCORMAC,

THE END AND THE MEANS.

"No end is secure without welldigested means. Now, the great end is present and eternal progress, the means, never-ceasing action, heaven-ward and Godward. 'I would not,' observes Kant, 'give one of Kepler's discoveries for a principality.' What principality, indeed, could equal the eternal principality, which science realizes in the empire of thought? No wisdom equals that which reveals man to himself, teaches him to regard social institutions, nay his whole life, as the possible means of unfolding and exalting the spirit within. Then let us cherish angelic thoughts, the fellow-workers whom some day we must let go, that angels may come in. And thus shall we further the divine, thus realize the conception of that eternity whose nigh approach illumines life's close, as the rising sun illumines the glad expanses of the sea."-Ibid.

THE DESTINY OF MAN ANALOGI

CALLY VIEWED.

"The brevity of human existence, and even the precariousness of that existence, are arguments for its higher destiny. If a touch, the breaking of a fibre, too minute to be visible, the sting of an insect, may extinguish for ever the finest imaginations of the poet, the profoundest thought of the philosopher, and the noblest purposes of the statesman, where do we find such waste in nature? Not a dying leaf is thrown away, not a drop of water is lost, not a particle of earth but varies into new forms. And is man the only instance of this contemptuous prodigality of Creation? The whole analogy of nature compels us to believe that the great purpose of Providence in this world is, to train both our moral and intellectual faculties for a perpetuity of progress in another, to exercise our mental nerve for the conquest of perpetual difficulty, rewarded by a perpetual increase of power, and that power given only to render us capable of the knowledge of a higher sphere, to prepare our intellectual eyes for the expanding glories, and to invigorate the spirit of man for the mighty mysteries of Providence."

DR. CROLY.

THE CROWN OF THORNS.

"History records that the leader of the first crusade, the illustrious Godfrey de Bouillon, after his conquest of Jerusalem, refused the title of king, offered to him by his soldiers, declaring that he would not wear a crown of gold in the place where his Master had worn one of thorns. Unlike him we are but too willing on this earth, where Jesus wore a crown of thorns, to accept one of

gold-like so many kings; and we replace on His head that crown of thorns when we place it on the heads of the poor, the despised, the weak, or the desolate, in each of whom we ought to recognize the person or representative of Jesus. We press down that crown upon their brows, and behold with indifference the streaming blood which mingles itself with their tears; or rather we see nothing; we do not even suspect the secret mortifications, the crushed affections, the insulted modesty, or worse, the gradual debasement of heart and mind, which take place in men whom our respect might have raised in their own eyes and led to merit esteem."

EARTH'S SALT.

VINET.

"Ye are the world's light, the earth's salt. Such are the emphatic utterances in which the Founder of Christianity addressed those who were to transmit divinest effluences to the hearts and souls of their kind. Oft, while sympathizing with those who suffer in humanity's sacred cause, we, too, would shoulder the cross with Christ, would drink the hemlock with Socrates, ascend the pile with Servetus, languish in the dungeon with Galileo, traverse the brine with Priestly, yet not the less do we crucify, poison, burn, imprison, banish, in the gentler forms, indeed, which the charities of modern life alone sanction, the man at our very doors who fain would sprinkle a little salt on the weeds of human error, venture to shed some rays of light on the yet abounding darkness. Yet, O brothers, true associates and dear friends, faint not nor hesitate by the way. To-morrow ye embark on the broad ocean

of eternity. Ye, too, shall be revered while others fill your place. Nor is there a jewel however bright, or glorious secret, which, in the transit of the ages, ye shall not lay bare before the enraptured gaze of rescued, rejoicing humanity." H. M. C.

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. "Much has been said and written about the church of the future; but it is here present, it is also now. The church invisible has no distinction of sect or nation. Its members are everywhere. Unpaid, as far as material rewards are concerned, they work for the common weal. This church exists in the east, it exists in the west, it knows no distinction of north or south. It acknowledges all peoples, celebrates its services in every tongue. The orisons of the faithful ascend from every clime. Its members hear betimes of each other, sometimes by what they do, sometimes also by what they suffer. They perchance know each other when they meet. Worshippers of one true God, they do not malign opponents, or seek to consign them to moral perdition

and social death. Members, too, abound in all the churches, but all the churches are not members. The church of the future, the invisible, the universal church, is increasing, must increase, for it comprises the right thinkers and well-doers at once of earth and heaven."-Ibid.

GREAT THINKERS.

"Great thinkers are the very salt and glory of the earth, rescue it from spiritual despotism, the tyranny of unreasoning, prescriptive, thought;-in a word,spiritual slavery and the idolatry of days and forms. According to their measure, they are a continual inculcation of goodness, and holiness, and truth, the very children of light and of the sun. Regardless of material interests merely, they realize a higher life, the poetry of life, life and poetry together;

Innumerous spirits who sun themselves Outside of time.

For on them, and such as they, plays the very air of heaven, the divine afflatus which comes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither."-Ibid.