other the Great Worker, brings freedom, quietness, assurance, and the joy of the husbandman in the time of harvest. Work, which was a curse on the sinner, becomes a blessing on the ransomed and redeemed

man.

Now, as for your pleasures, Mary, I would fain have you take them not stealthily, fraudulently, as it were, not as winked-at sins, but with the simplicity and security, with the frankness and gladness of privileged children; take them as God's gifts, which it is part of your duty, as well as your privilege to take-not as the devil's snares. What you regard as sin becomes like sin to you, defiles your conscience, hardens your heart, separates you from God. Hence the great guilt of those who lay on other men's shoulders burdens which they are not able to bear. Christians are bidden be a peculiar people, but it is only the Quakers who consider that the peculiarity is to be in the cut of a garment, or the turn of a phrase; and it is only the austere and fanatical of all sects who can look upon the separation as the repressing of the natural healthful impulses of youth, the closing of those kingdoms of art the aim of which is to repeat the glorious beauty of God's work in nature. The true peculiarity, like the true worship of God, is a peculiarity of spirit, not of form. Have faith in this, and it will deliver you from bondage to the beggarly elements of this world

from will-worship, from pietism-save you from many an anxious thought, weary doubt, causeless pang. This is belonging to Christ's free men, and having the perfect love which casts out fear.

Your love of kindred-and it may be of one nearer and dearer than kindred-your innocent, if humble, satisfaction in your youth, beauty, cleverness, and sweetness, and in all the advantages of nurture and education which are to refine and preserve them; your walks, talks, rides, drives, work, dress, games, your companions and pets, your dances and songs, your very jewels and flowers. My dear, my dear, I would like you to take them all in a grateful and glad spirit, but not to indulge in any of them to excess, and so to keep the watch over yourself, the restraint upon yourself, the consideration for others, the fear of God which is duty, and which will convert the acceptance of every simple pleasure into a duty. But I would have you to accept them as fearlessly all the while, as you accept the breeze and the calm, the sunshine and the shower.

CHAPTER XVII.

FAITH AND PRACTICE.

Faith often Separated from Practice—External Profession Dangerous, if not accompanied by Inward Devotion-Christianity must be Eyerywhere or Nowhere.

I HAVE been asking myself, Mary, if there is a thing I would fear more for you than a divorce between your faith and your practice; yet it is so common in the world that people do not even notice it, or speak about it. They seem to take it for granted that you should acknowledge in word on Sunday what you deny in deed on Monday; and often the more austere, mystical, vehement the profession, the wider the moral breach between the low-toned life and the high-toned creed.

of my

fellow

God knows I would not judge any creatures, or their creeds; I would not, especially on a peaceful Sunday evening, dare to judge them; I would fain think of Him "who keeps the keys of all the creeds," and leave them to their own master. I know that poor human nature must always fall short

of a lofty standard; and I believe that the worshippers who raise such a standard, and who could not have the purity of heart to conceive it without Divine grace, may be sincere in their aim, even while they are not only falling lamentably short of it, as we all fall short, but while they are backsliding into gross sin, and repenting in dust and ashes. I believe a man or a woman may be grievously inconsistent in his or her walk, and yet may not be hypocrites. All the Pharisees abounding in gospel days, (and abounding still,) were not hypocrites. Many were actuated by zeal, though a mistaken zeal. Paul bore them record that they had a zeal, though not according to knowledge; and the brave, generous, impassioned apostle could wish himself even accursed from Christ for his brethren—his kinsmen according to the flesh. while readily granting these truths, I feel so convinced that you could not take a surer mode to warp, corrupt, sap your faith, than by Pharisaical profession; I feel so persuaded that the high-handed bigotry, intolerance, self-righteousness, extravagant pietism, and fantastic superstition of the Pharisees bore as its fruit, in natural, almost inevitable revulsion, the profligacy and the infidelity of the Sadducees, that I would have almost as much hope of you, a Sadducee, as a Pharisee. In the days of the Lord there seemed little to choose between the two; and in the latter case--utterly shipwrecked

But

and hapless-like the prodigal son sent into the country to feed swine-the very misery of the contrast might drive you, with bleeding feet, and beating your breast, to turn and travel the way back to the Father's house.

are

It is no light matter this divorce between faith and practice. It is the saddest consideration in Christendom. While you hear comparatively little about it, as you listen to perpetual definitions between the converted and the unconverted, perpetual calls to the unconverted, directions of the way to be saved, recommendations to more transcendental doctrine, more rapt contemplation, injunctions to almsdeeds, and contributions to missionary purposes you frequently left to learn from your Bible alone, that though you attend all church services, abstract yourself rigidly from every worldly business and recreation on Sunday, though you read the Bible night and morning and at midday, and pray yea seven times a day, though you teach in Sunday-schools, visit in districts, be an active member of ninety societies having for their object the reformation of the vicious and the relief of the poor, though you preach and teach like a very priest, rather than a woman, withal, if you are habitually (and it is quite possible you may be so) proud, selfish, cold or hard-hearted, arrogant, exacting, greedy, vain, censorious, spiteful, mean, (all this without broadly breaking the letter of