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versity Tests Bill? It is the instinctive consciousness that in the proposed measure far more is at stake than any mere immediate disciplinary change or relaxation of rule of teaching, however important such result might be. Beyond this are seen the consequences in the future; the sure irremediable operation of causes affecting the whole character of this place, penetrating everywhere, working on through successive generations to the end of time, with results most deleterious, as they' believe, to the whole moral, as well as the doctrinal, life of this centre of Church education. As the pressure of air and water tells equally in all directions, so movements in the social and political world work on all sides with a like pressure, raising or lowering the general character, and, as involved in the life of the body, the individual character,-the life of each separate soul, its moral and religious state before God, its form and tone, the essence of its moral life, equally as its outward development; and this not in time merely, but through endless ages.

The circumstances and forms of our social laws and Parliamentary enactments will necessarily pass away, as all outward things, as at length heaven and earth will pass away,-but not so their influence. They will be found to have left their impression stamped for ever and ever on the eternal condition of countless souls. We might well be ashamed of the heat of our political conflicts, if it were not for the instinctive conviction that through the fine and subtle organization, connecting the whole intellectual and moral framework of humanity with its social order, every movement is felt in infinite pulsations indefinitely around and onward, through ever-widening circles of human life, with consequences to which we can fix no limit. If we take into

view the moral effects of social and political movements, it is no exaggeration to say that every moment we are legislating for eternity, and shaping the everlasting destiny of souls by our social arrangements.

How remarkable, moreover, it is that these vast currents of secret influence ordinarily gather themselves up into individual centres, and through them are conveyed to the world. A single man is from time to time raised up to reanimate and mould an age. The influence of ages past has already acted to form his character and aims, and then his genius re-acts upon the world around him to stamp on it the enduring impressions to which he had already yielded himself. You may tell the history of our race by the history of the leading men of their time. Life thus ever acts and re-acts. The countless influences of ten thousand times ten thousand individuals concentrate themselves on the separate heroes of successive ages; as, again, their single influences tell on the generations after generations that follow them. Thus human life, as a whole, progresses and develops, not by decrees of almighty power, not by the will of rulers, not by any fixed laws, but, under the ceaseless guidance of God, by these fine multitudinous influences, in which each man bears his part, influenced and influencing in turn.

Could we penetrate the secrets of the divine order of creation, we should doubtless see that this chain of many links, this wonderful mutual system of influences, lies at the very root of the primary idea of human society as God willed it to be, not merely in special instances, but as an universal law. We are made to live as many members, yet in one body, and these ceaseless endless influences are the links and bands which, having perpetual nourishment ministered to them,

and knit together, form and grow into the one living whole of the ever-fluent mass of human life.

The same law extends to the highest order of humanity equally as to the inferior orders. Pre-eminently is this the case in forming Christ's kingdom. Our Lord Himself is above all influences, nothing external to Himself acting in the formation of His character, except according to His own will. He is the one only independent self-originating Man, for His Manhood was formed under the influence of the Godhead, and Himself is God. Under the influence of His Father's will, He willed His Humanity to grow and develop to His full glory. But He owed nothing to mere human influence. He was separate from His brethren in this, that nothing from without influenced Him, but what He Himself willed. The spiritual life of His elect, on the other hand, is the result of manifold varied and combined influences, equally as the same law applies to all other minor forms of man's nature; the will of God, whether directly or indirectly, working through them according to the secret guidance of His Spirit.

How wonderful in this respect was the first opening of Christianity on the world! The first chapter of St. John commences with the eternal generation of Christ; it closes with the history of the personal influences of man on man in forming the nucleus of His Church. Our Lord is described standing alone, as He first unfolds the purpose of His coming to the world. The whole future Church then lived in His individual person. In His loins, as He stood on the banks of the Jordan, already existed in its multitudinous germs the vast communion of the saints to be born in due time. But quickly that wondrous mystical life begins to develop! And this not by any outward manifestation of

power, not by miracle, not by any distinct effort, not by laboured discourse, but through a secret, silent personal intercourse.

How touchingly, beautifully simple, were the first drawings of the Spirit of God! "The next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi, where dwellest Thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day. One of the two which heard John speak, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus..... The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow Me.... Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph a" Such was the foundation of the Church of God, the city of the living God. The full expression of the truth followed afterwards. St. Peter's confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," was made subsequently to this first ingathering of disciples. The great promise, "Upon this rock I will build My Church," was as yet in the future, an afterpower put forth to consolidate what had been begun. But these personal influences, first of Jesus on Andrew, then of Andrew on Peter; again of Jesus on Philip, and then of Philip on Nathanael, were the be

a St. John i. 35-45.

ginning of the conversion of the world; the turningpoint of that tremendous revolution in which the history of four thousand years closed, and the modern world of Christianity, and in it the restoration of fallen man, and as a minor result, all true civilization, commenced.

The completion of this new society is but the perfect carrying out of the same law of mutual influences of personal fellowship, in which each individual acts on another, and all in God. The same St. John thus describes the message which was given to him to declare of the glory of the future: "This is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." And then he reveals the preparation within that light of the mystical Bride, the chosen company in intimate association with each other in the same light with God, acting and re-acting on each other in God: "But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." The Apostle contemplates the Church of the sanctified walking together within the radiance of a common glory, which he sees streaming from the Presence of God, and which assimilates all in God. The fair supernatural procession passes before his gifted eyes, and within the glory that envelopes the whole body each individual form is luminous with a brightness that reflects itself on others. They know, they exercise their brotherhood; they mutually impart and receive the effects of their mystic fellowship in the gathering together of the energies of a common life, which circulates throughout the enchanted host, to find its rest, from whence it drew its origin, in God. They have lived together influencing each other on b I St. John i. 5.

Ibid. i. 7.

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