of GOD,-to come and quicken them by warmth from heaven. O thou Lord and Giver of life, who art the Author of all godliness, vouchsafe thy presence and thy blessing to our united meditations! Grant that he who writes and he who reads may feel the power of the truths which we consider together! Grant that what issues from the heart may reach the heart, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together!

Our first endeavour must be to attain a full perception of what we mean by Personal Piety: and therefore our First Part will enquire into THE ESSENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. And then, since this life is a subject of inward experience, and reveals itself in the consciousness by gradual manifestations, our Second Part will trace THE PROCESS OF ITS DEVELOPEMENT. And further, since, like all life, it requires sustenance and is capable of increase and invigoration, our Third Part will indicate some of the principal MEANS ON WHICH DE

PEND ITS NOURISHMENT AND GROWTH.

And now then, in this First Part we address ourselves to the enquiry, what is THE essence of the SPIRITUAL LIFE?

We cannot meditate on the examples of pious men without perceiving in them one condition of

mind which specially characterizes all God's children, and marks them for his own. It forms the family likeness by which they are distinguished, the common temper which, amidst every variety of character, makes them like each other and like their Father. By this, every servant of God in every age is assimilated to the whole body of the faithful; and it is because we sympathize with this, that a Noah, an Abraham, a David, an Isaiah, a Daniel, a Paul, widely different as they are in other respects, are felt to be our brethren; and their writings touch the deepest and most secret springs of our nature, and express, in words more apt than we ourselves can form, the most intimate workings of our hearts.

This common temper is expressed in Scripture by various terms. Sometimes it is called "The

fear of God,".

the bowing of the soul before invisible Authority. Sometimes "the walking before God," — the having reference to his guidance in all our steps. Sometimes it is termed "Godliness," or "Devoutness," the feeling that in God we live, and move, and have our being, and the assiduous care to cultivate his favour, and honour Him in all our ways. Sometimes again, it is called the "living to God," the regulating our spirit and conduct with reference to his will. And still further, to express

* Ebλábua. See Luke ii. 25.

the freeness and spontaneousness of this life,-its welling forth from the hidden fountain of the heart as the unconstrained expression of an inward affection, it is specially denominated "The love of God."

In all which Scripture terms we cannot but observe one idea invariably recurring amidst the various shades of meaning, and forming, therefore, the common mark of Personal Piety, the direction, namely, of the mind and heart towards God; the turning to Him as the centre of our being, and of the sphere in which we live. The Spiritual life is emphatically a life in God,

flowing from Him as

its source, and re-absorbed into Him as into its proper element.

Such a life then is evidently distinct from, and over and above, the knowledge merely of doctrinal truths. For such knowledge, though essential to the purifying and the regulation of piety, can by no means produce that piety, nor does it determine the degree in which that piety may exist. Very often is there manifested a deep devoutness even in the mere twilight of religious knowledge-a devoutness which we should do well to cherish the more sedulously as that twilight brightens into broader day. For it will profit us little to enjoy the blaze of noon-tide illumination, if we have lost therein that thrilling awe of the Unseen which in

the dim religious light of earlier consciousness stole over us. To preserve the fresh and simple feelings of the child in union with the matured experience and attainments of the man, this is the perfection of the human character. And to be ever children in spirit while in understanding we are men, this is the perfection of religion. But, alas, this union is not necessarily maintained, nor do these elements expand in proportion to each other. We may see, on the contrary, in many instances we may feel it in ourselves a growing insight into Christian doctrine, correction of early errors, acquaintance with new truths, or with more of the detail and connection of old ones, an increasing clearness and harmony of Theological system; — and yet Piety, so far from growing in proportion to all this, not perhaps growing at all; nay, withering under the glare of this intenser light; the old simplicity of heart gone; the old earnestness of spirit dead; the fulness of the soul dried up; the liquid dew and bloom of youthful feeling brushed away, and the life of our religion checked and fixed, if not destroyed. Reader, I intreat you, seek knowledge indeed; cultivate a just and rational Theology, endeavour to attain increasing insight into religious truth; but let all your knowledge be accompanied, be guarded, be impregnated and quickened, by a living and life-giving Piety!

But this Christian life is not less distinct from, and over and above, the practice merely of moral duties. For here again, though pious feeling without holy practice is but a delusion of the stimulated sensibility, a product of the animal and not the spiritual life; yet there may be much of outward practice, "works" of every kind, the bustle of an active and a showy doing, and yet no experience, or no proportionate experience,-of that inward spirit which supplies the proper motive of all true moral and religious observance. It is true indeed, it is never to be forgotten by us, that by our fruits we must be known; by the practical results of knowledge and of feeling in the daily conduct must our character be estimated both by ourselves and by the world. But then, equally true is it, and equally to be remembered, that not our

separate acts, nor any series of acts, considered in themselves alone, but the general motives out of which all particular doings spring, and the pervading spirit which determines and characterizes our habits, constitute the true and only moral worth of man. And when we see how almost every act, and course of conduct may be the fruit of contrary principles, and imbued with contrary feelings,-the most dissimilar causes producing often the most similar effects, we must acknowledge how very insufficient works are by themselves as proofs of