the ways of God, and in the paths of our struggling human life. When one must endure a trial it is comforting to know that a friend has borne the same and come forth victorious. When one must face a danger, it is encouraging to think upon another who has gone through it unscathed. Though the stream is high, and the night is dark and boisterous, we can venture upon the bridge over which others have passed in safety. As we enter into the trials and conflicts which we as followers of God must endure, how inspiring and strengthening to turn the eye toward these "great men of God," this great cloud of witnesses who compass us about, and who have triumphed in the power of God, and above them all to hear the voice of Jesus saying to us: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

What history can show a line of heroes and martyrs to be compared to these witnesses for God and truth? What line of truth has had an attestation so courageous, so persistent, so triumphant? These heroes have been witnesses and martyrs-not for something. objective and tangible, not for a visible and earthly kingdom with its thrones and promises-their sustaining motive was a subjective faith faith in God, in an invisible person; faith in realities that were not seen, in promises that were not yet fulfilled; in a country, a kingdom, in the far distant future. Nothing personal prompted this faith and devotion; nothing selfish nurtured these hopes. So far as this world is concerned, most of these men of God had every thing to lose their reward and hopes were in the future. They anticipated us; they paved the way for us in tears and blood, awaiting our perfecting for the fruition of their hope. Let us enter manfully into their labors, that we may come at length into their rest and reward. I. W. WILEY.

BOSTON, September 13, 1875.

GREAT MEN OF GOD.

I.

ADAM.

OD had framed and fitted up this vast fabric, this magnificent palace, the earth, worthy of the inhabitant whom he designed to occupy it, and worthy of himself.

He had created, suspended and balanced the greater and the lesser lights, and settled the economy of the whole host of heaven. And then, in condescension to human feebleness of thought, he is represented as counseling and deliberating, and so designs and produces ADAM, the first of men.

When the earth is to be fashioned and the ocean to be poured into its appointed bed, when the firmament is to be expanded and suns to be lighted up, God says, Let them be! and they are created. But when MAN is to be made, the creating Power seems to make a solemn pause, retires within himself, looks for a model by which to frame this exquisite piece of workmanship, and finds it in himself: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth

upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them."

And oh how fair must that form have been which the finger of God framed without the intervention of a second cause! How capacious that soul which the breath of God immediately inspired! Behold "our first father" taking possession of his fair inheritance, his vast empire, in all the majesty of unclouded reason and all the beauty of perfect innocence; possessed of every bodily and every mental endowment; placed in the garden of Eden to dress and to keep it; entering on his employment with alacrity and joy, and surveying his ample portion with complacency and delight. The prosecution of his pleasant task unfolds to him still new wonders of divine power and skill. The flower and the shrub and the tree disclose their virtues, uses and ends to his observing eye. Every beast of the field spontaneously ministers to his pleasure or his advantage; all the host of heaven stands revealed to his capacious soul, and God himself, the Lord of all, delights in him, and converses with him as a father and a friend.

The naming of the animals is a point of special interest in the sacred narrative. Before Adam all his vassals of the brute creation appear, and at one glance he discovers their nature and qualities and gives them suitable names. And this act indicates command. It is the exercise of the power delegated before in the words: "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This dominion is referred to in other parts of the Scriptures as if it was a favorite thought. And, indeed, the sway that man exerts over all his fellow-tenants of the globe is among the most remarkable things in his history. How wonderfully they are all made to serve him for food or raiment, for his need or convenience or luxury! The strongest and the wildest are subdued to his use. He outwits the craftiest. He outstrips or tires down the fleetest. The huge elephant of the torrid zone, who could trample out his life and scarcely feel that anything was

under his foot, or toss him into the air like a ball with his snaky hand, stoops down to receive his weight or marches to aid him in his battles. The huger whale of the polar seas is compelled to furnish light for his dwelling. The bear is pursued over the ice to supply warmth for his limbs. He reaches fish at the bottom of the water, and brings down the birds from their flight in the sky. The tiger of the Indian jungle has been known to quail before the determination of his eye, and the lion and the panther are trained to leap over his arm as if they were spaniels. The worm and the bee bring their contributions to him, one spinning for his manufactories, and the other furnishing confections for his table. Thus the small as well as the large sign themselves his subjects. He is crowned with this glory and honor.

Again, we have here exhibited in a figure the discerning mind of man, observing all the varieties and distinctions of things, and passing his decisions upon the universe. A single instance of this discrimination images all the rest. He who divides animate nature into its several kinds-and he must divide in order to denominate-extends the same intellectual operation to everything else. This leads to the classifying of whatever exists, whether actually present to the senses or shaped only by the inner faculties. And this is science. It is at least the origin and condition of all science. It was well fitted, therefore, to represent the inquisitive and apprehending spirit of man, ranging through the whole domain of things of which he is himself so small and transient a part, seeking everywhere to name and to know, dividing, collecting, generalizing, arranging the insects and mosses in ranks, and grouping the stars in constellations, and devising methods by which the most subtile operations of his own understanding and the shadowy forms of his thought find their distinct provinces. He classes with as much ease the truths that are open only to his mental perception as he does the grossest substances. Not only does "whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea" pass under the criticism of his research, but all that floats in the

greater deeps of his imagination, affection and conscience comes under the judgments of an inner sense, the highest that he possesses. They all assume the respective titles that he assigns. They all obey the mysterious laws that rule over him and them.

We have here implied the great faculty of speech which distinguishes man from the creatures about him. They cannot speak to one another except in the inarticulate cries of nature, but he names them all through that varied utterance which the divine Spirit has breathed upon his lips. The gift of language is so kingly an endowment that he could have attained to none of his eminence without it. Speech is one of the leading points of his supremacy. But as yet he has none with whom he can hold communication. Name the beasts he may, but he cannot converse with them. He is alone, and therefore, even in Paradise, but half blessed. The rich profusion of Eden is but half relished and enjoyed, because there is none to partake of it with him. Being corporeal and earthly, he is unfit for the society of pure spirits; being rational and divine, he is above the society of the most sagacious of the subject tribes. "For Adam," in the wide extended creation, "there was not found a help meet for him." But no sooner is the want felt than it is supplied. God, who does nothing imperfectly, at length makes the happiness of Paradise complete, and fills up the measure of Adam's joy: "And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man."

What an important era in the life of Adam! What a new display of the Creator's power and skill and goodness! How must the spirit of devotion be heightened, now that man could join in social worship! What additional satisfaction in contemplating the frame, order and course of nature, now that he possessed the most exalted of human joys—that of conveying knowledge to a beloved object! What a new flavor have the fruits which grow