is faith or trust in the revelation which God has been pleased to make of his will in his works, but more fully in his Word; it is specially faith in Jesus Christ as set forth in the Word. This faith carries with it the power of the understanding and the will, both of the head and of the heart. As being an act of the will joined on to judgment, it carries with it a practical power. Such faith must always lead to works, and, if the faith is pure, to good works. It worketh, and worketh by love.

Repentance. Here there is an exercise of conscience, there is a sense of sin. We condemn certain affections which we have cherished and acts that we have performed, and we grieve over these. But there is vastly more in penitence than regrets. The essence of it is what the New Testament calls uerάvola, a change of mind or intent. Hitherto we have been walking in one way, and now we turn and walk in another way; and in all this there is choice and a decision a purpose of new

obedience.

The same is true of all the other graces. In Christian Hope we look for things that we have chosen as being good. In Patience we submit to what God has been pleased to lay upon us; we acknowledge it to be good, and we fall in with it. In Humility, in Poverty of Spirit, we accept the lowly view which we have been led to take of ourselves, when we compare our character and conduct with the law of God. In Meekness we accord with the account of ourselves which God has given in his Word, and submit to the will and the dispensations of God.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WILL AS AN ELEMENT IN LOVE.

I HAVE referred to love in treating of emotion. But there is more in love, considered as a grace, than mere feeling. Love manifests itself in two forms.

The Love of Complacency. We delight in the object or person beloved. It is thus that the mother clasps her infant to her bosom; thus that the sister interests herself in every movement of her little brother; thus that the young man seeks the society of his companions, and is grieved when he is separated from them; thus that the father, saying little but feeling much, follows the career of his son as he contends in the rivalries of the world; thus that throughout our lives, our hearts, if hearts we have, cling round the tried friends of our youth; thus that the wife would leave this world with her last look on her husband; thus that the father would depart with his sons and his daughters around his couch. There is "a last look which love remembers:" that given, for instance, when the ship moves away with the dear friend on it, and when the soul leaves the earth to wing its way to heaven. Love looks out for the persons beloved. The mother speedily discovers her son in that crowd. The blacksmith

"Hears his daughter's voice
Singing in the village choir."

The Love of Benevolence. This is a higher form of love. In this we not only delight in the contemplation

and society of the persons beloved; we wish well to them, we wish them all that is good. "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.' We will oblige them, if we can; we will serve them, if in our power; we watch for opportunities of promoting their welfare; we are ready to make sacrifices for their good. This love is ready to flow forth towards relatives and friends, towards neighbors and companions, towards all with whom we come in contact; it will go out towards the whole family of mankind. We are ready to increase their happiness, and in the highest exercises of the affection to raise them in the scale of being and to exalt them morally and spiritually.

Now, this second is the higher aspect of love; the other belongs, in man, to a lower department of his nature. It is an exercise merely of emotional clinging, and may contain nothing virtuous or holy; it may be merely like the attachment of a dog to its master. The love of benevolence is of a higher kind; we wish to do good, we strive to do good to those whom we love. The one is like a genial heat in a closed apartment; the other is like an open fire radiating heat on all around; the one is like a lake reflecting heaven on its bosom; the other is a fountain welling up and carrying with it a refreshing influence. It flows out in a great number and variety of forms: in compassion, in pity, in tenderness, in longsuffering and patience. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

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But it may be asked, How can this benevolence be exhibited by us towards God, who is independent of us, and needs not our aid? The answer is, We identify ourselves with Him, and strive to promote his glory and the causes in which He is interested. We make it our prayer: Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

These two forms of love, while they may be distinguished, should never be separated. But in fact they have often been divorced, the one from the other. How often do men show the love of complacency without the love of benevolence? They delight in the society of, and they receive gratification from, persons whom they do not seek to benefit. They do worse: they injure those to whom they are attached, as the ivy is apt to destroy the tree which it embraces and adorns. They do so by indulging, by flattering, by tempting them. The doting mother spoils the child whom she so fondles. The seducer ruins the unhappy one whom he clasps. in his foul embrace. There is a love that is not lovely. It is in fact a refined form of selfishness. In our gratification we lay hold of, and hug to our bosoms, objects which we only corrupt. I apprehend that much of human sinfulness consists in tearing asunder what should be kept united, in selfishly turning persons to our uses only to tempt and destroy them. It has often been observed that the worst things are the perversion of good things. Abused intellectual gifts make the dangerous villain. Abused sensibilities make the accomplished tempter. Abused affections gender the keenest of all miseries.

CHAPTER VII.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WILL ON CHARACTER.

THE character of man depends on three different circumstances: on Heredity, on Surroundings, and on his Will.

1. Every one starts with certain mental tendencies. This used to be called his nature, which it certainly is; it is now traced to heredity as its cause. It has come down through father and mother from an ancestry. It is apt to appear in early childhood, and it runs on to old age. In many cases this inherited character is very marked. We discover that the person belongs to a certain race or a certain family, not only by his features, but still more clearly by his mental qualities; by his public or his craven spirit; by his prodigality or his penuriousness; by his courage, or by his cunning.

2. Most men are liable to be swayed by the circumstances in which they are placed. There are some who act merely as others act. Others have their shape given them, like pebbles on the shore, by the rough seas in which they have been rolled. But is every man's whole character determined solely by such agencies?

3. Man has a Will lying beneath and behind all these, ready to act at any time and to counteract and control them, even as the igneous matter in the bowels of the earth has consolidated, upturned, or lowered the orderly strata, and given their forms to our hills and vales, to our continents and islands.