sense, with which we are endowed.

The essence

of Mind we cannot discover any more than we can the essences of the external world; but the phenomena of Mind are presented to the inward intuition just as the phenomena of matter are to the outward observation. We cannot possess vigorous thoughts, affections, and purposes, on any subject and of any kind, without becoming more or less conscious of their existence; that is, without a feeling and experience of the goings on within our mind. And as generally, on any subject that interests us, so particularly must there be such feeling and experience on the subject of Religion; if, indeed, this last have seized on our attention and have become alive in our heart. "Religious Experience" is, indeed, a phrase often mistaken and sometimes misused; but it expresses a fact, or series of facts, in the consciousness, without which no man can be saved. It denotes all those exercises of the mind and heart which indicate that Religion is not merely a profession and a creed, but an influence and a life. It expresses the finding in ourselves the realities, the things signified, of which words are but the shadows and the signs. And only, therefore, as we do find in ourselves (that is, experience,) these realities can we truly understand the words—that is, place under them a solid and substantial meaning - whatever knowledge we

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may have attained of their grammatical use and force. By experience only, either that of external sensation, or of internal consciousness, can we understand words, - which are the signs of facts occurring in that sensation or that consciousness. If a man tells me of a bodily sensation—a head-ache, for example I understand him only so far as that sensation has been present to myself; and I reply either "I cannot enter into your feelings, for I never experienced what a head-ache is," - or "I understand you, for I have experienced the same.” If he speaks to me of esteem, gratitude, affection,— which are mental sensations, sentiments, or feelings, I can answer Yes, I know well what you mean, for I have experienced such sentiments self." If he tells me of the glow of admiration which came over him at the contemplation of such or such a lovely scene; or of the thrill of pleasure which was awakened in him by such or such melodious sounds; here again I can believe he is not uttering rapturous nonsense; because I have myself experienced the same emotions. And just similarly in Religion: there are experiences of the conscience and the heart, by finding which within ourselves we can alone supply a meaning to the glowing words and images of Scripture, or can regard the men themselves who use those words as other than enthusiasts, of Oriental warmth of tem

my

perament, and exaggeration of language. Either they mean something weighty, and essential to Religion, or they do not. And if they do mean something weighty, and essential to Religion (which every one who reverences the Bible or its Authors will at once concede) then, from the nature of the case, that meaning cannot be collected merely by critical interpretation, and conveyed by verbal definition, but must be supplied and substantiated by personal experience. Notions may be conveyed from mind to mind by logical definitions, but feelings can be only indicated by analogies, the sense of which must be found by the hearer for himself and in his own bosom. The one is as the imprinting of a stamp upon the understanding: the other is the touching of a string whose vibrations may awake a corresponding chord in the heart. Therefore, without the finding in ourselves those states of consciousness which the Scripture writers found within themselves, and of which their words and images are short-hand signs, there can be no possession of the mind of the pious men of God, and therefore no real piety. In this, as in all practical truth, the axiom holds good "quantum sumus, scimus"-only what we actually are, do we really know.

To answer-as, alas! it has been answered-that the words of Scripture which indicate such experiences mean nothing to us; nothing, (that is) to

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be found or sought for in the present circumstances of Christianity," is to confound the temporary with the permanent, the ever varying circumstances of man, with the ever similar nature of man. It is to forget the general principle which Scripture itself lays down as in water, face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." Man, in the essentials of his nature, is in all ages, countries and circumstances, the same; "with the same organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed by the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer." And, therefore, similarly, a religious man, in the essentials of his character, must be in all ages, countries, and circumstances the same; and, notwithstanding all the accidental differences of form, and of degree, which may result from difference of knowledge, temperament, and situation, still, whatever was essential to render a Jew pious, or a Roman pious, or an Ephesian or Colossian pious, this must be equally essential to render an Englishman pious; nay, whatever workings of such piety were experienced in the vast translation from Heathenism to Christianity, such workings in substance, must be similarly experienced, in the not less real and necessary translation from a nominal

Proverbs xxvii. 19.

Christianity to a personal one; from a participation of the outward instructions, privileges, and ordinances, of a true church, to the participation of that inward life of faith, and love, and hope, to be the occasion of which, those instructions, privileges, and ordinances, are vouchsafed. Separate the specific marks of their experiences, as Jews or Heathens, from their essential ones, as corrupt and guilty men, and these latter must apply to us and be necessary to us. It was to Israelites, remember,that is, to the chosen people of the true God; to men educated in the law of God, and partakers of the ordinances of God, to whom the Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel cry, "Make you a new heart and a new spirit, lest ye die;" and of whom they promise from the Lord, "I will take away from them the heart of stone, and give to them a heart of flesh:" and shall then any Ecclesiastical privileges make such exhortations, and such promises less needful to us? It was to a Jew, a ruler of the Jews, "a most respectable man," that Jesus said, "Ye must be born again." Nay, it was to Christianized Ephesians, baptized Ephesians, members of the body of Christ, that St. Paul declares"Put off the old man which is corrupt, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."