AND it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him: How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them: I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them: Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying: For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.

JOHN X. 22-38.

TRUTH is one;

And, in all lands beneath the sun,
Whoso hath eyes to see may see
The tokens of its unity.

Nor doth it lessen what He taught,
Or make the gospel Jesus brought
Less precious, that His lips re-told
Some portion of that truth of old;
Denying not the proven seers,
The tested wisdom of the years;
Confirming with His own impress
The common law of righteousness.
We search the world for Truth; we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful,
From graven stone and written scroll,
From all old flower-fields of the soul;
And weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read,
And all our treasure of old thought
In His harmonious fulness wrought,
Who gathers in one sheaf complete
The scattered blades of God's sown wheat,
The common growth that maketh good
His all-embracing Fatherhood.

So welcome I from every source
The tokens of that primal Force
Older than heaven itself, yet new
As the young heart it reaches to,
Beneath whose steady impulse rolls
The tidal wave of human souls ;
Guide, Comforter, and inward Word,
The eternal Spirit of the Lord!

JOHN GREENLeaf Whittier.

"To him that soweth righteousness shall be a rich reward."

PROV. xi. 18.

BE what thou seemest; live thy creed;
Hold up to earth the torch Divine;
Be what thou prayest to be made ;
Let the great Master's steps be thine.

Fill up each hour with what will last;
Buy up the moments as they go;
The life above, when this is past,
Is the ripe fruit of life below.

Sow Truth if thou the Truth wouldst reap;
Who sows the false shall reap the vain :
Erect and sound thy conscience keep;
From hollow words and deeds refrain.

Sow Love, and taste its fruitage pure;
Sow Peace, and reap its harvest bright,
Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor,

And find a harvest-home of light.

HORATIUS BONAR.

THE Science of Language has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and that even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, will, I hope, produce a similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship; and missionaries, instead of looking only for points of difference, will look more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the true light that may still be revived, any altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God. And even to us at home, a wider view of the religious life of the world may teach many a useful lesson. Immense as is the difference between our own, and all other religions of the world-and few can know that difference who have not honestly examined the foundations of their own as well as of other religions—the position which believers and unbelievers of faith occupy with regard to their various forms of faith is very much the same all over the world. The difficulties which trouble us, have troubled the hearts and minds of men as far back as we can trace the beginnings of religious life. The great problems touching the relation of the Finite to the Infinite, of the human mind as the recipient, and of the Divine Spirit as the source of truth, are old problems indeed; and while watching their appearance in different countries, and their treatment under varying circumstances, we shall be able, I believe, to profit ourselves, both by the errors which others committed before, and by the truth which they discovered. We shall know the rocks that threaten every religion in this changing and shifting world of ours, and having watched many a storm of religious controversy and many a shipwreck in distant seas, we shall face with greater calmness and prudence the troubled waters at home.

MAX MÜLLer.

"BUT let judgment run righteousness as a mighty stream."

THE victories of Right

Are born of strife.

down

as waters, and

AMOS V. 24.

There were no Day were there no Night,

Nor, without dying, Life.

There only doth Right triumph, where the Wrong
Is mightiest and most strong;

There were no Good, indeed, were there no Ill.

And when the final victory shall come,

Burst forth, oh awful sun, and draw Creation forth.
Not within Time or Space

Lines drawn in opposite ways grow one,

But in some infinite place

Before the eternal throne;

There, ways to-day divergent, Right and Wrong,
Approach the nearer that they grow more long.
There at the eternal feet,

Fused, joined, and grown complete,

The circle rounds itself, the enclosing wall

Of the universe sinks down, and God is all in all.

LEWIS MORRIS.