to ensure that holiness which He demands at their hands—namely, marriage, the keeping holy of the seventh day, and the study of the written Word of God-and if we see one large portion of mankind reverencing them all, and another large portion of mankind undervaluing them all, we cannot be wrong in our estimate of which class contains the greatest amount of holiness. In one we see "marriage" declared to be "honourable in all, and the bed undefiled," as St. Paul also has said; in the other we see it declared that greater holiness is to be acquired without marriage than by it. In the one we have the Lord's-day honoured, and all levity, frivolity, and secular employments condemned and suppressed; in the other we see it the day singled out above all others for frequenting of theatres, balls, and places of licentiousness. In the one we see the Word of God honoured, pains taken by the learned to give faithful translations to the unlearned, and the rich combining to disseminate it among those who are too poor to procure it for themselves; and in the other no copy of the original writings acknowledged; every impediment thrown in the way of the study in translations, and the people forbidden to exercise their reasoning faculties upon them so that it is impossible their religion can be founded upon the Word of God.

There is yet, however, one other institution which is of equal antiquity, which has been equally set at nought by all, and that is the devotion of the tenth part of the annual income of every individual to be . paid to God, in the persons of those whom He has appointed to receive it on His part and in His name. It is reconcileable to man's reason that such a plan should be adopted, as a means of providing subsistence for a body of men who should devote their time exclusively to the services of religious worship, and therefore have no time to labour to provide sustenance for themselves. But the institution was established in times when no such reason was valid, and therefore when such could not have been its primary, though it might have been its secondary, object. The first offering that was brought was of the fruit of the ground. Prior to this, however, it had been intimated that, before man could present himself to his Creator in such guise as to be acceptable, he must appear in some way expressing that his acceptability depended upon the death of some unoffending creature. The payment of a fixed portion of revenue involved, therefore, the further idea of recognition of unworthiness, and was not merely an action of gratitude, but an expression of faith. But the priests have no faith to demand tithes as their due, nor the people to pay them as a religious

duty, if they did. The stings of conscience had urged our first parents to attempt to hide themselves behind trees, and then to make coverings for themselves of the leaves; but God corrected that attempt by pointing out that whilst indeed they needed covering, it was the covering obtained through suffering from an innocent person that was necessary, and consequently to be furnished by some sentient being. The records of the great mysteries of the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the redemption of mankind, are constantly present, in some form or other, in every successive phase of the creature's existence. The creature may never cease to exist, but will still not be eternal like the Creator, because the Creator had no commencement, and the developments take place not through changes of the Creator, but through changes of the creature. The heir of God is (as Mr. Vaughan well expressed it) the continual expectant, but never possessor of the Father's fulness; and as everything belonging to the Father must be illimitable, and the Son the continual Revealer of the Father, we may look on all that has ever occurred in the history of our race, and on all which is passing before our eyes, as but the commencement of a succession of glories which shall go on being developed throughout all eternity. But things which have passed are neither to be sup

planted nor forgotten: there shall be the symbol of the Lamb that has been slain; there shall be some adequate expression of the creature's dependence on the Creator, and its blessedness as due to un- . bought favour and not to its own merits.

These, and many more branches of this interminable subject which might be mentioned, are almost everywhere lost sight of, and the tithe is looked upon merely as a capricious way of paying the clergy, which man was at liberty to set aside whenever he pleased, and whenever he thought some other mode was better. Tithes, therefore, are no `longer paid anywhere, and the clergy are mere stipendiaries of the State, where the Government recognizes their existence, or the stipendiaries of those who attend their ministrations. In neither case do the clergy receive their income as from God and not from man, nor do the people pay them as a religious duty to God, but as a moral obligation to man; yet with no more spiritual truth in the act than when they pay a servant for duties performed.

Our blessed Lord appeared clothed in white garments down to the feet. Clothing was enjoined with great minuteness of form and colour at the only time when God taught men how to appear before Him in worship. The seventh of time is the eternal rest of heaven. The Lamb as it had been slain stands ever

before the throne of the Almighty. The tenth of all that the creature possesses external to himself belongs to God. Hence the things represented by clothing, sacrifice, tithes, the Lord's-day, the Word of God, and the institution of marriage, are truths essential to the right understanding of the mutual relationships between the Creator and the creature, and must ever have adequate corresponding expressions throughout the countless ages of eternity. Where these things are taught, understood, loved, and practised, there is a holy body; and everybody is unholy in proportion as they are unknown, neglected, or despised.