is the affection that needs no kissing; dull the friendship that needs no hand-shaking. He who loves the god is often at the altar, and he who loves a great author is frequently at the book. If you say, "I love Milton with all my heart," I ask, Do you love him with all your mind, too? "Not a syllable of him have I read lately." Then, you don't love him. For to love the works of an author with all your heart and mind, you must meditate upon them, copy them, go over them again and again, until at last they become like this Book, to those who study it. But, how many psalms can your tongue say? What sweet bread of God have you laid by from the study of this Book? What water of life have you drawn from it? This is what I call loving a book with your mind.

These things I hope may render somewhat clear to you what it is to love God with the mind. It is to search for Him thoughtfully, carefully, wheresoever He has shown Himself. And there be three Great Books of God which you must study, if you are to love Him with your mind-namely, Nature, History, and the Holy Scriptures. According to a man's intensity of love, will he study all three volumes. I don't say that he need be profound in

science; but to know God with the mind is to know something of His ways in nature—to know some little of astronomy, the rising of the sun, the changes of the moon, the office of storms, the nature of earthquakes, and so on.

Nor would this be unprofitable knowledge. It is always a pleasure to the man thus educated to trace the doings of God in nature. If I see the stormy sea, I know it is the work of God. When I see the waves rise high, I know they rise high for purifying, and that by this process, what we have made foul shall be turned to pureness. Whoso has learned that much of God, understands that the stormy sea ministers to God's will; that the thunder before which the foolish quake, and the lightning before which they may do well to fear, are charming; that they add to man's health, and to nature's beauty, purifying the air and refreshing the parched fields; that the air is thus purged by the fire of God, burning what is noxious and destructive, and cleansing the world for God and for man. This loving God with the mind, is profitable unto all things. For when a man with upward eye looks upon the storms of life, he will see that they, too, purify him, cleanse him from sin, ambition, envy, and hate, and bring him unto that sweetness of

soul which alone can come through the thorough cleansing of the "temple of God."

I have known people love God with the heart, and yet talk as if the works of God were not worth studying. What is the use, they say, of studying God in His works? Ah! he who loves a woman well, loves the very trinkets she wears. Whoso loves a man well, loves every hair of his head. All, everything, even the smallest thing, is glowing with preciousness, and is made glorious by the deep love of the heart. For a man, therefore, on the plea of loving God with his heart, not to love Him with his mind, is to offer but a part. Who are you, that you should look upon nature in her beauty, and behold the green fields and the trees, every leaf of which is full of the life of God, every blade of grass a passing mystery, a consummate divineness-who are you that you should turn from that volume and say, "I love God with my heart, and not with my mind?"

There is no excuse for you if you know nothing about nature. Do you say you have no time for these things? One flower from your table, if you will study it, will be more than a garden; one rose is worth more attention than all your furniture. No time? You can find plenty of time to study

your own foolish garments; and have you no time to study the garments of God? Whoso shall watch the sun, and ask a few questions about his rising shall find that that one hour of study shall make him more instructed than before in regard to the great works of God. Therefore, a part of loving God with the mind is to study God's works. It is not "necessary to salvation," as it is called, but it is necessary to large love; for God is not loved with the mind by stupid people.

Those of you who have passed a month without reading a book, have not loved God with your mind. You have read the Bible, you say. Yes, but not much of it; and what you have read you have not read with much intelligence. It is marvellous with how little intelligence some people will read the Bible. If you have not studied the difference between loving God with all your heart and loving Him with all your mind, then you have not read that passage with your mind yet. Now, no amount of mysticism, enthusiasm, or rapture, can absolve a man from loving God with his mind, by a faithful, diligent study of His works.

Now we will close that volume, and open a second. You recollect the frequent calls that were made upon the Jewish people to remember their

Now,

history, and the history of their forefathers.

David pours out a rapturous psalm, and tells of how the Philistines were divided and the ark of God brought home. Later on, some prophet takes up the glorious strain, and contrasts their condition now, with the miseries that came when they went a-whoring after false gods. And then there is Stephen, and he, too, begins from the beginning, and tells again the story of God's dealings with the people. All those men loved God with their mind; they studied His judgments, and His wonderful doings among the children of men. They knew that if they were ignorant of history, they could not love God with their minds. But what do you know of history? Here and there a scrap, perhaps, and that is about all. If one were to put you through your facings, you would come off badly, some of you. Ah! then, you "haven't studied sufficiently." But why haven't you? You should be able to mark out to your child all the shining way of God; the old Pagan beginnings of this land, the slow spread of the Divine Word, the preaching of Augustine, the studies of Wycliffe, until you come down to this year of Christ. He who studies these things, loves God with his mind.

I am not blaming you for not knowing things,