avail to make us different in heart, or could unfix our real inward affections from sensual and worldly objects, and fix them upon God and what is spiritual and holy. Only the revelation to our own souls of the beauty of holiness, only the revelation of God, in the fullest sense of these words, can teach us to fix our hearts unalterably on God and all that lives with Him and in Him. Only by seeing and knowing Him can we learn to love Him; and only by loving Him are we perfected as men.

It is doubtful if even the information given by such a messenger-apart altogether from the effects such information might produce-would be of much value or would be permanently accepted as valid. It is true, many in our own day are persuaded that they receive the most assured knowledge of the unseen world by holding direct communication with those who have entered it, and I would be slow to deny the possibility or actuality of all such communication; but as yet this method of discovering the unseen has merely shown how constant a craving for such knowledge exists in men, rather than that much assured and wholesome truth has been reached by it. He was more deeply instructed who rather shrank from any such re-appearances of the dead and anticipated the fruitlessness of any such comfort:

It is not in that direction we need look for relief from our scepticism with all its unrest, vacillation, and brooding sadness. But does not God everywhere elude observation? Is God not unwilling that we should know Him? Does He

not hide Himself? Are not clouds and darkness impenetrable round about Him? Not so. God seeks to make Himself known to you. He wishes to bring as much light as possible into your mind, and has used the best means of introducing that light. Why then do so many earnest men spend their years in a vain search for God? Why have so many most thoughtful and enquiring men missed the light they have all their days been looking for, and without which they have no joy in life? Partly, perhaps chiefly, because, like the rich man, each enquirer prefers some self-devised method of revelation to the method God has actually adopted. To those who understand that God is the One Living Spirit, all things reveal Him. He besets them behind and before, and though they should be oppressed by the presence and flee from it, God awaits them in their place of flight and they cannot escape Him. The intelligence discernible in all things, in their harmony and unity, in their universal subservience of one plan and contribution to progress-this is God. The holy love that is discernible in the law that governs human affairs-this is God. More discernible is this law in Jewish history than elsewhere, because the Jews awaited its working, and observed and recorded it, while other races mistook what they had to deal with. But if men look for a God that is not or where He is not, they cannot find Him. If they will not look at things as they actually are; if they will not consider what Moses and the Prophets teach; if they will not recognise the unseen Spirit that trained and guided and made Himself felt by Israel; if they shut their eyes to the embodiment of that Spirit in Christ, and to His working since in millions of our race; if, that is to say, they exclude all that is most significant in human history, can we expect anything else than that the search for God elsewhere will be fruitless and disappointing? If we find God at all, we must find Him not spectrally separate from all known realities, but in and through all things

that are, and especially in and through human history and our own souls.

Through all these things God reveals Himself to us, as to moral and reasonable creatures, who can be more profoundly influenced by appeals to conscience and reason than by startling and abnormal apparitions. And if from these things we can learn nothing about God and our duty to Him, still less are we likely to learn from necromancy. Conscience lies deeper in us and is a more essential organ than the eye, and if conscience responds to all that Moses and the Prophets, completed and interpreted by Christ, tell us about God, this is an infinitely worthier testimony to His existence and His truth than if an unsubstantial shade hovered before the eye, and in some hollow, sepulchral mutterings, warned us of the results of unbelief. If your faith is weak, do not wait for unusual manifestations or novel proofs of things unseen, but use the means of knowing God which others have found sufficient, and which God has actually furnished. Keep your mind saturated with the teachings and life of Christ, and what your conscience responds to, see that you act upon. For if the humble and loving tone of the morality you find there enters into your blood, the eyes of your understanding will become brighter to discern spiritual things. Begin at the right end and with what is already within your reach. Begin with what you know to be true, that is, with what your conscience accepts. Begin with obedience, with gratefully accepting a light upon duty and upon your relation to the persons and things around you which you cannot but own to be the truest and best, and by following this light you will at length reach an atmosphere in which things will assume their right and true proportions. Thus will you earn the reward of humility and truthfulness of spirit, not outrunning your actual faith, but not lagging behind conscience; thus will you learn the truth of the Lord's own words: "If any man

do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." The pure in heart shall see God; if not now, then hereafter.

MARCUS DoDS.

BISHOP MARTENSEN.

It is with very great reluctance that I have allowed myself to be persuaded to say a few words about the greatest Scandinavian, perhaps the greatest Lutheran, divine, of our century. Every cobbler should stick to his last, and among the theologians I am silent. But it happens that I had the great privilege of knowing Bishop Martensen personally, and I suppose that I am the only Englishman of letters who did know him, for he never visited this country. The editor of this Magazine, therefore, having kindly desired me to speak, and I having consented to do so, it would be affectation if I hesitated to give my brief and poor personal recollections, since I have been selected to sit here because I happen to recollect. I am interesting, as Mr. Browning would say, because I picked up the eagle's feather; so I will produce my prize, and hasten to make room for fitter company.

It was in July, 1872, that I saw Bishop Martensen first, and on several occasions. Of the earliest of these only, I am sorry to say, have I preserved notes. I was staying in Copenhagen as the guest of Dr. Fog, afterwards Bishop of Aarhuus, and now, since Martensen's death, his successor in the Primacy. To this happy circumstance I owed the honour of seeing the great prelate at home, and in private. I had been reading the famous Dogmatics, the eloquent and varied pages of which contain intellectual food for the laity no less than for the clergy, and I felt a strong curiosity to see the illustrious author. The

palace of the metropolitan bishops of Sjælland stands in the heart of Copenhagen, opposite the Cathedral church of Our Lady. We saw "Bispinden" first, the Bishopess, as the Danes put it, and then we were shown into the library. The man who rose to welcome us was not of imposing stature. I fear to seem irreverent if I confess that my attention was seized by his ears; they were very large, and set at right angles to his head, standing out from his pinched face like wings. The eyes, in fact, were the only feature which, to my mind, answered to the fame and public character of the Bishop; they were full and deep grey in colour, but habitually covered by heavy lids, through which there shot a sort of mild steely light. These lids rose in moments of excitement, quite suddenly, and showed that the eyes were of unusual size and beauty. On such occasions the little, almost wizened face, seemed to wake up, and become charged with intelligence. I am bound to say that had I not known of his power in dialectic, and his strong hand in administration, I should not have had the wit to guess them from his appearance.

In the above notes I have summarized my recollections of his appearance. On the occasion I describe, July 25th, 1872, I had not the opportunity to observe so much. But I have noted something in my diary of his talk that day. After conversing with my companion, his most intimate friend, he presently turned to me and courteously said, in German, "I am sorry to say I speak no English; can you converse in German?" I replied, "Will your Höiærværdighed permit me to talk to you in Danish?" He laughed-I had occasion to observe that he laughed frequently, and with much geniality-and set me in a little arm-chair by his side. "Ah! you talk Danish; now that is very nice!" He then proceeded to speak about the English-a charming nation individually, but their policy, ah! their policy! "Alas! you have blundering states