lodge them as heart companions. Who are the men that treat them thus? Manifestly those who live fictitious lives. The cherished thought is the seed of an act. If the thoughts cherished be vain, the life pursued will be vain.

In order in some measure to estimate the amount of vain thought cherished by men, let us do three things. Compare the true theory of happiness with the conduct which men pursue in order to obtain it; the true theory of greatness with the efforts which they put forth in order to realize it; and the true theory of religion with their conduct in relation to it.

First

Compare the true theory of happiness with the conduct which men pursue in order to obtain it. All men have a natural desire for happiness; it is one of the deepest and most glowing thirsts of their nature; one of the mightiest springs that keep the world in restless and rapid motion. But is all this action directed by the true theory of happiness? Human happiness is a plant that springs from one germ, a stream that issues from one fount. It is harmony

of soul. A happy mind must be a mind in harmony with itself, the universe, and God. Such harmony results from one principle and only one; and that is supreme love for the EVER BLESSED GOD. This love makes the Absolute Good, the centre of our being, and thus places us in vital connexion with the primal source of blessedness, and in sweet concert with the universe. All true philosophy, all human experience, unite with the Bible in attesting this to be the true theory of happiness. Now, do men, generally, in their search for happiness practically recognize this? No. Truth says, Happiness must spring from within,-in the exercise of pure affections, an approving conscience, an enlightened judgment, and an untramelled will. But they seek it only without, in the senses, not in the soul. Pandering to the appetite, titillating the nerves, gratifying the passions,—this is their practical idea of happiness.

Secondly Compare the true theory of greatness with the conduct of men in relation to it. The desire for self-distinction

is another strong impulse in human nature. Each man in some measure is a candidate for power; each aspires to some pedestal from which he can look down upon the admiring eyes of his little class. But how vast is the disparity between the popular idea of greatness and the true one! Disinterestedness is the spirit of true greatness; self-forgetting, self-absorbing love, is the spring of all noble deeds, the inspiration of all royal souls. To be great is to be good, to be good is to be like God. When the renowned legislator and deliverer of Israel invoked the Eternal to show His glory, What was the reply? Did He say, I will show thee the infinite fruitfulness of my intellect, the almightiness of my power, the boundlessness of my empire? No! "I will cause my goodness to pass before thee." As if He had said, My glory is my goodness. So it ever is, so it ever must be He who occupies the highest pedestal of worldly fame and honor is a miserable pauper in the universe, if his soul is the residence of base and selfish feelings. But whilst all this will be admitted, whilst it is too axiomatic for discussion, how different to this true idea is the conduct of men in relation to it. Vain man seeks greatness in high sounding titles, in tawdry robes, in pompous pageantry. To the marts of fashionable dress and furniture, to tinsel and veneer rather than to moral virtues and Divine communings the empty millions look for greatness now.

Thirdly Compare the true theory of religion with the conduct of men in relation to it. it. Religion, stripped of all the mysticism and absurdities which crafty priests and technical theologues have attached to it, is as simple as it is sublime. It is supreme sympathy with the supremely good; that is all. The sentiment being supreme, will, of necessity, be the allanimating, all-governing spirit of the soul. How opposite to this are the popular views of religion! To some, religion is nothing but superstition, to others a wordy creed, to others a mere ritual, to others something to be assumed on certain days, and in certain places, and to most a means of salvation, rather than salvation itself.

There are settled principles in the material universe which men must practically recognise and obey if they would be successful in their material undertakings. The agriculturist, the builder, the mariner, each must be true to the regal principles of his sphere, if he would succeed. We should call that farmer mad, who scattered his seed upon the weedy and unploughed sod; that builder mad, who sought to rear a mansion spreading out like an inverted pyramid from base to roof; and that mariner mad, who sought to plough the ocean in a leaden vessel. But why mad? Because they would ignore the settled principles of nature. But such madness you have everywhere displayed by men in the moral realm. There are fixed and immutable principles in the spiritual world which men practically ignore. Ah! when I compare the conduct of the race, in relation to Happiness, Greatness, and Religion, with the essence of these things and the eternal principles on which they are obtained, I feel that the teeming millions of my age are living lives of foolish fiction and reckless romance. They are sowing seed on the hardened weedy turf to get a harvest; they are rearing inverted pyramids for a home; they are constructing leaden vessels to bear them to some elysian port. Vain thoughts lodge in the heart of this generation. Great God! All about me seems fiction. Men are full of dreams. They dream because they morally sleep. Would that some voice from the heavens above, or from the abysses below, would speak in tones of thunder to this age, that men may wake, shake off their vain dreams, and seize the true ideas of life and God. "We are near awaking," says Novalis, "when we dream that we dream."

The other remarks which the text suggests in relation to vain thoughts is :

II. THAT THEIR

EXPULSION IS A MATTER OF URGENT

IMPORTANCE. "How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee"} Two things seem implied here :—

First: That there is no necessity for lodging them within us, -they can be got rid of.-They may have a stronghold,-they

may be numerous; their name may be legion, and their possession complete. Yet they can be routed and expelled. Or, to change the figure, like a forest of ivy, they may have wound themselves around every faculty and fibre of our being, yet they can be uprooted. But how? This is the question. No priestly magician has a wand before which they will flee. Nor can the mere avaunt! of the will expel them. How then?-(1) Consecration of our energies to true work. Indolence breeds vanities. The numerous class who have taken up no purpose in life to work out,-who have no active employment, who lounge away in utter idleness the precious hours of life, are sure to be the victims and votaries of vanity. They shun the stern realities of being. Their talk is elegant inanity, their favorite books are fictions, their dear companions are jewelled shams. As the birds of night vanish before the eye of day, vain thoughts will quit the brain, the moment we identify our activities with a true and noble work. Another useful method by which to expel vain thoughts is :-(2) Companionship with truthful souls. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." Empty as society is, there are nevertheless true souls on earth, souls filled with true thoughts, who feel that "Life is real, life is earnest." Fellowship with such will do much towards the expulsion of vain thoughts. Let the thoughts of the true go into us and they will play a glorious havoc with all our empty notions. As the morning breeze sweeps the mountains of their mist, a true thought will sweep the soul of its vanities. Let the presence of such men be ever welcome to our society, let their books be our favorite reading. All luscious and simpering books, whether religious or otherwise, let us eschew as mental morphia which can only deaden our reflective powers and fill the brain with idle dreams. Let Christ,-THE TRUTH, be evermore ourc ompanion. (3) Realize the constant presence of the Heart-inspecting God. He sees these mental idlers. He knows what is "in man." "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."

But all these will be useless until one other thing is done. (4) A change in the governing dispositions of the mind will expel them. Thoughts are, to a great extent, the creatures and servants of feeling. The brain is the slave of the heart. What we feel the most interest in, we think most about, whether it be business, science, politics, or religion. The wish is the father of the thought. The dominant passion supplies the brain with ideas. If that passion be avarice, the brain will teem with worldly thoughts; if ambition, it will reel with proud and haughty imaginings; if religion, the brain will be sunned with sweet meditations upon God and His universe. You may as well endeavor to prevent noxious insects rising out of a stagnant pool in the summer's sun, and dancing over it, as to prevent vain and wicked thoughts rising out of a corrupt heart. As the stagnant water sends up the loathsome insect to the sunbeam, the polluted heart sends up the worthless thoughts to the brain. What is wanted to expel such thoughts is a change of heart. "Marvel not that I say unto you, ye must be born again." Sure as the crystal stream mirrors the shining orbs of the sky, the pure heart will reflect to the eye of intellect the truths of God.

The text implies

Secondly: That whilst there is no necessity for our lodging them, there is an urgent necessity for our expelling them. Why should we expel them? (1) Because they waste the mental life. How sad it is to see rich acres of land, capable of yielding the choicest productions of fruit and beauty, overrun with noxious weeds and thorns;-an Eden run into a wilderness. As you look you feel that the soil which nourishes those worthless productions, could feed the majestic cedar, the fruitful vine, the lovely rose, and fields of golden grain. But it is a far sadder thing, believe me, to see minds capable of originating thoughts to bless the race, brighten the universe, and reflect the Infinite, wasting their precious powers in vain and idle thoughts. Weeds and thorns when they die, go back to dust and become nourishment to the soil, thus