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ours.

All that is infinite and incomprehensible in man is His reflection; but beyond this let not the awestricken thought go. Creation hangs as a veil, woven out of suns and spirits over the infinite; and the eternities pass by before the veil, and cannot draw it away from the splendor which it hides.

JEAN PAUL F. RICHTER.

66

Every soul that maketh choice of justice, shall attain unto God. From the moment that I heard: I have breathed into man a portion of my spirit," I was assured that we were His and He ours. Human knowledge and thought can only spell the first letter of the alphabet of God's love.

PERSIAN.

Thou, the cool shade at the door of weariness!
Even the wicked are panting for Thee.

A drop from the rain of Thy compassion
Cleanses me from all my blackness.
Do Thou accept me with Thy children,
O Thou, my God, and God of all!

Persian.

Man.

O Solemn thought!

Gods' image in my being wrought!
God's likeness in my frailty cast!
God's presence, for all space too vast,
Abiding in this little tent,

But for my earthly journey lent.

The place where the repentant sinner stands, can not be reached by him that never sinned.— The Pharisees.

I.

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Man-Sinner and Saint.

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.-Psalm li. 2,3.

O doubt, we are sinners, all of us, yet only because we are saints also; nay, it may be said in sober truth that the first pang of conscience, in the child or the child-man, is the first pulse-beat of the awakening saint; the first blush of shame, mantling his face is the streak of dawn of the new day. It reveals to us what we ought to be and might be; and what in part we are already; the ever-deepening sense of our unworthiness is caused only by our growing worthiness and the unfolding of the saint within us. This is the precious fruit of repentance and this the reasonableness of what, otherwise, would be without reason, since no amount of castigation can undo the done. Every true con

fession of sin is an homage to virtue, and also to Him who wrought that ideal into our nature. No doubt, our Creator meant us for sinners of the saintly kind, else would He have made us "but little lower than angels"? The Psalmist adds "and crowned him with glory and

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