CHRIST AND THE HUMAN HEART.
ALL the attacks and phases of infidelity cannot change Christ and the human heart and their mutual relation. Christ and the heart are predestinated for each other. There is a pre-established harmony between the Saviour and the aspirations of our inmost soul. As long as the heart is as it is, it will need just such a Christ as is presented to us in the canonical gospels as understood by the Christian church in all ages. And Jesus remains the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. We are placed by divine Providence in a world of sin and death; we are made in God's image, endowed with the noblest faculties, destined to be the prophets, priests, and kings of nature, filled with unsatisfied longings and aspirations after truth, holiness, and peace; yet bound to this earth, ever drawn away from our own ideals by our sensual passions, selfish desires, and surrounded by temptations from within and without. We who are born to the freedom of the sons of God are slaves of sin; we who are destined for immortality and glory, must suffer and die; descended from Heaven, we end in the tomb, and return to dust. Who solves this mysterious problem of life? Who breaks the chains of darkness? Who removes the load of guilt? Who delivers us from the degrading slavery of sin? Who secures peace to our troubled conscience? Who gives us strength against temptation, and enables us to realize our noble vocation? Who inspires our soul with love to God and man? Who in the midst of abounding corruption and depravity, upholds our faith in man, as the image of God and special object of his care? Who keeps up our hope and courage when earthly prospects vanish, the dearest friends depart, and the future looks dismal and threatening? Who dispels the terrors of the tomb, and summons us to a higher and better world where all the problems of earth are solved in the light and bliss of Heaven? To all these questions which may be hushed for awhile by the follies of passion, the intoxication of pleasure, the eager pursuit of wealth or knowledge, but which sooner or later irresistibly press themselves upon the attention of every serious mind, there is but one answer: "Lord where shall we go but to thee? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life, and we know and believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Apostles and evangelists, martyrs and confessors, Fathers and reformers, profound scholars and ignorant slaves, mighty rulers and humble subjects, experienced men and innocent children—all, all point, in this great and all-absorbing question of salvation, not to Moses, not to Socrates, not to Mohammed, not to philosophy, art, or science, but to Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He and he alone has a balm for every wound, a relief for every sorrow, a solution for every doubt, pardon for every sin, strength for every trial, victory for every conflict. He, and he alone, can satisfy the infinite desires of our mind. Out of Christ, life is an impenetrable mystery; in him it is gloriously solved. Out of him there is nothing but skepticism, nihilism, and despair; in him there is certainty and peace in this world, and life everlasting in the world to come. Our hearts are made for Christ, and they are without rest until they rest in Christ.—Sel.