combined with other faculties which eminently fit them for business. I think that any one of correct observation may discover that, even in material riches, God has not distributed it without some reference to the moral worthiness of its possessors. Let us make allowance for all the exceptions, which, for particular reasons, are allowed to exist; as wherein it may be seen sometimes that a determinedly good man, not yet fully delivered from his evils, would be hurt by a superfluity of wealth - that he would not, with this, attend so diligently to the perfecting of his spiritual nature; that a bad man would not be hurt by it, as it may be foreseen that, with ever so much trial and affliction, especially of the nature of poverty, he would only be hardened, and made more irritable and rebellious by it; therefore he is suffered to have wealth; again, that sometimes the morally unworthy are permitted to amass it for the good of others to whom it may come; somebody must roll up the material wealth of the world, and it is frequently permitted to those whom the Lord sees are as yet fit for nothing nobler; sometimes the worthy also are permitted to amass it, seeing that they will make a good use of it;· let us, I say, make allowance for all these exceptions, and then can we look abroad upon the world, and say that the distribution of material riches is not seen to observe some law connected with spiritual worth? There are other exceptions; as that some need more, and some less, for their respective enjoyments; that what would be an abundance for one, would not fill, even to comfort, the capacities of another; they are of a larger make every way- the Mastodons and Behemoths of humanity; - let us subtract from the contemplation all the exceptions, (and they are very many, Providence is very particular and fitting in its dispensations ;) and then can we say that this material wealth, which the world so much doats upon, is distributed without any regard to moral law? Preposterous and impotent conclusion! We cannot live spiritually without living materially; it is the appropriate and necessary ultimate of a whole and perfect life. The soul

of a good man, religiously be it spoken, has an imperative claim upon all the riches, and beauty, and convenience, of the outward world.

But we must remember that the world has fallen into disarrangement. By the fall of man from his primal innocence -from his Golden Age of spiritual plenty, when the earth brought forth abundantly, and suffering poverty was a thing unknown, he has lost not only his spiritual, but his worldly prosperity. With sin, unquestionably, material disorder has entered into the world. Impoverished outward conditions are the necessary effects of impoverished inward conditions. And if we wanted the fairest comment on the spiritual condition of this world, we might find it in the terrible physical condition in the unequal distribution, the fearful extremes, the dreadful strife of the social and material relations. Surely, moral causes must be allowed to have entered in here; the Devil, in the shape of human selfishness, has done this outward, as he has this inward work. Now, therefore, the whole world being out of its proper order, it involves individuals who are not always themselves to blame for their stinted supply of earthly goods. Were it not for others, they have frequently virtue enough, and power of mind enough, and tact enough, to amass a competency of this world's goods, and would do it. But they are involved in a general system of injustice. Therefore, they have to suffer as individuals for the sins of others. But no more than we do hereditarily for the evils of a moral and intellectual nature which we bring with us into the world. Every child who is born inherits a more or less discordant organism, and brings with him a load of hereditary evil which he individually is not responsible for. If the simple distinction had been made among theologians between hereditary sin and hereditary organization, everybody would have understood it. Yet this is a most wise law - this law of hereditary descent; for, as before observed, it is the same law which transmits all the good and all the evil. It is one law which makes both

heaven and hell. Obeyed, it is the acquisition and perpetuity of all good; disobeyed, of all evil. Therefore it must remain, and therefore individuals must suffer for the sins of others. The hope is, however, nay, the faith and Divine assurance are, that this train of hereditary evil shall one day be broken that the time shall come when children shall be born into this world without any hereditary evil- that the power of regeneration shall be so in the ascendant, that it shall no longer be said in any sense, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge;" for there shall be nothing of evil in the child's hereditary for him to appropriate; "the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea," and the Lord shall "make an end of sin, and bring in everlasting righteousness."

But now, precisely as it is with moral and intellectual evils, it is with these evils of the social world in its impoverished material conditions. The world is out of order almost entirely. Whereas, were it in true and heavenly order—had we that divine form of society which we shall have, when the Church and the world shall become one-our point is, that the best of men would invariably fare the best, in material as in spiritual conditions. And if they did not always have the most of outward wealth, it would only be in those instances where Providence should see it would be better for them not to have it. Or, where their wants and uses and capacities did not require it. Or, in more general terms-for it is impossible to be exact here in all the particulars there would be no suffering poverty. The plenty of a Golden Age would be more equally distributed. The evil of poverty is needed now frequently, for trial and discipline of our sinful natures; — to impel us to humility and spiritual attention; - to turn us from the world to Heaven; and to keep us from those abuses and indulgences, which, if we only had the means, we should rush into with all the pride and lust of our unregenerate natures. But surely, were the world entirely regenerate, and did purity,

The

piety, and human perfectness everywhere reign, we should not need this hard discipline to turn us to more heavenly things, or to keep us from greater evils. Christ himself was only made perfect in his natural humanity through sufferings and want; and man must "follow Him in the regeneration." But when that perfection is attained, all strife ceases. heavens are not in warfare; the internal is there in harmony with the external; the individual with the universal; and we may there enjoy the "Saint's Rest" from all our labors, the employments which we shall there have being only such as are congenial to every soul, and in which the very happiness of heaven consisteth.

So eventually it must be on earth. The kingdom of Heaven must come here as there. The good shall be rewarded, both internally and externally. Can any man tell why it should not be so? Nay, is it not an intuitive dictate of the rational mind, that virtue-true moral worthiness-should have its outward, as well as its inward, spiritual rewards? Else, why do we confer honors upon the truly good, and reward with prizes the meritorious aspirant? Are they not symbols-outward correspondents of internal states? And why is it that in heaven, all the most glorious mansions and the most magnificent surroundings, are the portion of the brightest angels; and "outer darkness," obscurity, mean and impoverished conditions, the portion of those who inhabit the spheres of evil? Trust me, these human conditions will be reversed in the next world, and the truly rich-the rich in spirit and in heart-will be the rich also in external possessions, by a law of correspondence which, invariably, in true order, and especially in the spiritual world, adapts the outward to the inward through all the Kingdom of God.

Here, indeed, we are introduced to a most stupendous philosophy. If it could only be realized by the men of the world, we should hear less, I apprehend, of the mysterious and unequal allotments of Providence in this life. This life is but a small

portion of our existence, and we may rest assured that the great Creator has not overlooked those adaptations which are so necessary to the complete existence and comfort of man. He is to be ushered into the other life with all his faculties, and with the most abundant provision for their exercise and enjoyment in the whole outward creation. For there is an outward creation there as well as here, and quite as distinct from the internal, mental world. But the difference is, the substances of that world, being spiritual, are more plastic to the operations of the spirit within, and are formed and molded in perfect correspondence to the reigning quality of the place. Here, by the aid of material wealth, acquired without any regard to moral character, a man may gather around him an external which is not in correspondence. There he cannot do it. Here, be his character ever so sinful, he may surround himself with all the glory and beauty of the outward world. There, his surroundings will partake of the quality of his own spirit. It would be more so, even in this world, were this world in true order. But the extent to which it would be so, would exceed, perhaps, our imaginations to conceive. All things, even now, which exist in nature, exist by correspondence from the spiritual world; for they are created from the Divine Essence through that world. But our world, being in such disorder, those correspondences are frequently so inverted, and mixed with good and evil, and with the relations of time and space, that it is difficult to trace them. We can do it in general, but not in particulars.

In the spiritual world this correspondence reigns to perfec tion. It is the adjusting, equalizing, beautifying or deforming, principle of the place. We say place, because it must exist there as much as it does here; its spaces, however, being measured by states only, instead of feet and inches, and the inhabitants of that world appearing more or less distant, according to difference of spiritual character. And what a world must such a principle there create for us!-where we shall all