2. We trace the same truth in the unity of man, of which the different races and individuals are but the needed diversification. The variety already acknowledged in the material world must now be re-acknowledged in the form of humanity, and, as in the former case, without doing the least violence to the perfection of unity that constitutes the true bond of the world. It is good for the world that the universal Man is divided into so many races, tribes, nations, communities and individuals; otherwise the many-sided wealth of history could not appear, nor the manifold wants and ends of life be met. Let us faithfully believe in the particular missions of races and individuals; that peoples, like the millions found in Africa and in Asia, who seem now to be fulfilling no important purpose in the providence of God, are still reserved forces for ends yet to be unfolded; that their time shall come; and that He who knows all parts of the drama which the Future shall enact, hath need of them as truly as of others. I do not entertain the problem of the origin of mankind, whether as from one or from many first families, this problem lying beyond the grasp of human knowledge, and having nothing to do with the essential unity of man for which we here contend.

There is a unity of facts, my friends, which attests a sufficient unity of nature and powers to establish the position with which we are now concerned. The word Mankind, or human race, words used in every language, imply the unity of the generic nature; and the existence of articulate language as a medium of thought among all races, the existence in various degrees of directing mental operations by the determining force of the will, the presence of reason for the tracing of laws, the power of reverence toward the All-directing Power of the universe, the ability of worship through verbal and symbolic forms, and the power to unite the present life to a life eternal through the connecting power of hope, these are traits which substantiate the unity for which we plead. We ask not to go beyond them.

From this unity follow the great practical conclusions that the immortality of mankind is the same for all as for one,that the sacredness of human Rights has a perpetual basis, and the same for the weak as for the strong, the same for the ignorant barbarian of Africa or India as for the most enlightened and favoured citizen of our own land. Oppressions and oppressors are judged by this doctrine. Castes are yet to learn their weakness from it. "Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?" is the voice of this unity in every. prophet. "Of one blood," of one substantial humanity, ae all nations created; and at some distant day shall this doctrire of human unity break forth in new power and realize itself in an acknowledged brotherhood of man to man, of which ther has been as yet no precedent in history,-when "the good will on earth and the peace among men" shall be, not poetic visions, but real and permanent relations. Here, then, let us joyfully meet the unity of God in the unity of man. read the oneness of the All-perfect and Creative Spirit revealing through human consciousness, through the constitution of all other spirits, and the more brightly as they may have attained, through virtue and self-denial, that unity of character which mirrors God to us even as the clear waters reflect the form of the vertical sun. In tracing the unity of the primitive, natural constitution of man, both of mind and body, we rest finally in the unity of God, its Father and Source.

Let us

3. In the unity of Providence, or of the moral government of the world, the same inspiring and hopeful truth is always dawning upon us. In the rudest nations a conviction has arisen of the omnipresence and sacredness of this Higher Power, which works a higher will than man's, which favours justice and opposes evil. The human actors have generally been paltry in their aims. Yet sublime ends, far beyond those that inspired the contests and struggles, have been fulfilled. This double action of human aim and divine result fill up the pages of history. Through laws of the Spirit, Justice indemnifies herself for every action. No good, no evil, escapes

the compensatory Judge. Man is ever in the hands of a Higher; and over the epochs of time, past, present and future, the serene majesty of the Higher Power presides. Do you believe that evils shall be overruled for good?—that God will yet bring in happier ages?—that antagonism is a necessary agent both for the government of nature and the education of man ?—that the empire of the moral world is not really divided between God and Satan, Ormusdt and Ahriman, two eternally existent and eternally unreconciled agents? It was indeed the childhood of the race that, wrestling with and staggering under the weight of the problem of evil, divided the empire of the moral world into these two separate parts, assigning all phenomena that seemed to be good to Deity, and all that seemed otherwise to Satan,-a division which, though necessary for the time, implied a general incapacity to see the full, manifold unity of the Creator, out of whom flows the universe and all its laws, from whom are the complex agencies necessary to the education of a many-sided nature like that which man possesses. God is one. Therefore his empire is also one. His laws, which are only his voluntary modes, whether active in matter or in mind, pervade it, reaching atoms and worlds with equal thoroughness and ease. In Providence, therefore,-in its moral aims and manifold means,we meet the ever unfolding unity of the Father of Spirits, which is the basis of all hope and faith in future good. Take this truth away, and we have no Providence for a single day, no unity of aim, no unity of means, no cohesive force to make the world's action other than that of confusion and accident. The unity of the government of the moral world is its efficiency, beauty and power.

4. In Christianity and in its idea of society or the church, the great lesson is read in the most unmistakeable clearness. In Christ himself there lived and spake an extraordinary fulness of the Divine Essence, so that his scattered, and by him unwritten, words have wrought moral wonders through the ages.

The wonderful yet natural One from whom new ages have flown, was himself the noblest type of unity, and morally

stood so near the Fountain of all purity that he could say from conscious evidence, "I and my Father are one." The more perfect the character, the more it has of unity. What was his mission? To bring man back to unity-to help each and all to conquer the discords of sin and ignorance-to assist each to emerge, through repentance, self-denial, faith and hope, from their disharmony into accordant relations with their own spirits and with Him who is for ever One. Christianity throughout is the voice of unity. It would carry the unity of God into each human spirit; it would there harmonize the inward powers, subjecting the lower to the higher; it would break down artificial barriers of castes and nations, and would develop the unity of God in the church and in the whole world. Herein lies the cohesive power of the world's regeneration and health. Here is the true atonement. The faith that shall gather all nations into one fold can have no other basis. I meet the unity of God beautifully radiant in Christ, in Christianity, in the regenerative aim of the Messianic mission, in all things that enter essentially into the right statement of the Christianity of the apostolic age; and from this truth shall all the great harmonizing influences henceforth proceed, even as rivers of light flow from the sun.

5. We know not, my hearers, what lies beyond the confines of this present life, nor does it become us strongly to affirm or strongly to deny in reference to the unknown facts of the silent land. Yet we cannot refrain from the exercise of hope and fear. It is a noble proof of the grandeur of the human soul that it contains a power of hope that may expand itself over eternity; and granting the truth of individual immortality, it is then safe to say that the laws of the spirit remain the same there as here, that the great relations of the mind to its God continue unaltered, that freedom of will and action continue to be the attribute of man, that this life and the lessons it teaches bear some analogies to that which shall be, otherwise the present could be no preparation for that which is to come.

There has never been a sublimer form of human hope than this that the whole world will yet be harmonized by the moral power of God, that a being endowed with reason, conscience and love, cannot be an eternal sinner, the very structure of Providence, the unrepealable laws of his own being, for ever opposing a course of folly and crime. God's agency for good can never cease; the opposing structure of the universe to wrong-doers must eternally remain; and something of that power which in the natural world makes death subservient to life, we may rationally suppose will act in the breast of every moral agent. We will not dogmatize upon the final moral destiny of the world. But, speaking only for myself, I will say, that this ultimate perfect harmony of the world is my hope. God knew what he was doing when he made man, and it is irreverent to speak of disappointment in the results. This hope rests mainly on the unity of God; He is one, and this oneness is not perfect in its development if an eternal discord lies anywhere within the boundless realm. Man's origin was unity-so shall be his end. Human nature is equal to its loftiest hope, otherwise the hope itself could never have grown.

6. In all things we meet the presence of this truth. The world has always, and without assigning its reasons, demanded unity in that to which it would render the highest praise. We demand it in the book, the statue, the poem, the temple, the picture, the sermon; we require it in character, and in the conduct of a friend; whilst we resist the contradiction and distracting diversity, calling it confusion and chaos. Why are mankind so imperative in these demands? Because the unity of God has been so fully evolved in the surrounding creation, in the human consciousness, and in the laws of the human mind, that the demand is constitutional and inevitable. The unity of God, thrown so freely into human education, is doubtless the cause of these demands. Practically, therefore, the world stands upon this primitive truth, and could not live a single hour without it. All the strivings of good men are for