emotional effects in the presence of natural beauty and sublimity, and in the contemplation of exalted æsthetic and ethical conceptions.
When the hand of nature touches the chords of the human heart, may we not believe that the hand and the harp are of divine origin, and that the music produced is heavenly? I mean that the human soul with all its refinement of emotion is not material, but spiritual and Godlike; that it has written upon it a sacred message, an assurance not of earth that its destiny is boundless in time and possibility—a message profound in its meaning as the unsearchable depth of God's being.
All human institutions are progressive. Each stage of civilization is complete in itself, but preparatory to another and higher stage. Liberty, the art idea, the religious idea develop more and more as men realize in consciousness higher truths and standards. From the art that found expression in the cromlechs of the Druids to the highest embodiment of spiritual ideas, from crude faith to philosophic and religious insight, from rude mechanism to magnificence of structure and invention—such has been history, such, we believe, will be history. No wonder Carlyle exclaims: "Is not man's history and men's history a perpetual Evangel?"—an announcement of glad tidings?
It is in this philosophy that the hope of the solution of many present problems is found. In mediæval times the feudal system was the reconciliation of the opposing interests of men in a unity of service and protection. Later new conflicts arose which resulted in freedom for all classes. To-day opposi-
