imagination have eluded my grasp.  I am a broken, gray-haired man, and I bring to my God only the remnant of a life.  But, brethren, it is this very thought that fills me with joy and gratitude at this moment—­the thought that when all else fails God takes us up.  Just when we need him most, and most feel our need of him, he lifts us up out of the depths where we had groveled, and presses us to his Fatherly heart.  This is the glory of Christianity.  The world turns from us when we fail and fall; then it is that the Lord draws higher.  Such a religion must be from God, for its principles are God-like.  It does not require much skill or power to steer a ship into port when her timbers are sound, her masts all rigged, and her crew at their posts; but the pilot that can take an old hulk, rocking on the stormy waves, with its masts torn away, its rigging gone, its planks loose and leaking, and bring it safe to harbor, that is the pilot for me.  Brethren, I am that hulk; and Jesus is that Pilot!”

“Glory be to Jesus!” exclaimed Father Newman; as the speaker, with swimming eyes, radiant face, and heaving chest, sunk into his seat.  I never heard any thing finer from mortal lips, but it seems cold to me as I read it here.  Oratory cannot be put on paper.

He was present once at a camp-meeting, at the famous Toll-gate Camp-ground, in Santa Clara Valley, near the city of San Jose.  It was Sabbath morning, just such a one as seldom dawns on this earth.  The brethren and sisters were gathered around “the stand” under the live-oaks for a speaking-meeting.  The morning glory was on the summits of the Santa Cruz Mountains that sloped down to the sacred spot, the lovely valley smiled under a sapphire sky, the birds hopped from twig to twig of the overhanging branches that scarcely quivered in the still air, and seemed to peer inquiringly into the faces of the assembled worshipers.  The bugle-voice of Bailey led in a holy song, and Simmons led in prayer that touched the eternal throne.  One after another, gray-haired men and saintly women told when and how they began the new life far away on the old hills they would never see again, and how they had been led and comforted in their pilgrimage.  Young disciples, in the flush of their first love, and the rapture of newborn hope, were borne out on a tide of resistless feeling into that ocean whose waters encircle the universe.  The radiance from the heavenly hills was reflected from the consecrated encampment, and the angels of God hovered over the spot.  Judge Robinson rose to his feet, and stepped into the altar, the sunlight at that moment falling upon his face.  Every voice was hushed, as, with the orator’s indefinable magnetism, he drew every eye upon him.  The pause was thrilling.  At length he spoke: 

“This is a mount of transfiguration.  The transfiguration is on hill and valley, on tree and shrub, on grass and flower, on earth and sky.  It is on your faces that shine like the face of Moses when he came down from the awful mount where be met Jehovah face to face.  The same light is on your faces, for here is God’s shekinah.  This is the gate of heaven.  I see its shining hosts, I hear the melody of its songs.  The angels of God encamped with us last night, and they linger with us this morning.  Tarry with us, ye sinless ones, for this is heaven on earth!”