with transcendental theories to improve the climate, and the outward circumstances of man, endeavours to relieve and get rid of the tendencies of disease which are from within, Christianity, leaving all outward circumstances to ameliorate themselves, fastens its attention on the spirit which has to deal with them.  Christ has declared that the kingdom of heaven is from within.  He said to the Pharisee, “Ye make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within ye are full of extortion and excess.”  The remedy for all this is a large and liberal charity, so overflowing that “Unto the pure all things are pure.”  To internal purity all external things become pure.  The principle that St. Paul has here laid down is, that each man is the creator of his own world; he walks in a universe of his own creation.

As the free air is to one out of health the cause of cold and diseased lungs, so to the healthy man it is a source of greater vigour.  The rotten fruit is sweet to the worm, but nauseous to the palate of man.  It is the same air and the same fruit acting differently upon different beings.  To different men a different world—­to one all pollution—­to another all purity.  To the noble all things are noble, to the mean all things are contemptible.

 The subject divides itself into two parts.

    I. The apostle’s principle. 
   II.  The application of the principle.

Here we have the same principle again; each man creates his own world.  Take it in its simplest form.  The eye creates the outward world it sees.  We see not things as they are, but as God has made the eye to receive them.

In its strictest sense, the creation of a new man is the creation of a new universe.  Conceive an eye so constructed as that the planets and all within them should be minutely seen, and all that is near should be dim and invisible like things seen through a telescope, or as we see through a magnifying glass the plumage of the butterfly, and the bloom upon the peach; then it is manifestly clear that we have called into existence actually a new creation, and not new objects.  The mind’s eye creates a world for itself.

Again, the visible world presents a different aspect to each individual man.  You will say that the same things you see are seen by all—­that the forest, the valley, the flood, and the sea, are the same to all; and yet all these things so seen, to different minds are a myriad of different universes.  One man sees in that noble river an emblem of eternity; he closes his lips and feels that GOD is there.  Another sees nothing in it but a very convenient road for transporting his spices, silks, and merchandise.  To one this world appears useful, to another beautiful.  Whence comes the difference?  From the soul within us.  It can make of this world a vast chaos—­“a mighty maze without a plan;” or a mere machine—­a collection of lifeless forces; or it can make it