the Living Vesture of GOD, the tissue through which He can become visible to us.  In the spirit in which we look on it the world is an arena for mere self-advancement, or a place for noble deeds, in which self is forgotten, and GOD is all.

Observe, this effect is traceable even in that produced by our different and changeful moods.  We make and unmake a world more than once in the space of a single day.  In trifling moods all seems trivial.  In serious moods all seems solemn.  Is the song of the nightingale merry or plaintive?  Is it the voice of joy or the harbinger of gloom?  Sometimes one, and sometimes the other, according to our different moods.  We hear the ocean furious or exulting.  The thunder-claps are grand, or angry, according to the different states of our mind.  Nay, the very church bells chime sadly or merrily, as our associations determine.  They speak the language of our passing moods.  The young adventurer revolving sanguine plans upon the milestone, hears them speak to him as God did to Hagar in the wilderness, bidding him back to perseverance and greatness.  The soul spreads its own hue over everything; the shroud or wedding-garment of nature is woven in the loom of our own feelings.  This universe is the express image and direct counterpart of the souls that dwell in it.  Be noble-minded, and all Nature replies—­I am divine, the child of God—­be thou too, His child, and noble.  Be mean, and all Nature dwindles into a contemptible smallness.

 In the second place, there are two ways in which this principle is
 true.  To the pure, all things and all persons are pure, because their
 purity makes all seem pure.

There are some who go through life complaining of this world; they say they have found nothing but treachery and deceit; the poor are ungrateful, and the rich are selfish, Yet we do not find such the best men.  Experience tells us that each man most keenly and unerringly detects in others the vice with which he is most familiar himself.

Persons seem to each man what he is himself.  One who suspects hypocrisy in the world is rarely transparent; the man constantly on the watch for cheating is generally dishonest; he who suspects impurity is prurient.  This is the principle to which Christ alludes when he says, “Give alms of such things as he have; and behold all things are clean unto you.”

Have a large charity!  Large “charity hopeth all things.”  Look at that sublime apostle who saw the churches of Ephesus and Thessalonica pure, because he saw them in his own large love, and painted them, not as they were, but as his heart filled up the picture; he viewed them in the light of his own nobleness, as representations of his own purity.

Once more, to the pure all things are pure, as well as all persons.  That which is natural lies not in things, but in the minds of men.  There is a difference between prudery and