May we feel more and more, my dearest brother, the interior presence of that “guest of guests,” that Divine Impersonation of Truth, Rectitude, and Love, whose image has had more power to soothe and tranquillize, stimulate and fortify, the human heart, than all the philosophies ever devised by man; who has not merely left us rules of conduct, expressed with incomparable force and comprehensiveness, and illustrated by images of unequalled pathos and beauty; who was not merely (and yet, herein alone, how superior to all other masters) the living type of His own glorious doctrine, and affects us as we gaze upon Him with that transforming influence which the studious contemplation of all excellence exerts by a necessary law of our nature; but whose Life and Death include all motives which can enforce His lessons on humanity;—­motives all intensely animated by the conviction that He is a Living Personality, in communion with our own spirits, and attracted towards us by all the sympathies of a friendship truly Divine; “who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, though Himself without sin.”  May He become so familiar to our souls, that no suggestions of evil from within, no incursion of evil from without, shall be so swift and sudden that the thought of Him shall not be at least as near to our spirits, intercept the treachery of our infirm nature, and guard that throne which He alone deserves to fill; till, at every turn and every posture of our earthly life, we may realize a mental image of that countenance of divine compassion bent upon us, and that voice of gentle instruction murmuring in our ears its words of heavenly wisdom; till, whenever tempted to deviate from the “narrow path,” we may hear Him whispering, “Will ye also go away?” when hated by the world,—­“Ye know that it hated me before it hated you”; when called to perform some difficult duty,—­“If ye love me, keep my commandments”; when disposed to make an idol of any thing on earth,—­“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”; when in suffering and trial,—­“Whom I love I rebuke and chasten”; when our way is dark,—­“What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter”; till, a word, as we hear His faintest footsteps approaching our hearts, and His gentle signal there according to His own beautiful image, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” our souls may hasten to welcome the heavenly guest.

So may it ever be with you and me!  And now I find the very thought of these things has cured all my dark and turbulent feelings, as indeed it ever does; and I can say before I go to rest, “O man, my brother, I am at peace with thee!”