has, what is utterly denied to all creatures below him, a power over himself, which shall determine how that work which is given to him to do, shall be done.

All things and beings in the universe, all are vessels, and only vessels, or forms recipient of influent life; all are first formed by infinite wisdom so that they may receive of infinite love and wisdom, and exist by this reception, and live by giving forth, according to the form of each, what it receives. But to man, and to man alone, is given the power of affecting and changing the interior forms of his own being. He has freedom; he may use it, not to prevent the influx of life, for that would be impossible; but to change the quality of his own nature, to change the form of his own being, and in this way to change the operation, the manifestation, the character in act and effect, of the life, which having first flowed into him, becomes his life, and then flows forth from him as his life.

No animal and no plant has this power, for they are made perfect in their own way at the beginning, and could gain nothing by improvement. But man has the power, and therefore has the duty, of neverending and unbounded improvement.

See what the human mother may do. She may ascend to heights which the animal cannot contemplate. This paternal love which enters into her heart to become her life, even as it enters into their heart to become their life, she may spiritualize, which they cannot do, or think of doing. Without in the least abating the warmth and tenderness of her love and

care for the babe she nurses from her breast, she may look upon it as a recipient of life from a Heavenly Father, as endowed with a certain, an inevitable immortality; as having the possibility of becoming an angel; and she may look called upon to nourish its inner life for this immortality, even as she is called upon to nourish its outer life for this world.

upon

herself as

That little babe now draws its life from her own blood; how much more and better she will love it, when she remembers that she may, with the assistance of her Father and His angels, an assistance which will wait upon every effort, so train that young immortal, that he may presently draw spiritual food, angels' food, from the bosom of a spiritual mother. For God has provided His church to be a mother to the souls of its children; and this is the mother whom, in the spiritual sense of the command, we are to honor. So also every true church He fills with His paternal love; and it is a function of a church to acquire and digest all knowledge of truth, all good affections, and incorporate them into its life, and prepare of them, for all who rest upon its bosom, the very food they need.

It is not enough to say that man has power thus to change his very heart, and make of himself a new man. For he has no power not to do either this, or its opposite. It is for this our days, and our to-morrows are given us here; and will be given us forever. In every one of them we do, by an irresistible necessity, this work either of improvement, or of deterioration. Yesterday we were, to-day we are, and to-morrow we

shall be, only vessels receptive of life, and live only by the going forth of this life as our life, in our acts. But when we shall awake to-morrow, this life in its going forth, this life which is our life, will be, inevitably and certainly, more the life of heaven, or less the life of heaven, because of the influence we exert to-day upon the form, character, and nature of our inmost being, by resisting our evils, or by indulging our evils.

Take no thought for to-morrow! And yet forecast is a virtue, and a prudent provision for the future, an unquestionable duty. It is certainly well that all should endeavor, especially in the days of their strength, to lay aside, if they can, something from their superfluities, and thus gradually accumulate the means of subsistence when their strength shall fail. Nay, more than this, it is well to labor in one's calling diligently, and profit by the opportunities given for accumulation, and thus gradually acquire the means of performing those uses for the neighbor, and for the church (for that is our neighbor), which require the expenditure of money. How are we to do this, without corrupting the soul? How are we to do this without exposing ourselves, to the danger, the fearful danger, of finding in the day of our account, that the seed sown in our hearts has perished under the suffocating pressure of the riches of this world?

Let me answer this question from a passage of

Scripture. When the children of Israel were wandering in that wilderness which represented the wilderness of life, they were fed with manna. And they were to gather each day, enough for that day. And when, tempted by avarice, or by undue thought for tomorrow, they gathered for to-morrow also, before that morrow came, it stank and bred worms. But there was one exception to this. If they gathered it on the eve of the sabbath, and for the sabbath, then it remained pure, wholesome, and nourishing. The sabbath means peace; and because there is but one true peace, because there is no sabbath peace for man but that which comes down from heaven, born there of faith in God and the regeneration of faith in self, and possible for us only when we also have this living faith ; therefore the sabbath of the soul means a state in which that faith in the Lord prevails, which is the only possible source and the only possible foundation of a true peace. If we gather of ourselves, and only to ourselves, we gather for ourselves destruction. If, and so far as, our faith in the Lord is true and genuine, — this faith tells us, that when we do what lies in us to do, and exercise the faculties He gives us in the way He points out, and walk in the light of His Word, and are prudent with the cautions which He teaches, then we may dismiss anxiety, and bid it return to the abodes from which it came. Then we shall believe, that the issues of success or disappointment are in His hands, and will be determined by His love; we believe and we ask Him to help our unbelief; to help us to receive

from His hands what may seem to be a good, or what may seem to be an evil, equally certain that if it comes from His hands, it must be the gift of mercy. Then, the sabbath is drawing very near to us. Then, we may gather safely, all that a reasonable and intelligent prudence, watchful for our neighbor's interests and rights as well as for our own, enables us to gather. And what we so gather will not be tainted with corruption; neither will it breed worms. But it will strengthen our strength; it will nourish our life; it will impart to our life something of the life of heaven; it will infuse even into our natural enjoyments some consciousness of the peace of heaven. It will inspire the hope, and it will justify the hope, that we are spending to-day in this world aright, and that we shall find to-morrow in heaven.

Let us once more return to our garden; for I would gladly give some intimation of the lessons which may be learned by means of correspondence, not only from its laws, its seasons, and from its products, but from our operations there.

Let me select that almost mysterious one, of budding, or grafting.

It is in the season of summer that we bud our plants. To do this, we open the bark of a tree or plant of which we wish to change the fruit or flower, and insert the bud of another of the kind we desire to propagate.