1857]  HIS    FAREWELL    SERMON

running  waters  of  his  quick  affection.  Him  immediately;
Him  in  person;  Him  in  whispers  of  the  day,  and  eye  to  eye
by  night ;  Him  for  a  close  refuge  in  temptation,  not  as  a  large
thought  of  ours,  but  as  an  Almightiness  in  himself;  Him
ready  with  his  moistening  dews  for  the  dry  heart,  and  his
breathings  of  hope  for  the  sorrowing ;  Him  always  and  every-
where living  for  our  holy  trust,  do  we  absolutely  need  for
our  repose,  and  wildly  wander  till  we  find.  .  .  .  Through  all
our  natural  life,  individual  and  social,  is  the  supernatural  in-
terfused ;  and  the  ideal  colours  of  heaven  are  spread  through
the  substance  of  our  experience,  to  transfigure  it.  In  us,  how-
ever, there  is  ever  a  strife  between  the  two.  In  Christ  alone
is  the  reconciliation  perfect  between  the  human  and  the  divine ;
and  of  the  blended  natures,  the  lower  yields  as  a  captive,  and
is,  in  him,  wholly  taken  up  by  the  higher.  This  once  was  God's
idea  purely  realised.  But  the  same  two  natures  meet  in  us
all ;  and  he  is  but  the  exemplar  of  a  perpetual  incarnation,  —
of  a  living  and  constant  union  of  God  with  our  humanity."

The  following  paragraph  reveals  the  deep  religious
ground  of  some  of  his  "  negations,"  and  the  reverent  deli-
cacy which  often  closed  his  lips  or  allowed  him  to  speak
only  a  few  suggestive  words  even  to  those  whose  hearts
thirsted  for  more :  —

"  Moved  by  the  same  persuasion,  —  of  God's  living  union
with  our  humanity,  —  I  was  early  led,  not  only  into  abhor-
rence of  the  priestly  character,  but  into  an  estimate  perhaps
too  low  of  all  disciplinarian  methods  for  the  administration
of  Churches,  for  the  propagation  of  personal  influence,  and  the
voluntary  management  of  Christian  men.  Unless  it  were  pos-
sible to  go  right  down  to  the  seats  of  inmost  faith,  and  waken
the  conditions  of  God's  spirit  there,  a  certain  shame  has  ever
haunted  me  at  resorting  to  subsidiary  agencies,  in  the  wield-
ing of  which  I  could  find  no  support  from  inward  conviction.
