Herschel, with mathematical vision perceiving a distant planet before he could demonstrate it to his compeers, all the prophets of science standing with their armor on to receive the new truth, and ready for its acceptance, while the world scorned them; Galileo, with the poison lurking in his veins; Socrates, preaching immortal life while the death struggle was going on within his body; Leverrier, and a score of others, like sublime prophets of science marching up the steeps of their own predictions, certain and secure that one day the sluggard senses would follow.

So in the realm of spirit truth holds absolute sway, and sometimes for the guidance of man this light gleams through the outward intelligence; this indication, like a grand and guiding light, flashes upon you, and the mariner on the sea of life watches for that beacon star. Guiding and directing always, you can safely follow it. But you cannot follow it blindly, not with credulity, not with external sloth, not with unwillingness to labor and do your part. Only when labor is accomplished; only when the sorrow has been experienced and overcome; only when the spirit stands free and pure, recognizing the guidance, can that guidance freely come to you.

You are not ready yet for the wonderful realm of the spirit to pour its treasures upon the world. Men are too mercenary; they will seek the prophecy for some material gain; but for this they would not turn aside one jot or tittle from their daily pursuits; they would seek the fortune-teller for what can be told of greed, the stock exchange, the rise and fall of specula-OS) tion here. But for all that can be revealed of the treasure of the spirit they would not cross the threshhold of a single door nor spare one moment from their worship of mammon.

How shall you be trusted with the larger things in the Father's kingdom, if over these spiritual things you are such unworthy servants? How shall humanity, with its blindness and self-seeking, understand the wonders of the spiritual kingdom, when only pride and outward love of gain guides your footsteps to the altar?

" Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added," said the Master. It means just this: if you are in the centre of a sphere you can perceive the radiations in all directions; you are master of the situation. But if you are only upon the circumference, you may not be able to perceive more than one of the lines of light that lead to the centre. A prophet is one who is in the centre of the wheel; like the one who has command of the arena, his eye is upon all; every power is dominant to his will; and with a firm and distinct look, like the ancient gladiator who could vanquish the wildest and fiercest brute forces by the intelligence, or by the power within his vision, so it is with man in the centre of this great wheel of destiny; he is master. He is ungoverned by circumstances, he rules them; he is not guided by events, he fashions them; he is not subservient to joys or affected by sorrows, for he is above them. But let him wander around the devious wheel of fortune, waiting for it to turn and yield its treasures to his hand, and Pandora's box is not more perplexing, for he will wait for the very last turn.

Standing in the centre, all things radiate towards him; spiritual powers obey him; he is one with them, and they are one with him. But standing without them, he must wait until they come, or he must battle on in the darkness of that outer world which does not perceive the light.

But by this divine gift of prophecy, this power that is present in your souls, you can ward off fear, and sorrow, and danger. Yesterday you might have dreaded the approach of death; but now when the silent messenger is in your very presence; when your loved ones lie before you prostrate; when the sweet sleep of death has sealed the eyes, a calm comes over you unborn of the external brain, which is no pari of the outward nature, but the divine hush of the spirit, as though the infinite had spoken to you out of the dark and silent grave and said, " This is my realm."

You cannot murmur, you cannot complain; it is above you, and you bend to the wonder of that infinite Power. Then with silent but yet palpable touch the angel of prophecy unseals the vision of your spirit, and you enter into the realm of the beyond with the blessed dead. This is prophecy; it is the unsealing of the fountains of life when the death-stroke comes; it is the cleaving in twain of the rock-bound shore of time when eternity's waves wash near; it is the voice of prophecy pleading from within the soul for that which is stronger than death, stronger than mortal life - the infinite and abiding Love.

We cannot understand how minds of usual intelligence can believe that the whole physical realm is under the influence of law; that cause and effect govern the atom from its very beginning of organic life to the very largest sun of the universe; that every leaf and blade of grass, and every insect's wing is under the control of immutable law, and yet when they enter the realm of mind and spirit throw aside this thought, and believe man to be a victim of chance and ungov-erned and ungovernable powers of whatsoever mystery may lead beyond this bare and barren vale of destinies.

To us this is the most preposterous proposition in the universe: that mind superior to all matter, that manifests intelligence, and the only part of man that can by any possibility survive as an individuality the change called death, is still not governed. To feel that you are floating aimlessly upon the sea of infinite life without chart, compass, or rudder in the blindness of atheism.

To us the universe is a unit and matter the smallest part of that unit. To us, man is governed by immutable law, but is under the dominion of the smallest and feeblest portion of that law. The greater part is the moral universe that encompasses and girds us round about; not only with lightning flashes of conscience; not only with a sword like that of Michael suspended over every Garden of Eden that you desert for passion or for external pride, but lovingly, divinely and in the most benign and perfect manner, the love of the Infinite encircling you round about with a divine shield forever.

You are not like bats fluttering towards the light that will consume you, or like the giddy moth scorching your pinions in the sublime radiance of the sun of splendor that will extinguish your light; but tenderly, and by such pathways as you need to be guided, and by such aids as will strengthen without enfeebling you, every human life is led, every human life is held secure in the keeping of the Infinite. And as no ray of light passes from the sun unto the earth without being capable of again being traced to that sun, so you, held by these infinite and numberless lines of light, are strengthened from above and supported from beneath by the wonderful realm of prophecy.

It is the spirit's breath; it is the soul's substance; it is the divine manna upon which you feed; those hidden springs whereat you drink and quench the thirst of the spirit, without which the burning sands of time would be unendurable, the darkened wilderness of earthly life would yield nothing to you, and without which no soul would be conscious of immortal life.

To feel certain that you are not alone; to launch your bark upon an eternal sea where you cannot be wrecked; to feel sure that you have guidance; that there are laws as invariable as those governing the material universe that shape and govern your destiny, unto which you will turn at last as inevitably as the needle to the pole, is a source of great strength and consolation.

Such is the single and only moral proposition of the universe that, whereas externally all seems uncertain, in the spirit all is certain. Here all is doubt and shadow; there it is light. Here all is complaint and bitterness; there is the solution of it all - the divine solvent of God's love pervading your weakness, filling your incompleteness with its divine potency, and making the best that is within you triumphant forevermore. This is the Gift of Prophecy.