ivial. 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 prude