TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
ON THE CHURCH AS VIEWED BY FAITH AND BY THE WORLD.
BY A LAYMAN.
Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me.
John xiv. 19.
Moses endured his trials, according to St. Paul in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, "as seeing Him who is invisible." And this blessed privilege it is, according to the Apostle's language throughout the same chapter, which has distinguished the true servants of God, in every age, from the unbelieving world around them. Even while pilgrims here on earth, "the pure in heart," in one sense at least, "see God." They trace, alike in the events which befal themselves, and in the varying scenes which succeed each other before their eyes on the great theatre of life, a Presence and an Agency of which mankind at large know nothing. Things visible and tangible they feel to be but the screen and vail of the things invisible and intangible behind them; or, at most, to be the adjuncts and comparatively unimportant accompaniments of the great system in which their spirits really move. They view the things of earth as being, as in truth they are, necessarily connected with the things of heaven. They habitually look, not only "through nature up to nature's God," but through the wide expanse of the social and moral world around them,—through the habits, opinions, and institutions, of their time and country,—through the strife of politics, and the din of the unruly multitude,—to that eternal Being who reigns above them all; whose will and
