the highest philosophical import, is to be found the basis of the whole _a priori_ philosophy. They were spoken of the most important truths, those which pertain to the soul's everlasting welfare; but as the greater includes the less, so do they include all lesser science. In positive and unmistakable terms has Christ declared the fact of knowledge. God knows all truth. In so far as we also know the truth, in so far are we like him. And mark, this is knowledge, a purely intellectual act. Love is indeed a _condition_ of the act, but it is not the very act itself. On this subject it is believed that the Christian church has failed to assert the most accurate doctrine. Too generally has this knowledge been termed a spiritual knowledge, meaning thereby, a sort of an impression of happiness made upon the spiritual sensibility; and this state of bliss has been represented as in the highest degree desirable. Beyond all question it is true, that, when the spiritual person, with the eye of Reason, sees, and thus knows the truth, seeing it and knowing it because his whole being, will, and intellect is consecrated to, wrapt in the effort, and he is searching for it as for hid treasures, there will roll over his soul some ripples of that ineffable Delight which is a boundless ocean in Deity. But this state of the Sensibility follows after, and is dependent upon, the act of love, and the act of knowledge. There should be, there was made in Christ's mind, a distinction in the various psychical modifications of him who had sold all that he had to buy the one pearl. The words of Christ are to be taken, then, as the words of the perfect philosopher, and the perfect religionist. Bearing, as he did, the destiny of a world on his heart, and burdened beyond all utterance by the mighty load, his soul was full of the theme for which he was suffering, he could speak to man only of his highest needs and his highest capabilities. The truth which man may know, then, is not only eternal,--all truth is eternal,--but it is that eternal truth most important to him, the _a priori_ laws of the spiritual person and of all his relations. The what he is, the why he is, and the what he ought to become, are the objects of his examination. When, then, a spiritual person has performed his highest act, the act of unconditional and entire consecration to the search after the truth, _i. e._ to God; and when, having done this he ever after puts away all lusts of the flesh, he shall in this condition become absorbed, wrapt away in the contemplation of the truth; then his spiritual eye will be open, and will dart with its far-glancing, searching gaze throughout the mysteries of the Universe, and he will know the truth. Before, when he was absorbed in the pursuit of the things of Sense, he could see almost no _a priori_ principles at all, and what he did see, only in their practical bearing upon those material and transitory things which perish