As Godliness was a mystery in the past, so is it in the present. And why is it a mystery? Because men understand so little of the _practice_ of Godliness. Socrates was accustomed to say that “a man was always sufficiently eloquent in that which he clearly understood;” and thus a man will not look upon that as a mystery which is a part of his daily life, and with which he has become familiar through experience. But as it was in the days when Jesus lived and taught, or when Paul wrote his Epistle to Timothy, so Godliness, to the great mass of minds, remains a mystery. When Paul penned those words,--“Without controversy, great is the mystery of Godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up into glory,”--he referred particularly to the life and teachings of Jesus. We, however, give to the passage a more comprehensive and extended application. If the “Mystery of Godliness” was made manifest in the life of Jesus because of his divinity, then do we say to the men of the present day, “Beloved, now are ye also sons of God.” And if “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in the midst of men,” in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, so that same Word is incarnated, in greater or less degree, in every human being, be he rich or poor, black or white, bond or free. In the same way, also, every one possessing a living soul is a manifestation of the mystery of Godliness. And when a man goes into his own nature, when he understands himself, when he reads the mysteries of his own being, when he looks away from his positive and earthly necessities up to his Divine possibilities, and sees how vast is the range, how infinite his capabilities, then he begins to understand something of the mysteries of Godliness. The Church has used this phraseology in the past, and knew not what it meant. She had “the form of Godliness,” and yet in word and deed, ay, in very thought, she “denied the power thereof.” Therefore it has been, in all past time, when there were some true and sincere souls in the Church, who made manifest, both by profession and practice, that in part at least, they comprehended the mystery of Godliness, which is the highest spirituality,--not Spiritualism,--and let it flow out into the beauty and harmony of perfect lives, the Church looked at them with a doubtful countenance. There was such a thing as being too holy, and the Church felt that such lives were a reproach to her self-righteousness and hypocrisy. She was not familiar with the manifestation of true Godliness, and consequently looked upon it as something that threatened her internal peace, and the success of her stereotyped plan of salvation. Therefore it was, that the voice of condemnation was raised against Michael De Molinos, Fenelon, Madame Guyon, and the whole host of Quietists and Reformers. By dim forecastings of the soul, and heroic