In endeavouring to solve this question, I remark that our perfection consists in the gratification of every part of our many-sided nature.  Thus, for instance, enjoyment might be derived through our senses, though the intellect was comparatively weak, and our moral being depraved; or from the exercise of our intellectual or spiritual nature, while the body suffered from pain:  or delight might be poured through all those channels, but yet if we were doomed to be solitary beings, without any companion or friend with whom to communicate or share our gladness, or were prevented from expressing our thoughts and desires by action, the result in either of these supposed cases would not be perfect happiness.  But, on the other hand, if we can imagine a man with his whole nature in a state of perfect health, each portion demanding and obtaining its appropriate nourishment, and with all his powers beautifully balanced and in perfect harmony with the plan of God, “according to the effectual working of the measure in every part,”—­the senses ministering to the most refined tastes,—­the intellect full of light in the apprehension of truth, and strong in its discovery,—­the moral being possessing perfect holiness and unerring subjection to the will of God,—­the love of society able to rest upon fitting objects, and to find a fall return for its sympathies in suitable companionships, while ample scope was afforded for activity by congenial labour;—­then would such a state be perfection or fulness of joy in God’s presence here below.  I do not, of course, allege that every part of our being has the same capacity to afford us joy, or that the flood can pour itself into the soul with the same fulness through each of these channels, as if, for instance, we depended in the same degree for enjoyment upon our sentient as we do upon our intellectual or moral nature.  All I mean to assert is, that whatever proportion may come through each, God has so made us, that perfect joy is derived only through all.  Such is man’s actual constitution as he came from the hands of his Maker; and such would have been his happiness had he remained unfallen.  Placed, as Adam was, in a material world so rich in sources of physical happiness, with an intellect capable of unlocking the countless treasures of science,—­with a nature pure and spotless, delighting in the excellent God,—­with society begun with woman as a helpmeet for him, and with the active labour required “to dress and keep” his earthly paradise,—­he possessed, in such perfect adaptations, a heaven upon earth.  And had perfect man been translated to another region, we cannot conceive his joy thereby to become essentially different in kind, though different in degree, supposing him to remain the same being, and to possess the same human nature.  Now, man’s fall has not altered this principle.  Sin is a perversion of human nature, not its annihilation; a disorder of its powers, not their destruction.  Nor is restoration by Jesus Christ the gift of a different