and appeal is the whole outward world to the mind and heart of man, and so sensitive and instantly responsive is the mind and heart of man to all the approaches of the outward world, that the mind and heart of man are constantly full of all kinds of passions, both bad and good.  And, then, this is our present life of probation and opportunity, that all our passions are placed within us and are committed and entrusted to us as so many first elements and so much unformed material out of which we are summoned to build up our life and to shape and complete our character.  The springs of all our actions are in our passions.  All our activities in life, trace them all up to their source, and they will all be found to run up into the wellhead of our passions.  All our virtues are cut as with a chisel out of our passions, and all our vices are just the disorders and rebellions of our passions.  Our several passions, as they lie still asleep in our hearts, have as yet no moral character; they are only the raw material so to speak, of moral character.  Our passions are the life and the riches and the ornaments of human nature, and it is only because human nature in its present estate is so corrupt and disordered and degraded, that the otherwise so honourable name of passion has such a sinister sound to us.  And the full regeneration and restitution of human nature will be accomplished when every several passion is in its right place, and when reason and conscience and the Spirit of God shall inspire and rule and regulate all that is within us.

   ’On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail,
   Reason the card, but passion is the gale.’

And not Elijah only, as James says, and not Paul and Barnabas only, as they themselves said, were men of like passions with ourselves, but our Lord Himself was a man of like passions with us also.  He took to Himself a true body, full of all the appetites of the body, and a reasonable soul, full of all the affections, passions, and emotions of the soul.  Only, in Him reason and conscience and the law and the Spirit of God were the card and the compass according to which He steered His life.  We have all our ruling passion, and our Lord also had His.  As His disciples saw His ruling passion kindled in His heart and coming out in His life, they remembered that it was written of Him in an old Messianic psalm:  ’The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.’  They were all eaten up of their ruling passions also.  One of ambition, one of emulation, one of avarice, and so on,—­each several disciple was eaten up of his own besetting sin.  But they all saw that it was not so with their Master.  He was eaten up always and wholly of the zeal of His Father’s house, and of absolute surrender and devotion to His Father’s service, till His ruling passion was seen to be as strong in His death as it had been in His life.  The Laird of Brodie’s Diary has repeatedly been of great use to us in these inward matters, and his words on this subject are well worth