lthy man it is a source of greater vigour. The
rotten fruit is sweet to the worm, but nauseous to the palate of man.
It is the same air and the same fruit acting differently upon
different beings. To different men a different world--to one all
pollution--to another all purity. To the noble all things are noble,
to the mean all things are contemptible.

The subject divides itself into two parts.

I. The apostle's principle.
II. The application of the principle.

Here we have the same principle again; each man creates his own world.
Take it in its simplest form. The eye creates the outward world it
sees. We see not things as they are, but as God has made the eye to
receive them.

In its strictest sense, the creation of a new man is the creation of a
new universe. Conceive an eye so constructed as that the planets and
all within them should be minutely seen, and all that is near should
be dim and invisible like things seen through a telescope, or as we
see through a magnifying glass the plumage of the butterfly, and the
bloom upon the peach; then it is manifestly clear that we have called
into existence actually a new _creation_, and not new objects. The
mind's eye creates a world for itself.

Again, the visible world presents a different aspect to each
individual man. You will say that the same things you see are seen by
all--that the forest, the valley, the flood, and the sea, are the same
to all; and yet all these things so seen, to different minds are a
myriad of different universes. One man sees in that noble river an
emblem of eternity; he closes his lips and feels that GOD is
there. Another sees nothing in it but a very convenient road for
transporting his spices, silks, and merchandise. To one this world
appears useful, to another beautiful. Whence comes the difference?
From the soul within us. It can make of this world a vast chaos--"a
mighty maze without a plan;" or a mere machine--a collection of
lifeless forces; or it can make it the Living Vesture of GOD,
the tissue through which He can become visible to us. In the spirit in
which we look on it the world is an arena for mere self-advancement,
or a place for noble deeds, in which self is forgotten, and
GOD is all.

Observe, this effect is traceable even in that produced by our
different and changeful moods. We make and unmake a world more than
once in the space of a single day. In trifling moods all seems
tr