We should count time by heart-throbs.

He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life is but a means unto an end; that end,

Beginning, mean and end to all things, God!— Bailey.

We have all felt, when looking above us into the atmosphere, that there was an infinity of space which we could not explore. When I look into man's spirit, and see there the germs of an immortal life, I feel more deeply that an infinity lies hid beyond what I see. In the idea of duty, which springs up in every human heart, I discern a law more sacred and boundless than gravitation, which binds the soul to a more glorious universe than that to which attraction binds the body, and which is to endure though the laws of physical nature pass away. Every moral sentiment, every intellectual action, is to me a hint, a prophetic sign, of a spiritual power to be expanded forever, just as a faint ray from a distant star is significant of unimaginable splendor.

Dream not of a heaven into which you may enter, live as you may. To such as waste the present state, the future will not, cannot bring happiness. There is no concord between them and that world of purity. A human being who has lived without God, and without self-improvement, can no more enjoy heaven than a mouldering body, lifted from the tomb and placed amidst beautiful prospects, can enjoy the light through its decayed eyes, or feel the balmy air which blows away its dust.

Heaven is in truth revealed to us in every pure affection of the human heart, and in every wise and beneficent action that uplifts the soul in adoration and gratitude.

For heaven is only purity, wisdom, benevolence, joy, peace, in their perfected form. Thus the immortal life may be said to surround us perpetually. Some beams of its glory shine upon us in whatever is lovely, heroic, and virtuously happy in ourselves or in others. The pure mind carries heaven within itself, and manifests that heaven to all around.

Immortal happiness is nothing more than the unfolding of our own minds, the full, bright exercise of our best powers; and these powers are never to be unfolded here or hereafter, but through our own free exertion.

The truth is that all action on earth, even the intensest, is but the sport of childhood compared with the energy and activity of that higher life. It must be so. For what principles are so active as intellect, benevolence, the love of truth, the thirst for perfection, sympathy with the suffering, and devotion to God's purposes? and these are the ever-expanding principles of the future life. -W. E. Channing.

So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.-W. C. Bryant.

I see the autumn prefigured in the spring. The flowers of May-day foretold the harvest, its rosy apples, and its yellow ears of corn. As the bud now lying cold and close upon the bark of every tree throughout our

northern clime is a silent prophecy of yet another spring and other summers, and harvests too, so this instinctive love of justice, scantily budding here and nipped by adverse fate, silently but clearly tells of the kingdom of heaven.

I cannot think the future world is to be feared, even by the worst of men. I had rather die a sinner than live one. Doubtless justice is there to be done; that may seem stern and severe. But remember, God's justice is not like a man's; it is not vengeance, but mercy; not poison, but medicine. To me it seems tuition more than chastisement. God is not the jailer of the universe, but the Shepherd of the people; not the hangman of mankind, but their Physician; yes, our Father. I cannot fear him as I fear man. I cannot fail to love. ** Does not even the hireling shepherd, when a single lamb has gone astray, leave the ninety and nine safe in their fold, go forth some stormy night and seek the wanderer, rejoicing to bring home the lost one on his shoulders? And shall God forget his child, his frailest or most stubborn child; leave him in endless misery, a prey to insatiate sin, that grim, bloodthirsty wolf, prowling about the human fold? I tell you no;

not God.

**

The more I live, the more I love this lovely world; feel more its Author in each little thing, in all that is great. But yet I feel my immortality the more. In childhood the consciousness of immortal life buds forth feeble, though full of promise. In the man it unfolds its fragrant petals, his most celestial flower, to mature its seed throughout eternity. - Theodore Parker.

God judges by a light
Which baffles mortal sight.
In His vast world above,

A world of broader love,

God hath some grand employment for his son..
- Faber.

More and more do I feel that this nature of mine is the deep ground-warrant for faith in God and immortality. Everywhere in creation there is a proportion between means and ends, -between all natures and their destinies. And can it be that my soul, which, in its few days' unfolding, is already stretching out its hands to God and to eternity, and which has all its being and welfare wrapped up in those sublime verities, is made to strive and sigh for them in vain, to stretch out its hands to nothing?

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"Onward!" is the call of many a great hour of our being; onward! to the battle and victory! And to this earth-strife that presses upon us every day, to this solemn waiting, to this dim bordering upon the realm of boundless light, is there not a voice that says, "Onward! onward forever!" Beautiful phrase that describes the departed, "they have passed on." Not, "they are dead"; but they have passed on"! Progress, then, is our being's motto and hope. Gaining and losing in this world, rising and falling, enjoying and suffering, are but the incidents of life. Learning, aspiration, progress, is the life of life. Onward! then, pilgrims to eternity! The day is far spent for some of us, the night is at hand; and over its sublime portal through which the evening stars of this world, but the morning stars of eternity, are shining, is written, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into

the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

Death! what art thou to the Christian's assurance? Great hour of answer to life's prayer; great hour that shall break asunder the bond of life's mystery; hour of release from life's burden; hour of reunion with the loved and lost; what mighty hopes hasten to their fulfilment in thee! What longings, what aspirations, breathe in the still night beneath the silent stars; what dread emotions of curiosity; what deep meditations of joy; what hallowed imaginings of never experienced purity and bliss; what possibilities shadowing forth unspeakable realities to the soul, all verge to their consummation in thee! O death! the Christian's death! what art thou but the gate of life, the portal of heaven, the threshold of eternity? Orville Dewey.

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Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that riseth with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.

-

Wordsworth.

Let us learn to look on death as an appointment, not a fatality; as an appointment of our Heavenly Father, who alone has the power; as appointed in wisdom and love, because appointed by him. * * * * * To die, is to be set free; free from the fetters of a body which is dying while it lives, and from the narrow bounds of a restricted state. To die, is to go with our conscience and character only, into the presence of our Judge. To