dred spirit, some beloved object. The mind naturally seeks its rest upon some other mind, there is an interchange of thought and feeling wholly spiritual. To facilitate this social intercourse, speech, the prerogative of man, has been furnished.

"Had thought been all, sweet speech had been denied."

With what wonderful fondness does the Mother look upon her infant; its innocent caresses afford her transporting delight, her cares, her labors, her watchings, know no bounds. But the period of infancy does not end these cares. Childhood and youth call forth fresh anxiety in the Mother's bosom, and when manhood glows upon the brow of her son, she looks on him who drew both life and nourishment from her, with an affection more true, more loving, more exalted than any feeling that glows within the human breast. It is friendship the most refined. Oh how unlike is this love to the love of the mother brute! Instinctive affection is fierce, and passes away so entirely that the brute knows not her own progeny when they leave her fostering care.

How can we believe that the social ties which become stronger the longer they endure, stronger even than the love of life, shall soon be forever broken? that the Christian Mother, wife, sister, friend, who follows the beloved one through life

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with ceaseless affection, and at its close, looks beyond the precincts of the tomb, with hope to a joyful re-union, where sorrows and separation are no more, shall love and hope in vain? Far more reasonable is it to believe that these desires and hopes are from the Author of our nature, and are an earnest that they in future will be gratified. To suppose the contrary, would derogate from the goodness of the Supreme Creator, so wonderfully displayed through all His works. "For what more cruel than to create this earnest and universal longing, and not gratify it ?"

Let us leave to the heathen philosopher the uncertainty that said; "What I am now I know, concerning the future I can only believe; and belief can never possess the certainty of knowledge," and adopt the inspired language of him who declared: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." The faith of the most enlightened heathen was but opinion, the belief of darkened Reason; in the Christian it is certainty. Neither Plato nor Socrates, though full of ardent desires after immortality, could penetrate beyond the veil that hangs between the living and the dead: Revelation alone can raise the curtain. Life and immortality have been brought to light in the

Gospel. To this Gospel, my dear young friends, do I counsel you to cling, and when death shall roll its floods around you, the hope that it contains shall be the Rock of your salvation.

CHAPTER V.

EXALTED NATURE AND DESTINATION OF THE SOUL.

The assurance of immortality brought to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, comes with transporting evidence to the mind of the believer in this revelation. He can say, "For I know that if my earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, I have a building of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens." The desire to put off this mortal part in which he is burdened with pains and sorrows, accompanies this belief. He even "longs to be unclothed" of the flesh that he "may be clothed" with immortality, and "swallowed up" or "bathed in life." He rejoices in the prospect of a habitation "where God shall wipe away all tears from his eyes," where there shall be "no night," "neither the light "oft obscured," of the sun," for "the Lord God giveth "to the inhabitants of that blessed abode, "light" immediately from the Fount of Light; where "having over

come," they shall inherit all things with the title and privilege of Sons of God.

Every thing within us and around us proves our immortal and high destiny. We find upon the examination of ourselves that we are reasonable, sensitive, intellectual, social and moral beings. We know that God has thus made us, and as He makes nothing in vain, we cannot doubt that some important purpose is attached to our existence. Every flower that blooms in the meadow, every leaf that moves in the forest, every insect that sports in the sunbeams, proclaims the glory of its Creator; how then can it be supposed that we are made for a lower purpose! Our animal nature fearfully and wonderfully framed, is fitted by its organic structure to enjoy all the lower delights of our own beautiful earth, and in the proper enjoyment, its full purpose seems to be answered, and thus the Creator glorified.

The powers of the soul, infinitely surpassing those of the body, afford strong grounds for the belief that the destination of the immaterial part is not intended to be this earth. Resembling its Creator, the mind is capable of discovering relations natural and moral; it examines the present by means of its perceptions, by memory it looks back upon the past, by imagination into the futúre. How wondrous in conception! Fitted

to understand the nature and the relations of surrounding objects, now it penetrates to the recesses of the earth, and it brings to the light its hidden treasures; again, the mind stretches itself to the vast proportions, not only of our globe, but it takes measure of the worlds that roll in space around us, and even draws down lightning from the very heavens, rendering it harmless.

How unwearied in industry, how godlike in invention and skill! The whole earth is so filled with the labours of man, that it seems like a new creation. Desolate regions have become fertile plains. Where the forest oak towered in its loveliness, there arises the fane and the spire, and multitudes gather for pleasure, for business or for devotion around the lofty edifices. Waters have changed their courses and their natural Now do they float through the once solitary forest the freighted bark, now propel with unthought-of speed the loaded carriage. In vain has the globe been divided into different portions, by a mighty mass of waters; man has become lord of the ocean, and traverses from continent to continent more easily than the inhabitant of the air. Accelerated motion has nearly annihilated space, and more than doubled life or time to man.

uses.

In the arts that contribute to the convenience