to us, through our memories, the earth itself is eternal, and so, again, has not been made in vain. Either this world is a folly, or man is immortal. Man's future life is the wisdom of the universe; and so doubt it we must not, and we cannot.

MARHAM.

Oliver, dear Oliver, your words are too positive. I do not mean that they are not most blessedly true. But perhaps, as to what the Divine purpose in the world must be, we should not be confident, but only confidently trustful.

AUBIN.

Uncle, you are right. Still it is pleasant, — the way in which the end of the world points on to the immortality of man.

So it is.

MARHAM.

AUBIN.

So as for herself not to have been made in vain, the earth asks another life for men, and one to outlast her own.

MARHAM.

And it is theirs; for it is promised them.

AUBIN.

So many things are such witnesses of human immortality; even sin is, and in letters that are like red iron in the dark. Often into a sinner there is burnt what convinces him that his soul may be changed, but can never, never die.

MARHAM.

Awful, very awful proof of an hereafter! and yet most of us can guess at it, out of our own experience.

AUBIN.

So we can. In the very abasement of our nature, we are consciously immortal, and so we are in our highest moods.

MARHAM.

But in them we may be deceived; for they are our proudest.

AUBIN.

I was thinking of those only that are our purest.

MARHAM.

Right. And it is certain that, whether visible or not, all souls must have in them foretokens of their infinite continuance.

AUBIN.

Especially towards death; some souls, as it were, plainly going home, in going out of this world. And there are some who die, and are followed by their works, and not only by them,

but by their righteous sufferings,

witnesses that cry aloud, along with the souls of the martyrs under the altar, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge?" But judgment there will be, and the day of it is appointed; so we can be patient, and be earnest in getting ready for it.

MARHAM.

Oliver, what are those verses you repeated last night, when looking out of the window?

AUBIN.

What I remember of a translation from Uhland. They are expressive of impatience for death; and yet I like them. They are what an old man might well say, looking up at the stars on an autumn night, with the leaves falling about him.

O golden legends writ in the skies!

I turn towards you with longing soul,
And list to the awful harmonies

Of the spheres, as on they roll.

O blessed rest! O royal night!

Wherefore seemeth the time so long,

Till I see yon stars in their fullest light,
And list to their loudest song.

In the day we do not see the stars, but night brings us in sight of them; and that night of nights, the night of death, will carry us up to them, and through them, and beyond them, and into the bosom of the Father, as we may well believe.

Amen! amen!

MARHAM.

I HAVE been reading at the window here, and I think, Oliver, in two books at once, perhaps. For my eyes have been straying, now and then, from this book of grace to the book of nature, outside. And, Oliver, I have been thinking, that it is only from my reading in the Scriptures that I find myself encouraged to draw nigh to God. In the book of nature there is little I can read to encourage me; or I should rather say, perhaps, there is very little encouragement there which I can read of myself. For I cannot doubt that to Jesus all nature was like the smile of God; and to the Psalmist it would appear, sometimes, to have been like God become plain about them. But they are only the true children of God, on whom nature does not frown as well as smile.

There have been times when almost I could have wondered, that, with the heavens to spread himself through, God should care about having a human heart for his temple. Oliver, I cannot wonder that some men have felt their own nothingness so painfully, as to have had misgivings too strong for their faith sometimes. The nothingness of man before the vastness of nature, it is only a wise faith that can bear it, with the weight with which it sometimes weighs on some minds. And there has been an unbelief, which has justified itself by asking scornfully what David would have asked with mingled feelings of humbleness, awe, and trust, What is man, any man, that God should regard him, while there are stars shining in the heavens, and while there are the sun and moon of his making?

AUBIN.

Uncle, the stars do not glorify God, except through the mind of man. The sun and moon praise God only with such rays as can enter the temple of a man's soul.

MARHAM.

I do not understand you, Oliver; at least, I think I do not.

AUBIN.

There is no such thing as sound, outside of the A noise is made by the air being made to vibrate; but the vibrations of the air become

ear.