are seasons in which our souls can feel him more. Yes, I know that what God has been to me at

any time, he is always; and he is than what I know, infinitely more.

more to me

O, there are

days that call to me out of the past, and one asks solemnly, "Dost thou not remember having been born again, and was not that change God with thee?" It was; and what I am now is because God is with me. And another asks, "Wert thou not as one dead once, and art thou not alive again?" Yes, and my soul's going out of the body will not be more terrific than many passages in my life have been. The day of my death will not be stranger for me than several days have been that I have lived through, through God; and so for which I have come to know God the better and the more happily. And I shall die, but only to know the more blessedly that God is the Father of us spirits.

CHAPTER XIII,

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect, stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

J. BLANCO WHITE.

MARHAM.

PERSONS Who have no faith themselves cannot understand in what way those who have it are the better for it.

AUBIN.

But whether we know it or not, we are all of us mysteries to ourselves and to one another. In our souls there is what is connected with God, and through that channel what may come, or how we may be quickened, it is not for usno, nor for the angels to say.

MARHAM.

It is very likely that hereafter some very slight

est help or change may be enough to make us enjoy ourselves a thousand times more than we have ever done.

AUBIN.

There are landscapes by Paul Potter which are a delight to look at. But the Dutch scenery that he painted from, and painted exactly, is ugly and very dull; or rather I should say, it is so to most persons; but to Paul Potter it was not. Now I can believe, if some little want were supplied in my spirit, that the whole earth would be glorified to me, and God be seen throughout it.

MARHAM.

And so God be all in all, even to the eye.

AUBIN.

You remind me of another thing which I have remarked. A man has looked at a scene somewhere, and thought it to be very pretty; but when he sees it as a landscape in some great master's painting, he feels it to be spiritual, and his soul is the better for the sight.

MARHAM.

Is it so, Oliver? Well, how do you account for it?

AUBIN.

The artist is an interpreter of the earth's look, and such a helper we most of us need; just as the heathen cannot understand the Gospel without its being explained to their minds. However,

the more godly we are, the more we shall feel the spirit of God in all God's works, and in all his workings with us. The lily looked to Christ more, and something diviner, than it does to us, when he spoke of it as being so arrayed in glory by God. God so clothing the grass of the field! - there is a way of thinking of that which ought to clothe our souls in faith.

MARHAM.

Faith, perfect faith! That is the garment which in the wearing would make life be like a high festival, and this earth like the house of the Lord, and our thoughts like Christ with us.

AUBIN.

That is what I am sure of; and from my being sure of it, my little faith serves me more than it otherwise would. Troubles and pleasures and death are about me. And they are about me like a blessed home. Though this is what I do not see; but I do know it. So, in whatever my circumstances are, I can feel at home, and not like a prisoner; just as in this house I am sure that I am at home, even in the dark, and when I can only feel things about me and not see them.

MARHAM.

Whatever our darkness, God is in it; and through faith in him, if we have not light at once, we have peace.

AUBIN.

Death comes to us in the dark, and so he is dreadful to many men; but to the saint he is not. For though the Christian cannot see, yet he feels what the look of death must be; and rightly, for in the light of heaven death looks divinely, and is one of the angels of God.

MARHAM.

I have been thinking that the fear of death is from thinking too much of one's self. At the last hour we will look up to God, and then death will come upon us as though straight from God.

AUBIN.

God is in the world and in all things more plainly than I can see; but I can trust in what Christ saw. O, there is a song of triumph over our human nature, which day unto day is said about the earth, and which night unto night is chanted, and which the morning-stars sing together in for joy! The song itself I cannot hear, but the joy of it I can believe in, and I do, and I will. So, at the last, I will feel as though underneath me the earth were glad, and as though the heavens were bending towards me from above, and as though there were joy among the angels at seeing in me what to them is birth immortal, though we mortals call it death.