belongs to them in the earth; and it may be more of joy to them than all their worldly desires."

And then some one said, "You may not look, at your pleasure, to come to heaven in a featherbed. It is not the way. For our Lord himself came hither with great pain and many tribulations; that was the path wherein he walked hither. And the servant may not look to be in better case than his Master." He who spoke thus stood so that I could not see him, but by what he said I knew that he was Thomas More.

"Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ, it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of the saints." These were Pascal's words to me.

Then one who stood next to Pascal looked at me. Him I did not know; but when he spoke, I knew him by his words to be Thomas à Kempis. And he said, "When the hour of your trial comes, do you pray,-O God, dearly loved! this hour, it is right that thy creature should suffer something from thee, and for thee. O Father, the hour is come for him, which from all eternity thou hast foreknown would come, that thy servant should lie prostrate at thy door; but, Lord, do thou let him in to be with thee, O, for ever! For a little while must I be nothing, and

I must fail in the sight of men, and I must be worn with suffering and weakness. But it is all so that I may rise in the dawn of a new light, and grow glorious in heaven. Holy Father! so thou hast ordered it; and what is done and is doing on me is thy decree.”

this

When this prayer for my learning was ended, Augustine exclaimed, "O this life which God has laid up in store for them that love him, life indeed! This happy, safe, and most lovely, this holy life! This life which fears no death, which feels no sorrow, which knows no sin! This perfect love and harmony of souls! This day that never declines, this light that never goes out! Think of its blisses and glories, and so find some refreshment from the miseries and toils of a perishing life. And at the last, recline your weary head and lay you down to sleep with joy; for you know now that that sleep shall be shaken off again, and the blessedness of this life begin at once on your awaking."

Then a voice spoke; and, O, it was so clear, and sweet, and grateful! and it was the voice of Margaret Fox; and she said, "Now these have finished their course and their testimony, and are entered into their eternal rest and felicity. I trust in the same powerful God, that his holy arm and power will carry thee through whatever he hath yet for thee to do; and that he will be

thy strength and support, and the bearer up of thy head unto the end, and in the end. For I know his faithfulness and goodness, and I have experience of his love. To whom be glory and powerful dominion for ever. Amen."

All that were standing by said Amen, like one voice. And with Amen upon my lips, I awoke.

I was sitting by the fire. And in my hand there was a book, into which I had copied many things from my reading. From this dream I inferred that we mortals have all the knowledge of the world to come which we can have, and all the assurance of it which is good for us, and that, for a believer in earnest, the right feeling towards the next life is hope, and not fear. And from my dream I learned that sympathy with saints gone hence brings us into that state of mind that is most firmly persuaded of the heavens, into which they have entered.

CHAPTER VIII.

Death is another life. We bow our heads
At going out, we think, and enter straight
Another golden chamber of the king's,

Larger than this we leave, and lovelier.-P. J. BAILEY.

And the pure soul emancipate by death,

The Enlarger, shall attain its end predoomed,
The eternal newness of eternal joy.

MARHAM.

SOUTHEY.

I HAVE been reading your dream, Oliver. There is wisdom in it. And I like it much, and so I do the sonnet from the Italian.

AUBIN.

But of course you do not think it my translation; for I am no poet.

MARHAM.

O, yes, you are, according to what you quoted this morning, from some one :

Poets are all who love, who feel great truths,

And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.

AUBIN.

What book is that which you have been reading, uncle ?

MARHAM.

A treatise by Peter Huet, on whereabouts Paradise was. It was written in the seventeenth

century, like many, and perhaps most, of the books on that subject. I think myself, that Paradise was in Asia, certainly.

I dare say it was.

AUBIN.

MARHAM.

You are not interested in the subject?

AUBIN.

No, uncle; or rather, I do not mind reading those books. Paradise is not so lost as is sometimes thought. The garden of Eden is now spread out into the width of the world. Our homes are bowers in it; our roads are walks in it; and always within reach hang forbidden fruits, though now they are such as are often their own punishment in the eating, apples of Sodom, golden in the rind and dust inside. There is in the garden still the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and this we may eat of now; for it is full grown, and the fruit of it is ripe. And by eating of it, we, too, have our eyes opened, and so are able to recognize, as the very tree of life, what otherwise looks deadly, and itself dead wood; I mean the tree of the crucifixion.

MARHAM.

That life is lost by seeking to save it, and is saved by willingness to lose it, is very hardly, and not very often, believed; though most persons do think they believe it.