sense, of sin, and of sorrow, are heard, in soft "mournfully pleasant" undertones, the harmonies of higher, holier, and happier realms. There is, at such times, a growing weary of present things, and things that are seen; and the spirit longs after an outlet from that which is "in part," and an inlet into that communion where "that which is in part shall be done away."

This feeling, which manifests itself with such mournful earnestness among thoughtful pagans, as well as among thoughtful sinners in Christian lands, is almost infinitely stronger and clearer in the bosom of Christians. Christianity brings the true meaning of life, and the true value of immortality, to light. It reveals the Pure, the Beautiful, the Good. It strengthens the longings of the spirit after the infinite and the perfect. It begets in the heart that hidden life of faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and which, coming from God, leads back to Him. Though in this contracted sphere of earth we are often almost overwhelmed with worldliness, yet

"Still in the soul sounds the deep underchime,
Of some immeasurable, boundless time."

Christians cannot be better characterized than they are when it is said, "They declare plainly that they seek a country." As soon as our lives are brought under the power of faith, we thenceforth walk by faith, and not by sight. Faith is now the life of

heaven dawning in the soul. It works by love— love beaming from heaven into the heart, warming it into a joyful bloom, as the rays of the sun unfold and

beautify the flowers. It purifies the heart by the spirit of purity, which comes from heaven. It overcomes the world, by its ardent longings after the high, the good, the infinite. Faith is that hidden life which has affinities for the unseen; to which things unseen are more real, and far more powerful in their influence, than those things which stand in direct affinity with the senses. Hence the life of a Christian, being a life of faith, is a heavenly life. Earth, with its scenes, is still around him, it is true, laving his senses; but even these, in their inner sense, are heavenly to him; not stopping, in their influence, with the senses, but using them only as channels to the spirit. The senses are but as the convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell, which winds gradually and gracefully into the inner life; and, as there are hidden chambers in the shell, which return sweet music to the ear, so there are "holy of holies" in the spirit, which speak a language of their own to the ear of faith. That awful retirement gives back echoes of which the senses are the channels, but which the senses do not understand. These are the echoes of the universe!

In some hour of solemn jubilee,

The massy gates of Paradise are thrown
Wide open, and forth come, in fragments wild,
Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies,

And odors snatched from beds of amaranth,
And they that from the crystal river of life
Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales!
The favored good man in his lonely walk
Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks
Strange bliss, which he shall recognize in heaven.

COLERIDGE.

These are harmonies which undulate over from choirs afar off. This is that heavenly jubilate, which, when once heard, the music of earth can please no longer.

Thus the spirit of the Christian is brought, by faith, into communion with the life of heaven

Which only he who feels it knows!

a life

This communion is designated in Scripture by such passages as these: The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. In thy light shall we see light. Your life is hid with Christ in God. Ps. xxv. 14: xxxvi. 9. Col. iii. 3. Rev. ii. 17. Heb. xii. 22. Phil. iii. 20. 1 Cor. vi. 17: ii. 9, 10, 14. 1 John, ii. 20. Matt. xi. 25. Luke, xvii. 20, 21. Let these passages be studied by him whose life is in this world, and who sees, feels, and enjoys only through his senses. 0, such an one lives but in the cold outer darkness of life, and will sooner or later perish there!

When we consider that language like the above finds its deep and blessed fulfilment in the experience of God's believing children, is it strange that they meditate much and earnestly on the heavenly life, and long ardently after its full fruition? "Now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly." Would they be Christians if they did not? Could they be heirs, and not long after their inheritance? Could they be children, and not think of their Father's house? Could they have the dawn of heaven rising in their souls, without desiring to bask in the full light and love of the eternal day? May we not safely

measure our interest in that blissful place by the strength of our desire after it?

It is well worthy of serious inquiry whether the piety of the times has not too little of heaven in it. We venture to say that the religion of the present day is too much the fruit of the impulsive, and not sufficiently of the attractive. It resembles a plant that is developed under the pressure of the hot-bed, and not in the genial light and warmth of the sun. It seeks too much to woo heaven, and yields too little to being wooed by it. It depends too much upon efforts of feeling and intellect, and has too little of surrender, submission, and dedication. It lacks the meek, the quiet, the serene, the child-like, and the patriarchal. Its faith has too much self-will, because it has too little hope and love in it. It is too secular, and conforms too much to worldly wisdom and prudence. The affections circle too much amid the subjective and earthly, and acknowledge practically too little the silent, attractive, transforming power of the objective and heavenly. There is too much of a tendency toward making heaven a mere subject of feeling in the soul, without regarding it also as an object of hope, toward which we are directed to look for full and final satisfaction. That region of rest and peace into which this life, if it is a life in Christ, is at length to merge, is too much ignored, just as if earth could be bright without light from above. We need more of that old faith, which felt a nearer fellowship with the world of spirits than is done now -the faith that boasted less of spiritualism in marketplaces and at the corners of the streets, but which

was more really under the influence of spiritual powers that faith which walked less by sight, but bowed more reverently in the holy shadow of mysteries-that faith, in short, which was faith only because it was the evidence of things not seen!

Man is a mysterious being, fearfully and wonderfully made. He stands as the medium of two worlds. Being constituted of body and soul, he is partly matter and partly spirit. In him, therefore, heaven and earth, time and eternity, the finite and the infinite, meet and exchange their sympathies.

Being thus marvellously constituted, he has capacities which adapt him to the intercourse of both worlds, and enables him even on earth to comprehend in part both worlds in himself. By his senses and intellect he is planted into a living union with the present world, and by the higher faculties of his spirit, he stands in affinity with the unseen spirit-world. As the Angel of the Apocalypse stood, with one foot upon the land, and with the other upon the sea, so he rests with one side of his being in the seen, and with the other in the unseen world, looks forward and backward at pleasure, and is, or ought to be, at home in both.

From different natures marvellously mix'd,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!

From each side of this mysterious line in man, which is at once the centre and division of his nature, voices are heard, and objects press upon him, soliciting his attention. Each side presents wonders, interests,