To those who feel that life is too short, and the art of it too long, to spend much time among the controversies of the schools: to those, also, who are striving to find, amid all disorder and change, and the bewildering cries of men, the true idea of life, and the reconciling thought of God, these few "Thoughts for the Heart and Life" are here given: not because they have any new thing to tell, for truth is the same "yesterday, to-day, and for ever," but with the hope that they may help inquiring and earnest minds to "feel after God, if haply they may find Him," until the beautiful and blessed revelation

shall also dawn upon them, that "He is not far from every one of us."

THOUGHTS FOR THE HEART AND LIFE.

HE heart of man is a revelation from God, but

it is dumb until the Spirit of God is felt to breathe upon its lips, and then it speaks, as when, at the opening of the gates of dawn, the lips of Memnon sighed and sang, or the sweet melodies of a world awoke. For the Spirit of God is in every heart, waiting until the soul shall long for its revealings, and then its breath of life comes sweeping over the darkness and the sloth, and the dumb heart is silent never more. But this awakening of the soul can only come when the "secret of the Lord," that lies hidden there, is touched by the holy finger, and moved by the mighty breath of God. Hence no untruth, and no half truth, can awaken the true life of the soul: and things that come in the guise of truth, that do not consciously appeal to the soul, and startle it into life and freedom, are never to be received as truths : for the "secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him."