for ever, a look of bright and beautiful and sudden surprise; the reflection of that light at evening that had been long in coming, but had come at last. At eventide light may break forth as the morning; light rising in obscurity, and darkness becoming as the noonday.

Light in darkness-light springing up out of darkness—the blessedness of this is emphatically recognised both by signal example and in special promise, in Holy Writ. When the hand of Moses was stretched out toward heaven, and darkness fell over the land of Egypt, even darkness which might be felt -a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days-the Egyptians saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. "When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." "For thou wilt light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness." In the same Psalm that tells how clouds and darkness are round about Him, the Father of lights, is contained the exulting assurance, that "light is sown for the righteous." The light of the righteous rejoiceth, when the lamp of the wicked hath been put out. Well may spiritual aspirations be fervent for light to be sent forth, to lead and to guide to His holy hill and tabernacle, lest the feet of the wayfarer slip in a way that he knows not; and, above all, when they stumble on the dark mountains, or lose their footing in the swelling of Jordan.

Lux è tenebris-who will not prize it? who does not need it? For

"What am I?

An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."

An exceeding bitter cry this crying for the light sometimes is, in such as those, for instance, whom Robertson of Brighton describes as "turning from side to side," feeling with horror the old, and all they hold dear, crumbling away-the ancient light going out more than half suspecting the falsehood of the rest,

and with an earnestness amounting to agony, leaving their home, like the Magians, and inquiring for fresh light.

Turning from side to side, with the wailing note of interrogation, "Who will show us any good?" And then, more earnestly than ever, "Lord, lift Thou up the LIGHT of Thy countenance upon us." In vain we turn from side to side. Το whom should we go but unto Thee? Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts; show the LIGHT of Thy countenance, and we shall be saved.

Observable for special application is what Locke makes observable as a general fact, that new-born children always turn their eyes to that part whence the light comes, lay them how you please.

When the blind are operated on for the restoration of sight, it is suggestively remarked by an eminent author, that the same succouring hand which has opened to them the visible world, immediately shuts out the bright prospect again for a time, a bandage being passed over the eyes, lest in the first tenderness of their recovered sense, they should be fatally affected by the sudden transition from darkness to light. But, as he goes on to say, between the awful blank of total privation of vision, and the temporary blank of vision merely veiled, there lies the widest difference. "In the moment of their restoration the blind have but one glimpse of light, flashing on them in an overpowering gleam of brightness, which the thickest, closest veiling cannot extinguish. The new darkness is not like the void darkness of old: it is filled with rapid, changing visions of brilliant colours and ever-varying forms, rising, falling, whirling hither and thither with every second." And thus is it made evident that even when the handkerchief is passed over them, the once sightless eyes, though bandaged fast, are yet not blinded as they were before. All the more,

however, they now dread the blankness of that total eclipse, now that, as it were, to them that walked in the shadow of death, light is sprung up. Light, how much the more precious for that background of blackness of darkness, darkness that still may be felt!

Light that may be felt, is the theme of blind old Edipus, in Sophocles, at the hour of his mysterious departure-the hour Farewell he bids to

and the power of darkness.

"Light, sweet Light!

Rayless to me-mine once, and even now

I feel thee palpable, round this worn form
Clinging in last embrace."

Immortal as Homer is the prayer of his Ajax to die, if die he must, in the light. Contrast with this the modus moriendi of Pompey the Great, as pictured in Corneille :

"D'un des pans de sa robe il couvre son visage,

A son mauvais destin en aveugle obéit,

Et dédaigne de voir le ciel qui le trahit."

So with the Greek wife in Landor's Hellenics, who resists the bidding to fall not on her knees, but to look up :—

"The hand

That is to slay me, best may slay me thus.

I dare no longer see the light of heaven."*

"As a

But to die in the light is the almost universal craving. matter of fact, nothing," it has been remarked, "is more common than the craving and demand for light a little before death;" a remark confirmed by the sad experience of many who have tended and watched the last moments of a friend. "What more frequent than a prayer to open the shutters, and let in the sun? What complaint more repeated, and more touching than that' it is growing dark' ?" We are told of a sufferer who did not seem in immediate danger, suddenly ordering the sick room to be lit up as for a gala. When this was mentioned to the physician, he said, gravely, "No worse sign." We all

In apposition, or opposition, to which, note the bidding and the demur in Talfourd's tragedy of "Ion":

"Adrastus. No; strike at once; my hour is come in thee
I recognise the minister of Jove,

Ion.
Adras.

And, kneeling thus, submit me to his power.
Avert thy face.

No; let me meet thy gaze," etc.

Y

remember the tenor of the last words of Dr. Adam, of the High School, Edinburgh, as recorded (however variously) by Scott and Lord Cockburn and others. It was in his bed-chamber, and in the forenoon, that he died; and finding that he could not see, the old schoolmaster, believing himself in the familiar school-room, exclaimed, "It is getting dark, boys; we must put off the rest till to-morrow." It was the darkness of death. And to the living, to-morrow, above all, that to-morrow, never

comes.

M. de Lescure, dying of the wounds he had received at the battle of Chollet, awaited with his usual serenity the advent of his last hour. "Open the windows," said he to his wife, who was watching by his bedside, "is it clear?" "Yes," she said, "the sun is shining." "I have, then," replied the dying general, a veil before my eyes." A veil that no man could raise. Chateaubriand, in describing the last hours of his sister, Madame de Beaumont-the Lucile of his "Memoires d'outretombe"-incidentally relates that "she begged of me to open the window. A ray of sunshine rested upon her bed, and seemed to rejoice her spirit." The same circumstance is related of the dying Emperor Alexander. So it is of Dr. Channing. Karl Ludwig Sand, on the scaffold, begged that the bandage over his eyes might be so placed that he could, until his last moment, see the light. And it was so. Turner's biographer tells us that almost at the very hour of the old painter's death, his landlady wheeled his chair to the window, that he might see the sunshine he had loved so much, mantling the river, and glowing on the sails of the passing boats. "The old painter died with the winter-morning sun shining upon his face, as he was lying in his bed. The attendant drew up the window-blind, and the morning sun shone on the dying artistthe sun he had so often beheld with such love and such veneration," and painted, at sundry times and in divers manners,

with such force.

Rousseau's wish, when in a dying state, to be carried into the open air, that he might have "a parting look at the glorious orb of day," is referred to by one of the many biographers of

Robert Burns, in recording that poet's remark one beautiful evening, when the sun was shining brightly through the casement. The hand of death was then upon him, and a young friend rose to let down the window-blinds, fearing the light might be too much for him. Burns thanked her, with a look of great benignity, but prayed her to let the sun shine on: "he will not shine long for me."

Tender and true is the pathos in one of Mrs. Richard Trench's letters, touching the death of her endeared child, Bessy, where we read: "The last phrase she uttered, except those expressive of her latest wants and pain, was a desire the window-curtain might be withdrawn, that she might look at the stars." Sunlight or starlight, it is light we cherish, and that cherishes us. Light from the first, light to the last. Happy, if the light we cherish. is the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Another set of variations on the same theme will form the section next ensuing.

WISHED-FOR DAY.
ACTS xxvii. 29.

I sen

T was in a ship of Alexandria, sailing into Italy, when sail

it was during a voyage which Paul, a passenger, foresaw and foretold would be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of lives two hundred threescore and sixteen; it was after there had arisen against the ship a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon, before which the vessel became a helpless drift; then it was that the crew and passengers, exceedingly tossed with the tempest, and not comforted-except the apostle, gave up, with the same exception, all hope of escape, and gloomily awaited the bitter end. On the third day they cast out the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay