Phantasie, und gäbzt mir der bessern Zukunft sichere Ahnung?" (Schleiermacher, " Monologen.") Looking upon living things, we behold them passing into death; whence, as if to fulfil the yearnings of our heart, they issue in new forms of being and existenceproving that death is change, not destruction. The component elements of every organism are separated and dissipated; metals and rocks dissolve, little by little, into thin air; but only to be re-formed-nothing is lost. The sun, flooding the hills with splendour, wastes no sparklet nor ray of light. Nature does not beam her brightest smiles upon our countenance, and then deceitfully bear us to realms of outer darkness. We are not sparks and flashes merely betokening that heat which endureth but for a moment. What does the moral stage denote, unless it be a sign and proof that man is an immortal being? Nor is that all: "The postulates of pure reason proceed from the principle of morality, and are Immortality, Liberty positively considered, and the Existence of God" (Kant's "Critical Inquiry"). The nature of man involves these two things-1, of exceeding his own individuality-thinking of transferring himself to that which lies beyond himself; 2, of finding a reason, an intelligibleness in nature, as its ultimate explanation. Thus he is assured of present and future reality as to his own existence. Physical science confirms this philosophy. Our dying, and we die daily, is for renewal of the living substance; and, so dying, behold, we live! This miracle of life ought to be more fully proclaimed by men of science. They ought to tell us plainly, that in the proportion we neglect our intellectual and devotional faculties we thwart and traverse our destiny, and mar even our physical welfare. The present time and place and state are a nursery ground for future variety; and as all life came from precedent life, intelligence from higher Intelligence, our personality from an essential Person, so our life, intelligence, personality-capable of elevation the perfect attainment of which on earth seems almost impossible-pass into the wider life, greater intelligence, more wonderful personality, for fulfilment of our glorious destiny. Of this destiny we are assured by our boundless possibility of advancement to a standard of excellence which throws contempt on our highest actual attainments. Nevertheless, we will exercise ourselves as to some of the realities:—The ages to come will reveal a personal experience of which we have now but the very faintest trace in analogy. We search, weigh, analyze, the most distant orbs. We unwrap the sun, take off coat after coat, and know him better than some men know the country wherein they live. In our brighter forms of thinking, there is the intuition, the spring, the flash of thought. We call it inspiration, so it is: all our true thought and knowledge are hints of wondrous disclosures in the future. Moses' face received a gleam of what God's glory will communicate in our higher state and place. Paul will find outlet for his zeal; Apollos for his eloquence; John, the Divine, will not be the same as Philip or Matthew-to every precious stone will be its several tint. Various and peculiar fascinations spread over the Paradise of God, and give zest to the services of heaven. The new song of the Holy Land is a commemorative song, past endurances add exquisiteness to the triumphal strain. To the spirit-body, that outward covering of the ransomed soul, distance and time will scarce be known: eternal beings have infinitude as home. Nothing is lost; truth taken into the heart prepares us for enduring honour and power. We shall all attain our right place in heaven, or right place not in heaven; every one in perfection, or in degradation; the judgment is just and good. We shall be ourselves, in our true colours, and as we make ourselves; yet, with it all a fashioning of God for exquisite perfection of the saints. Every present thought and feeling is a painting stroke of our likeness that is to be, and with present acts we fresco the chambers of our eternal home. Moments, hours, years, silently form in this life's darkness that soul's structure whose proportions will be revealed in the sunlight of eternity; and that unseen world bears the same relation to all the seen as the created material universe of Almighty God to the peasant's lowly dwelling. Those who call this romance may proceed to soberer thought concerning our progress towards the Supreme. Indestructibility is not the attribute of matter only; our faculties of thought, of love, of virtue, of progressive holiness, are better things; and the better do not die while the worse live on. These better, in fact, are the cause of harmonious progress and development in all, enriching even our physical organization. Those worse we take up, as it were, from the ground; the better we take, so to speak, from heaven; thus we belong to two worlds-pilgrims through the present unto permanent dwellings in the future. We say with Shakespeare— "In prison we have spent a pilgrimage." We combine in the mortal body the inorganic and organic substance of the universe, resemble the lowest animals; yet excel the highest in the wonders of our sensational, intellectual, emotional life. If we develop all the elements of our nature, earthly perfection will ultimately adorn our earthly destiny; and the full height of culture enable every man to say, "In God I live, and move, and have my being." In our frame is exhibited the direct action of spirit on matter-a continual miracle-turning the dull, cold, insensate clods of earth into bright, warm, intelligent existence. Then, with long labour and deep thought, we aim by faith, by prayer, by holy obedience, to carry this intelligence to the wisdom that is above the earth for a divine beautifying; thus, day by day, we may be said to glorify the lower world, bringing it within the reach and range of mental and spiritual capacity; climbing into the power seemingly inconceivable, sometimes even the power of accomplishing miracles and prodigies -not belying but, in truth, verifying the course of nature; so that we are fellow-workers of the Most High. This re-creation has another and a higher counterpart. Our natural person becomes a spiritual person: by imitating those grand types and patterns of men which God gave in early history, and influenced by Christ's Person, through the Incarnation, the God-man's nature "Ce que l'univers est pour l'œil de l'homme, LACORDAIRE. we are won to conscious union with God, who dwells in our own substance. It was before this Godhead, shrined in a human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, weeping over their graves, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudice of the Jew, the scepticism of the Greek, the pride of the Roman, were humbled in the dust. He made, He makes new men. Persons even in the lowest depths of poverty are rendered independent of a poor earthly fate, and that independence is better than prosperity. By this process of spiritual creation we pass into the God-Nature which has come down into ours. We enter Divine Life, that not on earth only, but in grander spheres, we may represent the wonder and beauty of the advance, the elevation, the perfection of Humanity. The Christly process of raising men is greatly hindered by unbelief (Mark vi. 5, 6). Because of this unbelief, Christ can as yet do none of His greatest works. Unbelief turns the soul into a dark cavern. In many a dark cavern the drops that trickle within harden after they fall. The work of former sins, the tears of former passions, the congealings of present impiety, make the soul to be that than which nothing is more cold, nothing more hard. Even miracles are not believed in, though the universe is one splendid miracle. Men, nevertheless, want miracles to enforce faith, enchain reason, coerce affection, compel conscience-"Let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him" (Matt. xxvii. 42). They forget that if God so worked, and miracles so impelled, there would be no voluntary human co-operation with the Divine, no response of will—of love-of intelligence-to holy motions. Let men take to heart the fact, that the Christly process is moral, |