THE IDEA OF MAN'S IMMORTALITY DIVINELY

IMPRESSED.

LL nations, are, in a manner, agreed that there is an immortality to be expected, as well as a Deity to be worshiped; though ignorance of circumstances makes religion vary even to monstrosity, in many parts of the world. But both Religion and the belief of the Reward of it, which is a blessed state after death, being so generally acknowledged by all the inhabitants of the earth; it is a plain argument that it is true, according to the Light of Nature. And not only because they believe so, but because they do so seriously desire it, or are so horribly afraid of it if they offend much against their consciences: which properties would not be in man so universally, if there were no objects in Nature answering to these Faculties. I therefore demand, and I desire to be answered without prejudice or any restraint laid upon our Natural Faculties. To what purpose is this indelible Image or Idea of God, in us, if there be no such thing as God existent in the world? Or who sealed so deep an impression of that character upon our minds?

HENRY MOORE.

IMMORTALITY AND DEATH.

FAITH builds a bridge across the gulf of Death,
To break the shock blind Nature cannot shun,
And lands Thought smoothly on the farther shore.
Death's terror is the mountain Faith removes,
That mountain-barrier between men and peace.
'Tis Faith disarms Destruction, and absolves
From every clam'rous charge the guiltless tomb.

*

The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance
That threw in this Bethesda your disease;

What gleams of joy! what more than human peace!
Where the frail mortal? the poor abject worm?

No, not in death the mortal to be found.

His conduct is a legacy for all,

Richer than Mammon's for his single heir.
His comforters he comforts; great in ruin,
With unreluctant grandeur gives, not yields,
His soul sublime, and closes with his fate.
How our hearts burnt within us at the scene.
Whence this brave bound o'er limits fix'd to man?
His God sustains him in his final hour!

EDWARD YOUNG.

THE STRAIN OF IMMORTALITY.

TRANGE," said a gifted metaphysician once, "that the barrel-organ, man, should terminate every tune with the strain of immortality!" Not strange, but divinely natural. It is the tentative prelude to the thrilling music of our eternal bliss written in the score of destiny. When at night we gaze far out into immensity, along the shining vistas of God's abode and are almost crushed by the overwhelming prospects that sweep upon our vision, do not some premonitions of own unfathomed greatness also stir within us? Yes: "the sense of Existence, the ideas of Right and Duty, awful intuitions of God and immortality, these, the grand facts and substance of the spirit, are independent and indestructible."

W. R. ALGER.

MORAL LIFE BEYOND EARTH.

SOMETIMES like to fancy things about the stars. May there not be moral systems as well as physical?-moral wholes or plans; a portion of the plan being carried on in one world, and another in another world, so that, like differ. ent pieces of a machine,or like the different stars themselves, the whole must be examined before the plan can be underThe world may be a moral center; the center being the cross from which moral radii extend throughout the moral universe. Physical space and moral space have no connection. It used to be an old question how many angels could dance on the point of a needle, but it had a glimmer of wisdom, too, for it arose from the feeling that spiritual things have no relation to space.

stood.

REV. NORMAN MACLEOD, D. D.

THIS LIFE AN ARGUMENT FOR THE NEXT.

HERE are times when the best life seems a sheer failure to the man who has lived it; his wisdom folly, his genius impotence, his best deed poor and small; when he wonders why he was suffered to be born; when all the sorrows of the world seem poured upon him; when he stands in a populous loneliness, and, though weak, can only lean upon himself. In such hours he feels the insufficiency of this life. It is only his cradle-time-he counts himself just born; all honors, wealth and fame are but baubles in his baby-hand: his deep philosophy but nursery rhymes; yet he feels the immortal fire burning in his heart. Still worse, the consciousness of sin comes over him; he feels that he has insulted himself. All about him seems little: himself little, yet clamoring to be great. Then we feel an immortality; through the garish light of day we see a star or two. The soul within us feels

her wings, contending to be borne, impatient for the sky, and wrestles

with the earthly worm, that folds us in.

THEODORE PARKER.

A SECOND LIFE.

HE most of fame goes under the grass with the other wreaths placed upon the coffin. To compose that vast and immortal thing called truth, millions of minds are consumed. There must be elsewhere a compensation for the individual thus rudely torn from life. A second life, a readjustment beyond the tomb, is the only explanation of that destroying angel which moves to and fro in our streets and homes. Society is immortal here, man is immortal hereafter. Earth consumes our great ones and our loved ones, but heaven looks down in pity and receives them to herself. Earth refines man as silver is refinedrefines, but does not destroy. After the dross of the body and soul have been consumed the spirit thus whitened begins elsewhere a higher life.

PROF. DAVID SWING.

IMMORTAL FLOWERS.

ET us walk with the Gardener while He points out to us some of His rarer plants. He points to this bed and says, "There rests a precious seed, O how lovely will its blooming be! On earth it was called Bleeding Heart. It grew in great tribulation. But the terminology of the botany of heaven is not known on earth. It has a new name, written on a white stone, which no man knoweth. Tears and afflictions were needed to bring out its rare qualities."

And what lies here in this bed, Gardener?" You would call that in earth's botany, a Heliotrope-the flower that ever turns toward the sun."

"And there lies the Lily of the Valley; and there the Calla, whose roots had to be submerged in water."

"But," we ask, "Gardener, canst Thou care for all these? Will there be no confusion or neglect? Thy flower beds are so many, is there no possibility that some will be overlooked?"