gone before to prepare a place, that where he is there his followers may be also. It shows that there is strict judgment in the future life; but that friends will meet; and that all will be better off there than here, because the great realities of the universe will be laid bare, and their motives be enabled to work upon us without the impediment and counteraction of these fleshly veils, with their gross corruptions and their wicked proclivities.

--

A very young disciple of Jesus, a scholar in a Sunday school, who had been taught the Christian doctrine of the future life and reunion of those who loved each other here, lost, in the winter time, a sister, who was taken away in her youth, with her innocence as stainless as the snow which soon covered her grave. One night this little boy saw her in a dream, which he supposed to be real. Upon waking in the morning, he exclaimed, "O mother, I have found our Mary! She lives in a beautiful country; she wears white robes; a crown of diamonds sparkles in her hair, and she trips so happily among the flowers! I shall see her very often, now, mother." Christianity comes to those who are older and whose hearts are harder than that of the little Sunday-school boy,-comes to those who have plunged in sin and wrestled with doubt and remorse, comes to us all, bringing a faith and revealing a world which enable us too to find again all we have lost, and more, and giving us power, as we look on what is pleasant below, and say, "For to me to live is Christ," to look on what is inviting above, and add, “And to die is gain." Then it is that we feel ourselves already beginning to be the eternal citizens of that spiritual realm on whose confines we are here lingering but for a brief hour.

So in that other theory, which says that this life must pass for nothing, that man can attain nothing until the obstacles VOL. XXIII. NO. 267.

2

which now impede him, the evils which now enslave him, are removed, there is a fatal deficiency. It cannot furnish any incitement to labor, any encouragement in adversity, any strength in trial, any solace or support in suffering; but must either cause torpor and indifference, or lead to weeping and wailing. If man's labors and woes are the inflictions of demons, or of a blind fate, having no beneficent purpose, working out no useful results for another life, what motive can there be for engaging in voluntary toils, or what heart can any one have for enduring calamities, and courting the pains of self-sacrifice? This tremendous defect Christianity supplies, teaching that all the labor and hardship of this world are the benign appointment of the Father for effecting glorious and everlasting ends not otherwise attainable. They have a spiritual meaning and purpose, and will produce flowers and fruits to bloom and ripen on another

1 shore, beneath another sun, in a happier nature.

Furthermore, the mystic arrives at his theory by a mistaken inference from an evident truth. This truth Christianity accepts, but rectifies its false interpretation. Man cannot, in this world, with all his efforts, attain to more than a small part of the good his nature craves. Now from this the false deduction is made, that here he is the victim of fate and the child of vanity; that he who cannot completely satisfy the true cravings of his nature, and obtain full peace, may indeed have an end and destiny to attain, but to seek it here is folly, his lot is disappointment, he must await the freedom of a better world. According to Christianity, this fact receives a different and more satisfactory explanation. It results, as has been said, from the difference between the absolute destiny of man, and the actual destiny which he can attain in this life. It is explained by the thought, that he can only fulfil a part of his destiny here, the

rest of it filling eternity. The insatiableness of his soul comes from its immortality. A being with an infinite destiny, of course, can never be satisfied with finite attainments. Man's melancholy and his suffering come from his great gifts and freedom, not from his poor endowments and slavery.

In Stoicism, likewise, there is a truth, but it is incomplete. The Stoic's rule for virtue and peace is unwavering, unqualified self-reliance. The Christian perfects this defective formula, saying, Rely on yourself; but as being under the favor of God, as being in harmony with that Will which is the law of the creation, which constitutes the truth of things and determines the salvation of souls. And thus we see that the Gospel account of man contains the truths of the other accounts, remedying their imperfections and exposing their falsehoods.

It cannot be true that this evanescent scene of things is our all, to eat, drink, and be merry forming our real end; for upon that supposition, setting aside the objections already urged, impartial justice would demand that we should all here fare alike. The glaring differences and inequalities in men and their fortune demonstrate their freedom, and argue with all but irresistible force the reality of a future life, we say not to correct the injustice, but to fill up the defectiveness, of this.

Neither can the next view reflect the genuine scope of life; because, overlooking the arguments previously brought forward, if there is a God, of course he made this world, and made it for some purpose, and it must be under his rule; that man should be in the power of a fate different from the Supreme Will, and in consequence be incapable of accomplishing any destiny here, is therefore impossible.

The truth of the theory set forth by Christianity necessa

rily follows. If this life is not without a final purpose, as
the Greek thought; if its object is not punishment, as the
Hindoo believes; then it must mean preparation, as the
Christian affirms. And that is the reality. Man is immor-
tal. He can now commence the attaining of his destiny,
which is growth in wisdom and love, conscious virtue and
spiritual power, growth in likeness to God, and prepare
himself to continue its fulfilment hereafter under higher
auspices. This theory alone is completely satisfactory.) It
is in perfect unison with all that the best and most gifted
men, in their loftiest hours, know, or feel, or wish. And
in a state like this, where man feels himself so hampered
and hemmed in, it is absolutely necessary to satisfy the
yearnings of his limitless affection and thought, and to pre-
vent the prophetic wants of his infinite capabilities and de-
sires from making him the slave of grief and despair.
Compare the oldest age and the grandest attainments of
man with his spiritual powers and wishes, and how poor,
how mean, how transitory a thing is this visible life! In a
moment it is here, it is here, it is gone. We saw an
image of it one summer night in a village burial-ground,
a fire-fly flashing for an instant on the headstone of an in-
fant's grave, and then dark. The epitaph on the tomb of a
man who reached his threescore years and ten is this:

"I came in the morning, — it was spring, and I smiled.

I walked out at noon,

I sat me down at even,

it was summer, and I was glad.

it was autumn, and I was sad.

it was winter, and I slept."

I laid me down at night, Into this world of the dying and the dead, Christian truth comes, and, revealing the Father's countenance smiling behind every cloud and the light of eternal life beaming beyond every tomb, saves man from an unhappiness comparatively proportioned to the extent and intensity of his

positive consciousness; saves him from a restless sorrow directly graduated by the degrees of his genius, culture, sensibility, heroic denial, and virtue; saves him from being of all creatures the most miserable, and miserable in proportion as he deserves a better fate.

"For if there be no world on high
To yield his powers unfettered scope;
If man be only born to die,
Whence this inheritance of hope?
Wherefore to him alone were lent
Riches that never can be spent?
Enough, not more, to all the rest,
For life and happiness was given;
To man, mysteriously unblest,
Too much for any state but heaven.
Is there a God? All nature shows
There is, and yet no mortal knows :
The mind that could this truth conceive,
Which brute sensation never taught,

No longer to the dust would cleave,

But grow immortal with the thought!"

schemes are but different

the Epicurean, the Mystic,

The three theories of life we have now considered, first, that the fulfilment of man's destiny is confined to earth; second, that it is impossible here, but reserved for the future; third, that it may be commenced in this world and continued in another, - - these three theories, evidently, exhaust the subject. All other forms, modifications, of these, the Christian. It is the solemn duty of every man to convince himself which of these views is the true solution of the problem, and according to which of them he is spending his days. Nor let any one believe that only one of them is followed in Christendom. Let no man flatter himself, that, because he rejects one in his faith, he does not obey it in his life, or that, because he receives one in the