that he could have regretted to leave the silence and the dreary darkness of his old abode ! So, when we emerge from this cave of earth into that land where spring growths are, and where is summer, and not that miserable travestie which we call summer here, how shall we wonder that we could have clung so fondly to this dark and barren life! Beat on, then, O heart, and yearn for dying! I have drunk at many a fountain, but thirst came again; I have fed at many a bounteous table, but hunger returned; I have seen many bright and lovely things, but, while I gazed, their lustre faded. There is nothing here that can give me rest; but, when I behold Thee, O God, I shall be satisfied! "IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE REV. JOHN KER, D.D. THE first step of the soul into another state of being, is a mystery. No doubt it continues conscious, and its conscious existence, in the case of God's children, is most blessed. "To depart and be with Christ, is far better." But the existence of the soul separate from the body, and from all material organs, is incomprehensible. The place of our future life is obscure. How there can be relation to place, without a body, we do not know; and even when the body is restored, we can not tell the locality of the resurrection-world. Nothing in reason, and noth ing certain in revelation, connects it with any one spot in God's universe. It may be far away from earth, in some central kingdom, the glittering confines of which we can perceive in thick-sown stars, that are the pavement of the land which has its dust of gold. It may be, as our hearts would rather suggest, in this world, renewed and glorified -a world sacred as the scene of Christ's sufferings, and endeared to us as the cradle of our immortal life. Or that great world, heaven-the heaven of heavens-may gather many worlds around this one, as the center of God's most godlike work—may inclose the new and old, the near and far, in its wide embrace. "It doth not appear." The outward manner of our final existence, is also uncertain. That it will be blessed and glorious, freed from all that can hurt or annoy, we may believe. We may calculate that, in the degree in which the incorruptible and immortal body shall excel the body of sin and death, our final home, with its scenes of beauty and grandeur, its landscapes and skies, shall surpass our dwelling-place on this earth. Whether we may possess merely our present faculties, enlarged and strengthened, as a child's mind expands into a man's, or whether new faculties of perception may not be made to spring forth, as if sight were given to a blind man, we find it impossible to affirm. There are some minds which trouble themselves with the fear, lest the present life and its natural affections should be irrecoverably lost in the future world. The place and circumstances seem so indefinite, and must be so different from the present, that they are tossed in uncertainty. Will they meet their friends again, so as to know them; or will they be separated from them by the vast expanse of that world, and by the varied courses they may have to pursue? We may have our thoughts about these things, tranquilized, if we bring them in connection with Christ. Our eternal life begins in unison with Him, and it must forever so continue. If we are gathered around Him in heaven, and know Him, and are known of Him, this will secure acquaintance with one another. It is strange that it could ever be made matter of doubt. And when we think that He gave us human hearts, and took one into His own breast-that He bestowed on us human homes and affections, and solaced Himself with them-we need not fear that He will deny us our heart's wish, where it is natural and good. Variety of pursuit and temperament need no more separate us there than it does here, and His own name for heaven-the "Father's house of many mansions" -speaks of unity as well as diversity; one home, one roof, one paternal presence. SHALL WE MEET AGAIN? THE following is one of the most brilliant paragraphs ever written by the lamented George D. Prentiss: "The fiat of death is inexorable. There is no appeal for relief from that great law which dooms us to dust. We flourish and fade, as the leaves of the forest; and the flowers that bloom, and wither and fade in a day, have no frailer hold upon life than the mightiest monarch that ever shook the earth with his footsteps. Generations of men will appear and disappear as the grass, and the multitude that throng the world to-day will disappear as footsteps on the shore.. "Men seldom think of the great event of death, until the shadow falls across their own pathway, hiding from their eyes the faces of loved ones, whose living smile was the sunlight of their existence. Death is the antagonist of life, and the thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feasts. We do not want to go through the dark valley, although the dark passage may lead to paradise; we do not want to go down into damp graves, even with princes for bed-fellows. In the beautiful drama of Ion, the hope of immortality, so eloquently uttered by the death-devoted Greek, finds deep response in every thoughtful soul. When about to yield his life a sacrifice to fate, his Clemanthe asks, if they should meet again; to which he responds: 'I have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal-of the clear streams that flow forever-of stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirits have walked in glory. All are dumb. But, as I gaze upon thy living face, I feel that there is something in love that mantles through its beauty, that can not wholly perish. We shall meet again, Clemanthe.'" PREPARATION FOR HEAVEN. REV, ROBERT HALL. -- If there is a law from whose operation none are exempt, which irresistibly conveys their bodies to darkness and to dust, there is another, not less certain or less powerful, which conducts their spirits to the abodes of bliss, to the bosom of their Father and their God. The wheels of Nature are not made to roll backward; every thing presses on towards eternity; from the birth of Time, an impetuous current has set in, which bears all the sons of men towards that interminable ocean. Meanwhile, heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature is enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and divine; leaving nothing for the last fire to consume, but the objects and the slaves of concupiscence; while everything which grace has prepared and beautified, shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the world, to adorn that eternal city which hath no need of the sun-neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God doth enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." Let us obey the voice that calls us thither; let us "seek the things that are above," and no longer cleave to a world which must shortly perish, and which we must shortly leave, while we neglect to prepare for that in which we are invited to dwell forever. Let us follow in the track of those holy men, who have taught us by their voice, and encouraged us by their example, "that having laid aside every weight, and the |