thought of that burning ship, and think of the memorial sounds that went up thence in the night to God. When the stars came out the first shriek ascended; two hours past midnight the last was drowned. And in the interval did a hundred and seventy mortals shiver and cry to him from frost and flame, with faith and prayers of various and unspeakable contents,-the cold heavens looking serenely down, and gliding on as if they inclosed nothing but peace. And what was the answer of the hearer of prayer to that agony of despair? Did he say, as no man or angel would have done, 'Down, begone for ever into darkness!' And did he so answer, with the full knowledge of his Omniscience, that many a survivor would return this awful frown with the sweetest and most unconscious smile of resignation, hiding her mourning head with him, as in the bosom of a Father? Or, put yourselves back into the presence of an earlier and sublimer tragedy; remember the scene on Calvary, with the words of assured hope and meek supplication that passed there from holiest lips to God. When his own Christ gave the tranquil assurance, This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,' did He who inspired that promise, and alone could fulfil, overhear it with secret rejection and denial? When the fainting utterance exclaimed with most

loving meaning, 'It is finished,' did the ever-present Father put on that cry a dreadful interpretation, and 'make an end' of all things to him— that Son of God? And when he breathed forth those last words, 'Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit,' did the All-merciful refuse the trust, and reply to that pure faith, Take away thy cry, for mine eye shall not spare, neither will I hear with mine ear?' Did he do thus to the Galilean, knowing that, night and morning, friends and followers and disciples for ages, would converse with him about this departed one, with a trustful hope, which he had thus turned into a lie? Were this possible, God were no 'Father of Spirits,' to waste and mock them thus; and might no less fitly be termed the Destroyer than the Creator; and every good man might feel an infinite pity for his kind, diviner far than the very providence of heaven.

Thus, if the celestial hope be a delusion, we plainly see who are the mistaken. Not the mean and grovelling souls, who never reached to so great a thought;-not the drowsy and easy natures, who are content with the sleep of sense through life, and the sleep of darkness ever after; not the selfish and pinched of conscience, of small thought and smaller love; no, these in such case are right, and the universe is on their miserable

scale. The deceived are the great and holy, whom all men, aye these very insignificants themselves, revere; the men who have lived for something better than their happiness, and spent themselves in the race, or fallen at the altar, of human good ;— Paul, with his mighty and conquering courage; yes, Christ himself, who vainly sobbed his spirit to rest on his Father's imaginary love, and without result commended his soul to the Being whom he fancied himself to reveal. The self-sacrifice of Calvary was but a tragic and barren mistake; for Heaven disowns the godlike prophet of Nazareth, and takes part with those who scoffed at him and would have him die; and is insensible to the divine fitness when even men have felt, when they either recorded the supposed fact, or invented the beautiful fiction, of Christ's ascension. Whom are we to revere, and what can we believe, if the inspirations of the highest of created natures are but cunningly-devised fables?

But it is not so: and no one who has found true guidance of heart from these noblest sons of Heaven, will fear to stake his futurity, and the immortal life of his departed friends, on their vaticinations. These, of all things granted to our ignorance, are assuredly most like the hidden realities of God; which may be greater, but will not be less, than prophets and seers have foretold,

and even our own souls, when gifted with highest and clearest vision, discern as truths not doubtful or far off. In this hope let us trust, and be true to the toils of life which it ennobles and cheers. Whoever'fights the good fight' shall surely 'keep the faith:' for God reveals the secret of his future will to those who worthily do it in the present. This is our proper care. Putting ourselves into his hands, and living in submissive harmony with his everlasting laws, let us finish our course ;' and leave it to him to take us, when he will, where our forerunners are, and the unfoldings of his ways are seen with open eye.

XIII.

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.

EPHESIANS II. 19.

FELLOW-CITIZENS WITH THE SAINTS, AND OF THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD.

SOCIETY becomes possible only through religion. Men might be gregarious without it, but not social. Instinct, which unites them in detail, prevents their wider combination. Intellect gives light to show the elements of union, but no heat to give them crystalline form. Self-will is prevailingly a repulsive power, and often disintegrates the most solid of human masses. Even the Moral Sentiment, so far as it recognises man as supreme, and simply tries to make a prudent adjustment of his vehement forces, can produce among a multitude only an unstable equilibrium, liable every moment to be subverted by the ever-shifting gravitation of the passions. Some sense of a