not fairly represent the facts to themselves, thinking them none of their business. So, what between hardhearted people, thoughtless people, busy people, humble people, and cheerfully-minded people-giddiness of youth, and preoccupations of age-philosophies of faith, and cruelties of folly-priest and Levite, masquer and merchantman, all agreeing to keep their own side of the way the evil that God sends to warn us gets to be forgotten, and the evil that he sends to be mended by us gets left unmended. And then, because people shut their eyes to the dark indisputableness of the facts in front of them, their faith, such as it is, is shaken or uprooted by every darkness in what is revealed to them. In the present day it is not easy to find a wellmeaning man among our more earnest thinkers, who will not take upon himself to dispute the whole system of redemption, because he cannot unravel the mystery of the punishment of sin. But can he unravel the mystery of the punishment of No sin? Can he entirely account for all that happens to a cab-horse? Has he ever looked fairly at the fate of one of those beasts as it is dying-measured the work it has done, and the reward it has got, put his hand upon the bloody wounds through which its bones are piercing, and so looked up to Heaven with an entire understanding of Heaven's ways about the horse? Yet the horse is a fact-no dream-no revelation among the myrtle-trees by night; and the dust it dies upon, and the dogs that eat it, are facts and yonder happy person, whose the horse was, till its knees were broken over the hurdles, who had an immortal soul to begin with, and wealth and peace to help forward his immortality; who has also devoted the powers of his soul, and body, and wealth, and peace, to the spoiling of horses, the corruption of the innocent, and the oppression of the poor; and has, at this actual moment of his prosperous life, as many curses waiting round about him in calm shadow, with their death-eyes fixed upon him, biding their time, as ever the poor cab-horse had launched at him in meaningless

blasphemies, when his failing feet stumbled at the stones-this happy person shall have no stripes-shall have only the horse's fate of annihilation; or, if other things are indeed reserved for him, Heaven's kindness or omnipotence is to be doubted therefore.

We cannot reason of these things. But this I know -and this may by all men be known-that no good or lovely thing exists in this world without its corresponding darkness; and that the universe presents itself continually to mankind under the stern aspect of warning, or of choice, the good and the evil set on the right hand and the left, and in this mountain gloom, which weighs so strongly upon the human heart that in all time hitherto, as we have seen, the hill defiles have been either avoided in terror or inhabited in penance, there is but the fulfilment of the universal law, that where the beauty and wisdom of the Divine working are most manifested, there also are manifested most clearly the terror of God's wrath, and inevitableness of His power. Nor is this gloom less wonderful so far as it bears witness to the error of human choice, even when the nature of good and evil is most definitely set before it. The trees of Paradise were fair; but our first parents hid themselves from God "in medio ligni Paradisi,” in the midst of the trees of the garden. The hills were ordained for the help of man; but, instead of raising his eyes to the hills, from whence cometh his help, he does his idol sacrifice “upon every high hill and under every green tree." The mountain of the Lord's house is established above the hills; but Nadad and Abihu shall see under His feet the body of heaven in his clearness, yet go down to kindle the censer against their own souls. And so to the end of time it will be; to the end, that cry will still be heard along the Alpine winds, "Hear, O ye mountains, the Lord's controversy!" Still their gulfs of thawless ice, and unretarded roar of tormented waves, and deathful falls of fruitless waste, and unredeemed decay, must be the image of the souls of those who have chosen the darkness, and whose cry

shall be to the mountains to fall on them, and to the hills to cover them; and still, to the end of time, the clear waters of the unfailing springs, and the white pasture-lilies in their clothed multitude, and the abiding of the burning peaks in their nearness to the opened heaven, shall be the types, and the blessings, of those who have chosen light, and of whom it is written, "The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, righteousness."

(From "Modern Painters." By permission of Messrs. Smith and Elder.)

SUNDAY.

ANONYMOUS.

[The following beautiful lines were found in MS. among the papers of a lady, lately deceased. The author is not known.]

AFTER long days of storm and showers,
Of sighing winds and dripping bowers,
How sweet at morn to ope our eyes,
On newly swept and garnished skies:

To miss the clouds and driving rain,
And see that all is bright again,—
So bright we cannot choose but say,
Is this the world of yesterday?

Even so, methinks, the Sunday brings
A change o'er all familiar things;
A change, we know not whence it came,—
They are, and they are not the same.

There is a spell within, around,
On eye and ear, on sight and sound,
And loth or willing, they and we
Must own this day a mystery.

Sure all things wear a heavenly dress
That sanctifies their loveliness;

Types of that endless resting day,
When we shall all be changed as they.

To-day our peaceful ordered home
Foreshadoweth mansions yet to come;
We foretaste, in domestic love,
The faultless charities above.

And as at yester eventide

Our tasks and toys were laid aside,
So here our training for the day,
When we shall lay them down for aye.

But not alone for musings deep
Meek souls their day of days will keep;
Yes, other glorious things than these
The Christian in his Sabbath sees.

His eyes by faith his LORD behold,
How on the week's first day of old
From hell He rose, on earth He trod,
Was seen of men, and went to GOD.

And as we fondly pause to look,
When in some daily-handled book
Approval's well-known tokens stand,
Traced by some dear and thoughtful hand;

Even so there shines one day in seven Bright with the special marks of heaven, That we with love and praise may dwell On Him who loved us so well.

Whether, in meditation's walk,
Alone with GOD and heaven we talk,
Catching the simple chime that calls
Our feet to some old church's walls;

Or, passed within the church's door, Where poor are rich, and rich are poor, We say the prayers, and hear the Word, Which there our fathers said and heard;

Or represent, in solemn wise,
Our all-prevailing sacrifice,

Feeding, in joint communion high,
The life of faith that cannot die ;-

And surely, in a world like this,
So rife with woe, so scant with bliss,
Whose fondest hopes are oftenest cross'd,
And fondest hearts are severed most;

"Tis something that we kneel and pray With loved ones near and far away: One GOD, one faith, one hope, one care, One form of words, one hour of prayer;

'Tis past; yet pause, till ear and heart,
For one brief silence, ere we part,
Somewhat of that high strain have caught,
The peace of GOD, which passeth thought.

Then turn we to our earthly homes,
Not doubting but that JESUS comes,
Breathing His peace on hall and hut,
At even, when the doors are shut.

This speeds us on our week-day way,
And hallows every common day;
Without Him Sunday's self were dim,
But all are bright if spent with Him.

(By permission of Mr. Masters.)