shows (Ps. cxxxix. 16) that the universal process is applicable as a personal principle.

That this intelligible order, which the sciences regard as reasonable, and is indeed the basis of our own mental processes, should be without logical purpose and become nothing, is inconceivable; for that would utterly confound our own principle of order and progress which carries everything into the future. Nothing can be lost. The shadow of a moth's wing is infinite in its effects. The man who sins, and casts the dark influence of moral evil along the horizon of his future, shall not be, cannot be, as if he had done no wrong. The light of a good man's life shines on through eternities with growing brightness of meaning. We are more than substances, more than forces, we are men, united by sacred mysterious bonds with our Maker. Love and Wisdom encircle the seraph and the 'glow-worm, and it is a physical fact that the issues of the life of each are immortal.

If a man say, "None of this do I see in physical science; nor can I, as an astronomer, trace God's form in the sky," we answer "This unintelligibility of the universe is an index of your own unintelligence. Do you imagine, because God is not in your thoughts, that man is the only intelligent thing in the universe, therefore the only god? We are sure, and you are sure, that science is not a fantasy, nor a dream from which men awake bewildered, as had Reason vanished from the universe." There is no truth more certain than this: Power is ever and ever manifesting energy throughout the universe, for ever transforming matter, for ever moving all things into new portions of space, all that

we see is a transformation by that energy; and without that energy and its transformation there is no explanation of the universe. Some time the transfiguration will be seen in perfect beauty. As God was beheld in the transfigured Christ; so will the eternal invisible Creator be gloriously seen in the transformed worlds. Meanwhile, the leaf, the flower, the gray rock, the waving line, bright colours, the brook's song, the forest's shadow, are all transfigured forces, which we see and hear; and they are on their way to something else; and our own life will become a higher life in which we shall behold the brightness of Him who is Lord of all.

"Ye read the story,

Take home the lesson with a spirit-smile:

Darkness and mystery a little while,

Then light and glory,

And ministry 'mid saint and seraph band,

And service of high praise in the Eternal Land!"

Frances Ridley Havergal, Under the Surface.

RESEARCH XVIII.

NATURAL INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

“Let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the books of God's word, or in the book of God's works; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both.” —LORD BACON, Advancement of Learning.

“In death's unrobing, we strip from round us

The garments of mortality and earth;

And breaking from the embryo state that bound us,
Our day of dying is our day of birth!"

Note-Book.

NOT only our great thoughts, our capricious fancies, are due to some unseen power which they represent. Accurate science, declaring this, shows that we could not think of a future life, had not some power both drawn aside the veil between the visible and invisible, and given the power to look within.

...

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Samuel Rutherford said on his death-bed, I feel, I feel, I believe and rejoice, I feed on manna . . . Glory! glory to my Creator and my Redeemer for ever! Glory shines on Immanuel's land."1 Polycarp, certain of a coming life, in his martyrdom, blessed God: “O Father of Thy Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, I bless Thee that

1 "The Scots Worthies: The Life of Samuel Rutherford.”

Thou hast counted me worthy of this day, to receive my portion in the number of the martyrs in the cup of Christ." Worthy William Grimshaw said, "I am as happy as I can be on earth, and as sure of glory as if I were already in it." Romaine often exclaimed in his last moments, "How good God is to me! What entertainments and comforts does He give me! Oh, what a prospect of glory and immortality is before me!" That accurate reasoner, Bishop Butler, being reminded of Christ's words, "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out," replied, “I die happy." Hannah More's last word was "Joy!" Dying Mrs. Clarkson exclaimed, "Oh those rays of glory! . . . Oh the great ness of the glory that is revealed to me!"

These discerners, ancient and modern, men and women, are amongst the best and most thoughtful of our race. The future was a study, and their life a preparation. Like men who investigate as to physical science, they endeavoured to perfect every natural power, and to unfilm their spiritual capacity, in order to arrive at accurate and assured conclusions. From the very beginning, men had trusted indications of a future. existence, and research confirmed their confidence. Heathens and Christians, philosophers and peasants, rich and poor, bad and good, felt "the present life is not all." With one consent they said, "We shall live after death." An ancient heathen said, "The unripe grape, the ripe, the dried, all things are changes; not into nothing but into that which is not at present."

When the few objectors, who establish the rule, protested, "Dissecting the body, we find no spirit;" there came the answer, "You do not find life, or spirit;

Anax

but they were there; whither are they gone?" archus, a wise heathen, declared long ago, "You do but beat the vessel, the case, the husk of Anaxarchus, you do not beat me." Every healthful mind and pure heart has had large faith in a Divine shaping to some perfect end. To no fact in history, no theory in philosophy, no system of science, no explanation of life, has been awarded such universal acceptance as to this conviction : "We shall live after death."

It

Undoubtedly, there is that in man which transcends the material universe; as in the subtler, and in the mightiest workings of the universe, are intimations of realities and truths which are not yet fully revealed. They warrant the conviction that the greater and the better our thoughts, the truer and larger is their measure of reality. If there is no immortality, human life is constructed on a plan both wasteful and untruthful. takes more than the half of our life to know the use of it; and we are no sooner at our ripest state, than decay commences. The preparation is not in proportion to the superstructure. Can there be this waste in a world. where not an atom perishes? where all death tends to new life? where not a smoke-wreath is in vain? We think not. Natural intimations, intuitions, and injunctions of immortality are a natural but heavenly testimony on earth of higher things to be attained. It certainly is natural, and if there is no reality responsive to it, how is it possible to account for the thought and desire in man?

"His heart forebodes a mystery,
He names the name-Eternity."

Lord Tennyson, The Two Voices.