There is a time when our physical frame, and our mental constitution, become perfect and permanent; so to speak, we are men at our best. Preparations, long continued, are sometimes completed in a moment. There is a soft-speaking, velvet-handed machine at the Mint. It lays, say, a finger upon a prepared piece of metal. By that touch an indelible impression is made, and the piece of metal becomes a coin. When we have enjoyed privileges and opportunities, all has been done that can be done, by our use or abuse the character is stamped. That character is taken with us into the immortal state. Not merely by continuance, but for enlargement. In the measure, the fulness, the zeal, the love, that we work out our salvation will be the length, depth, and breadth of our reward. We shall stand in that character which has been formed in us by the discipline of life, and our own use of God's help. There is not less accuracy and purpose in the life of a child and in the events of its life, than in the ordering and duration of the stars. When we have made the better, or the worse of ourselves; we shall take a corresponding place in the new world. A fixed place, a final state; yet not fixed as without advance, or growth, in knowledge and bliss. If as princes and priests unto God, we shall for ever put forth new power in new service, new rule, new glory. Every one will be in his own place, doing work for which he is most fit; and the ascent from glory to glory perfects heavenly honour and happiness, even as the passing from grace to grace renders us complete in holiness.

"For as Thou dost impart Thy grace,

The greater shall our glory be."

George Herbert, Employment.

RESEARCH XXXI.

OUR PHYSICAL STANDPOINT AS TO NEW WORLDS.

"We cannot comprehend the origin of things apart from the fact that Absolute Existence did, out of His own infinite plenitude, derive, as by a quickening, all that exists. He did not so pass into things as to become part of them, or make them part of Himself. He is neither augmented nor diminished by creation. Creation is by an emanation of Divine Power, Wisdom, and Love; not a section of Divine Love, Wisdom, and Power." -Note-Book.

"I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be." LORD TENNYSON, Locksley Hall.

1. Before the

THERE are three aspects of eternity. beginning of things, when there was the Godhead only. 2. The mystery of creation; when time began; when possible evil became actual; including the period of redemption and probation. 3. When God leads worlds. and worlds of happy beings into new views of life, of power, of wisdom, and of goodness.

Eternity is the lifetime of the Almighty. The difference between the Infinite and finite has been spanned by the Divine Will creating worlds and the things therein. The symbol of Divine unity is that ether, the universal medium, which pervades all space, all matter, and is the vehicle of movement.

This ether, we think, fills the whole expanse of sky.

In it, clouds are formed from the invisible; and, being formed, repass into the unseen. In this vast chamber of space are stored materials of suns and planets; and, when creative forces have done their work, worlds are manifested. The astronomer tells of ever-changing hues and movements, of growth in splendour, and how stars melt away. In the past, which we cannot measure, were worlds and ages earlier than our own: we know not when things began. In the future, all those colours now seen of jasper, sapphire, chalcedony; the emerald, the sardonyx, the chrysolite; the topaz, the jacynth, the amethyst; will adorn the great and holy City of our God and of His Saints (Rev. xxi. 10-27).

Standing, perchance, to view a landscape of various excellences; the rich hues of the foreground contrasted with the pale receding tones of colour on the horizon, and with these the deep transparent sky in contrast, or exquisitely blended; we are able, according to the principles of art, to recognize the various natural steps and processes by which the unity, the contrast, the harmony, have been produced. In so vast and splendid a scene, we might think that sea, sky, land, the innumerable plants and living creatures, consisted of all the known elements, about seventy; and that their combinations were largely used in all substances and forms : there is not that use.

As if to show that we are in a rudimentary state, the earth, in round terms, is composed of but seven elements;1animals and vegetables are chiefly of four ; 2 the sea, mainly of two; the air also a mixture of two.4 1 Silicon, calcium, aluminium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, oxygen. 2 Carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen.

3

Oxygen and hydrogen.

4

Nitrogen and oxygen.

With a very few of the many substances, the Creator has formed the gorgeous structure of the world in which we live, our own bodies, and our fellow-inhabitants. Other elements are, in comparison, slightly used; as if to suggest the many combinations which are yet to come. These exquisite harmonies of power, of substance, of life, of beauty, of soul-stirring melodies, will doubtless make the future very blissful.

Of the few elements employed, the strangest, most marvellous, and various things are formed. The coals which feed our fires, and without which our art and science and civilization would famish, are formed of carbon; and of this carbon, in a pure state, is the bright diamond fashioned. By a slight change and difference of admixture, in proportional numbers, the constituents of our atmosphere are chemically fashioned into that corrosive liquid and poison, aquafortis; another alteration produces laughing-gas; thus life and death are near to one another. The substances which fill us with mirth, when changed but a little, carry us with sorrow to the grave. One moment, we have health and strength, the promise of long life and happiness, and our hopes enter new scenes of bliss. In another moment. we go down to depths of anguish, whence is no release, Mystery and marvel, life, death, and life renewed, are everywhere; in the high and in the low, in the present and in the future, whether we live or whether we die.

It may be said, The onion seed, as it begins in the earth, and adds fold to fold, knows nothing of itself; and cannot anticipate anything, whether greenness or ripeness, We are as that onion, and cannot know the

R

future. Reply: We are not as that onion there is no analogy between onion and man. We do know, and in some sort foreknow, the future. Nearly all thought and labour are given to the use of means by which the present may be made a better future. We make the light of far-off stars administer to our knowledge, so that we know of what things the heavenlies are made. Not only the very remote, but the future is made. present; we map out the path of the stars. Our nature is so vast, and of powers so manifold, that there is no limit to life's use; nor can we say, "Hitherto and not beyond, will our faculties extend." It is indeed something to know that common sense, not less than scientific and philosophical research, prove the results of our present life to be infinite, as to their extent; and everlasting, as to the future.

us,

That future is not widely separated from the present. We enter it, while we live, moment by moment; and as death, which translates our life, begins in even at our birth; so the life to come, and the worlds to come, have their representation and beginning in that which is. Scientific instruments, the axioms of philosophy and science, the propositions of Euclid, by means of which we extend and verify our acquaintance with material things; by which we know that all things are momentarily carried into a future to which no limits can be assigned; have their counterparts in various spiritual intuitions; in the faith that discerns the substance and reality of things hoped for; and in the various faculties which pierce to evidence that responds to the truth represented by mathematical propositions (Heb. xi. 1). Men like Moses, Elijah, Daniel, were not