God has many mansions in his house; and every soul will find enough to do, and enough to be, somewhere in God's great heaven.

See, too, that woman who has been for long years a helpless invalid, with no ability (one would say) to learn or do any thing; useless (one would think) to herself and to others. Ah, no! She is learning in that helpless state new lessons every day of God's tender love; she is teaching every day, by her patience and goodness, new lessons to others; and when her time is fulfilled, and she is gently called away, no one thinks, that, because her body is feeble and her sensations imperfect, she is not ready to live on and to go on. The soul within is full of healthy life, and she cannot die.

These all die in faith, not having received the promises.

Even when a little infant goes, which has never done either good or evil in this world, its life's task all unlearned, its earthly work all undone: does any one doubt that it goes where better lessons will be provided, and a more suitable duty given? We say in our souls, while tears dim our eyes, "Let the little one go to Jesus, and forbid him not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

It is not accomplishment, it is not attainment, that fits us for a higher life: it is faith. That is, it is that spirit which trusts and hopes, and looks forward, and does not despair. It hopes for others as for itself. It is patient, and therefore strong.

Immortality and resurrection, therefore, begin here. We rise with Christ into a higher life with every right word, act, purpose, and affection. We sit with Christ Jesus now in heavenly places. We are in heaven already when we are full of love to God and man; in hell already when we lose that love. Heaven and hell are both in us, and all outward heavens and hells through which we may pass are only the reflections and supplements to our inward state. There is every variety, no doubt, of heaven and of hell in the other world; but they are all of them for our good. If we need hell, we shall go there; if we are fit for heaven, we shall go there. But God is in both, and both are his servants. He does not take away those whom he loves to be with himself in some separate heaven. He does not leave the bad, abandoned of all hope, to the Devil; but he himself cares for all, and loves all. Those who do not love him, he loves; those who do not know him, he knows; those who are as yet wilful, selfish, unreconciled, he remembers. No doubt there are lost souls in the other world, as there are lost souls in this world; but Christ, who came to seek and save the lost here, will seek and save the lost hereafter. Never was there a dogma more utterly baseless than that which teaches that this short life is all of trial allowed to us; that all the discipline, probation, and opportunity of the soul, is shut up in these few earthly years. Probably we shall need trial and probation for myriads of years; probably heaven itself shall not be free from trial and discipline. Even

the angels and archangels may have their temptations, their difficulties, their great opportunities, their perpetual choice of freedom.

After all, nothing helps us so to believe in immortality and heaven as death. The man who is a sceptic and doubter in his study becomes a believer by the pale face of his darling child or the beloved bride of his heart. All which we see through a glass darkly, when we look at it merely with the intellect, we behold face to face when the heart is melted. As Stephen, stoned to death, saw heaven opened, so we, too, when we are beaten down by disappointment and disaster, often see heaven opened.

Upon the frontier of this shadowy land,
We, pilgrims of eternal sorrow, stand:

What realm lies forward, with its happier store

Of forests green and deep,

Of valleys hushed in sleep,

And lakes most peaceful? 'Tis the land of Evermore.

Very far off its marble cities seem,

Very far off, beyond our sensual dream, -
Its woods unruffled by the wild winds' roar;
Yet does the turbulent surge

Howl on its very verge.

One moment, and we breathe within the Evermore.

And those we loved and lost so long ago

Dwell in those cities, far from mortal woe;

Haunt those fresh woodlands, whence sweet carollings soar.
Eternal peace have they;

God wipes their tears away;

They drink that river of life which flows for evermore."

XX.

POWER OF THE KEYS.

Rev. iii. 7: "THESE THINGS SAITH HE THAT IS HOLY, HE THAT IS

TRUE; HE THAT HATH THE KEY OF DAVID; HE THAT OPENETH, AND NO MAN SHUTTETH; AND SHUTTETH, AND NO MAN OPENETH." Luke xi. 52: "WOE UNTO YOU, LAWYERS! FOR YE HAVE TAKEN

AWAY THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE: YE ENTERED NOT IN YOURSELVES, AND THOSE THAT WERE ENTERING IN YE HINDERED. Matt. xvi. 19: "I WILL GIVE UNTO THEE THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN; AND WHATSOEVER WHATSOEVER THOU SHALT THOU SHALT BIND ON EARTH SHALL BE BOUND IN HEAVEN, AND WHATSOEVER THOU SHALT LOOSE ON EARTH SHALL BE LOOSED IN HEAVEN.”

A

KEY is a very ancient invention. You find keys, in Egyptian museums, made three thousand years before Christ: so that locks and keys were common enough among the Jews to be made use of as an illustration and metaphor by Jesus. In fact, locks and keys mark an epoch in civilization. The savage has nothing to lock up. If he has any thing he wishes to keep to himself, he hides it, as a dog hides his bone. When he can lock it up, and trust to the sacredness of a lock, he has already ceased to be a savage. In a yet higher civilization, I presume we

shall once again dispense with locks and keys, because we shall have respect enough for each other to consider that all which any one wishes to keep to himself is sacred, even without a lock. In fact, locks are not now as common as they were once, nor as elaborate. In our homes we do not need them. Only on front-doors and bank-safes, and trunks when we travel, and the like, we use them.

Now, there is a place which God has locked, and for which he has provided the keys: it is a place where he keeps his best treasures. But there is this peculiarity about it, that, whereas to each of our locks there is only a single kind of key, God's lock is so made, that a variety of keys will open it.

This SECRET PLACE OF THE ALMIGHTY is in the depths of the human soul, - the depths out of which we cry to him. It is a place of profound peace when storms rage above and without. It is a place of perfect love when passions chase each other, dark and violent, over the surface of our troubled life. It is the "kingdom of heaven," which Christ says is within us; the "kingdom of God," which Paul says is "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

Christ gave to Peter and to the apostles the keys to this kingdom of heaven. It is usually supposed that this refers to an outward heaven, to a heaven hereafter in the other world. The common RomanCatholic idea is, that St. Peter sits at an outward. gate, with the keys in his hand, and unlocks it to the good, but keeps it locked against the wicked 1;