Is there I speak with reverence-no playful element to be found in these embodied thoughts of the Creator? Nay, look at that field of racing lambs: watch those two kittens at graceful play, or the three puppies at ungainly, preposterous antics : remember, also, that that faculty of smiling, yea, of hearty laughter, came to you from God's hand; and learn that sorrow and sadness are not our normal state-are an accident of our fallen condition that the anguishes and agonies, the desolations and despairs in the world, ay, even that best modification of them, the broken and contrite heart, the sighs of penitence, the tears of contrition; that these all belong to sin, and are its shadow, which will pass away when the substance is removed. But that all that is glad, and sweet, and joyous, ay, redolent C with fulness of joy, is of God, and belongs to Him, and shall outlive, yea, with everlasting life, all sadness and sorrow, as the sun still shines when the mists that it scattered are seen no more. And lo, even as I write there falls on my ear a great voice out of heaven-a voice beneath which my weak lispings must be hushed: a voice saying 66 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. "And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. He said unto me, Write; for these words are true and faithful.” And What soul-resting words! How can any, in this world of tears, and death, and sorrow, and crying, and pain, afford to do without the sweet hope, the calm assurance they bring, lying, as in the ancient myth, at the bottom of the throng of woes? It is so exactly what we all must so often want, a comfortable plaister just fitting every place in which the old racking pain breaks out from time to time, and lulling those intolerable spasms and shoots into only a wholesome dulled aching by its peace-giving power,—that, I say, it seems strange indeed, and only yet more sad than strange, that you, my friend, who might have it, are content to forego it. Trying every drug, every nostrum, every poison: wasting all your living these many years on physicians under whom you can be nothing bettered, but rather grow worse, instead of persistently, perseveringly, spite of all obstacles and every crowd, whether of men or devils, coming to Him the very touch of whose garments can make you whole. For in Christ Jesus, and through Him alone, may be had the possession of peace here and the promise of glory hereafter. Well, I could not help giving you this taste or sample of my quiet thoughts and dreamy musings in my chair.* Naturally, and of course, and with no sense of bondage from the necessity imposed on me from the fact of my writings having for their destiny a Sunday magazine : "In this I find not bonds, but wings:" a Sunday sun will, I hope, pervade these essays, a sun such as that I have described: sometimes fully and unmaskedly shining out, sometimes only, from behind a cloud, mellowing all with a pervading hallowing glow. Thus my string of Essays will be, though not bilious, yet religious in tone: and though they will not necessarily shun every week-day topic or illustration, yet they will, I hope, be found suitable for Sunday reading. As I lean back upon my chair collecting materials, the distant ring of Sabbath bells will steal into my ear from the quiet church across the water. I shall not always be conscious of the sound, but it will always exercise a tender, hallowing influence on the tone of my thought. To borrow and alter an illustration of Whately's: False religion, at least imperfect religion, is like moonlight : you are principally occupied in regarding the light itself. But in true and complete religion, as in sunlight, although you are contemplating the many objects which surround you, they are |