continue too. This one argument is enough to decide the whole question we are discussing.

Those then who have been united by blood and all the tenderness of mutual affection upon earth, are not destined to meet as utter strangers before the great white throne. So powerful an element in their happiness is not to be lost in the dissolution of the world. The interest we feel, on beholding the images of the good is not an idle sentimentalism; it is a precognition of something which will help to develope the raptures of eternity. We march through our cathedrals; we ponder over the lineaments of ancient worthies, and a thousand diversified associations hallow our minds. But in the cathedral of a glorified universe, it shall not be mute marble on which we gaze, but the living, the conscious, the communicative reality. Lazarus knew what it was to reach the bosom of Abraham. The transfiguration was a scene which ushered us within the veil, and we learn that Moses and Elias are not airy abstractions, but cognizable beings. O yes, mourners in Zion, you who have sown your friends for the harvest of the great day, you shall all meet again. That identification which is the source of all jurisprudence, the ground of all friendship, the main principle of society

and love, shall not be lost;-you shall rejoice in a thousand glorious recognitions; and as the vindication of the divine justice will, so far as your individual mind is concerned, depend upon the separate trials of the judgment day, so will your convictions of the divine love receive a fresh demonstration, as you mingle with the groups of old friends beneath the unfading tree. of life, and meet the old ship's company, with whom you sailed on earth before the throne of GOD and of the Lamb. Illustrious day! day without night, when we shall embrace the good and faithful servants of every age and clime who have entered into the eternal joy of their Lord. Our fathers, where are they? The prophets, do they live for ever? Our old companions, many are come to the margin of life, many are in the grave! But by the atonement of Christ accomplished, by the resurrection of Christ fulfilled, we shall again behold them. They are not lost; they have gone before. They have arrived at their mansions first, and that is all. Like David, we dare not repine. It would be infidelity to indulge in indecent grief;-nay rather, we lift our voice, and shout our solemn joys; cause of highest rapture this,-rapture that shall never fail,--if a soul escapes to bliss, keep the Chris

tian festival! They shall not return to us; but blessed be GOD in Christ, they rest in paradise until the restitution of all things, -a condition of happiness, if not the precise condition of the glorified human nature of their Lord. They shall not return to us, but we shall go-aye, no less is our privilege than the recognition which King David's words imply-we shall go to them.

And we will not permit a heartless philosophy to maintain that the remarks we have been urging do not apply to children. It is true that, in their case, friendship is only in the germ; only in the first stage of an embryo existence. But assuredly, arguing by analogy, we may suppose that their powers of recognition will be developed in proportion to that general development of their powers and propensities, which is consistent with the arrangements of divine providence, and suitable to the ever-increasing happiness of the heavenly state. If it be part of the economy of heaven, that there shall be childhood throughout eternity,-if there will be a difference of condition and knowledge in the little ones, like that which we see in the successive stages of infancy, the lowest stage will at least imply recognition on our side; and those

who, to speak after the manner of men, would miss the reunion with their darlings, will, as we firmly believe, be able to single out their own from the gathered millions of holy infants. Heaven, in regard to the innocents, will not be a company of strangers; they will not be little fatherless foundlings; but gamboling before the throne of GOD and of the Lamb, the relationship of Christ to His Father may remind them of a relationship represented at least by similar terms; and thus the language of Holy David, as he arose in his refreshment of soul, shall be vindicated, I SHALL, consciously, GO TO MY CHILD, and recognize him there in glory, THOUGH HE

SHALL NOT RETURN TO ME.

THE REAPER.

THERE is a Reaper whose name is Death
And with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair," saith he; "Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of those flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again.”

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves:

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord has need of these flowrets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled;

"Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where He was once a child.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."