care for us.

Could we firmly believe this, bereavement would lose half its bitterness. As a German writer beautifully. expresses it, "Our friend is not wholly gone from us : we see across the river of death, in the blue distance, the smoke of his cottage:" hence the heart, always creating what it desires, has ever made the guardianship and ministration of departed spirits a favorite theme of poetic fiction.

But is it, then, fiction? Does revelation, which gives so many hopes which nature had not, give none here? Is there no sober certainty to correspond to the inborn and passionate cravings of the soul? Do departed spirits in verity retain any knowledge of what transpires in this world, and take any part in its scenes?

All that revelation says of a spiritual state is more intima- · tion than assertion; it has no distinct treatise, and teaches nothing, apparently, of set purpose, but gives vague glorious images, while now and then some accidental ray of intelligence looks out,

"Like eyes of cherubs shining

From out the veil that hid the ark."

But ou tof all the different hints and assertions of the Bible, we think a better inferential argument might be constructed to prove the ministrations of departed spirits, than for many a doctrine which has passed in its day for the height of orthodoxy.

First, then, the Bible distinctly says that there is a class of invisible spirits who minister to the children of men. "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation ?" It is said of little children, that "their angels do always behold the face of the Father which is in heaven." This last passage, from the words of our Saviour, taken in connection with the well-known tradition of his time, fully recognizes the idea of individual guardian spirits.

For God's government over minds is, it seems, throughout,

one of intermediate agencies; and these not chosen at random, but with the nicest reference to their adaptation to the purpose intended.

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Is it likely, then, that, in selecting subordinate agencies, this, so necessary a requisite of a human life and experience, is overlooked? While around the throne of God stand spirits, now sainted and glorified, yet thrillingly conscious of a past experience of sin and sorrow, and trembling to the soul in sympathy with temptations and struggles like their own, is it likely that he would pass by these souls, thus burning for the work, and commit it to those bright abstract spirits whose knowledge and experience are comparatively so distant and so cold?

It is strongly in confirmation of this idea, that in the transfiguration scene, which seems to have been intended purposely to give the disciples a glimpse of the glorified state of their Master, we find Him attended by two spirits of earth, Moses and Elias, "which appeared to Him in glory, and spake of His death which He should accomplish at Jerusalem."

It appears that these so long departed ones were still mingling in deep sympathy with the tide of human affairs, not only aware of the present, but also informed of the future.

What then? May we look among the band of ministering spirits for our own departed ones? Whom would God be more likely to send us? Have we in heaven a friend who knew us to the heart's core,—a friend to whom we have unfolded our soul in its most secret recesses; to whom we have confessed our weaknesses, and deplored our griefs? If we are to have a ministering spirit, who better adapted?

Have we not memories which correspond to such a belief? When our soul has been cast down, has never an invisible voice whispered, "There is lifting up?" Have not gales and breezes of sweet and healing thought been wafted over us, as if an angel had shaken from his wings the odors of paradise? Many a one, we are confident, can remember such things; and whence come they?

Why do the children of a pious mother, whose grave has grown green and smooth with years, seem often to walk through perils and dangers fearful and imminent as the crossing Mohammed's fiery gulf on the edge of a drawn sword, yet walk unhurt? Ah! could we see that glorious form, that face where the angel conceals not the mother, our question would be answered.

It may be possible that a friend is sometimes taken because the divine One sees that his ministry can act upon us more powerfully from the unseen world than amid the infirmities of mortal intercourse.

Here the soul, distracted and hemmed in by human events and by bodily infirmities, often scarce knows itself, and makes no impression on others correspondent to its desires. The mother would fain electrify the heart of her child. She yearns and burns in vain to make her soul effective on its soul, and to inspire it with a spiritual and holy life; but all her own weakness, faults, and mortal cares, cramp and confine her, till death breaks all fetters: and then, first truly alive, risen, purified, and at rest, she may do calmly, sweetly, and certainly, what, amid the tempest and tossings of life, she labored for painfully and fitfully.

So, also, to generous souls who burn for the good of man, who deplore the shortness of life, and the little that is permitted to any individual agency in this life, does this belief open a heavenly field. Think not, father or brother long laboring for man, till thy sun stands on the western mountains,-think not that thy day in this world is over. Perhaps, like Jesus, thou hast lived a human life, and gained a human experience, to become, under and like him, a saviour of thousands. Thou hast been through the preparation; but thy real work of good, thy full power of doing, is yet to begin.

There are some spirits (and those of earth's choicest) to whom, so far as enjoyment to themselves or others is concerned, this life seems to have been a total failure. A hard hand from the first, and all the way through life, seems to have

been laid upon them: they seem to live only to be chastened and crushed; and we lay them in the grave at last in solemn silence. To such, what a vision is opened by this belief! This hard discipline has been the school and task-work by which their soul has been fitted for their invisible labors in a future life; and when they pass the gates of the grave, their course of benevolent acting first begins, and they find themselves delighted possessors of what through many years they have sighed for, the power of doing good.

The year just passed, like all other years, has taken from a thousand circles the sainted, the just, and the beloved; there are spots in a thousand graveyards, which have become this year dearer than all the living world: but in the loneliness of sorrow, how cheering to think that our lost ones are not wholly gone from us! They still may move about in our homes, shedding around them an atmosphere of purity and peace, promptings of good, and reproofs of evil: we are compassed about with a cloud of witnesses, whose hearts throb in sympathy with every effort and struggle, and who thrill with joy at every success. How should this thought check and rebuke every worldly feeling and unworthy purpose, and enshrine us, in the midst of a forgetful and unspiritual world, with an atmosphere of heavenly peace! They have overcome, have risen, are crowned, glorified; but still they remain to us, our assistants, our comforters; and in every hour of darkness their voice speaks to us: "So we grieved, so we struggled, so we fainted, so we doubted; but we have overcome, we have obtained, we have seen and found all true; and in our heaven behold the certainty of thy own."-Harriett Beecher Stowe.

FUTURE LIFE NEAR AND REAL.

I confess to you there is something in my mind of sublimity in the idea that the world is full of spirits, good and evil, and the little we can see with these bat's eyes of ours, the little we can decipher with these imperfect senses, is not the whole of

the reading of those vast pages of that great volume which God has written. * * * Doubtless there are vulgar spirits. * * On the other hand, I believe there are angels of light, spirits of the blessed, ministers of God. I believe not only that they are our natural guardians and friends, and teachers, and influencers, but that they are the natural antagonists of evil spirits. In other words, I believe that the great realm of life goes on without the body, very much as it does with the body. And as here the mother not only is the guardian of her children whom she loves, but foresees that bad associates and evil influences threaten them, and draws them back and shields them from impending danger; so ministering spirits not only minister to us the divinest tendencies, the purest tastes, the noblest thoughts and feelings, but, perceiving our adversaries, caution us against them, assail them, and drive them from us.

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Out of the dust and the dim, and mists and observations of life, there come moments when God permits us to see, in a second, farther, wider, and easier, than by ordinary methods of logic we can see in a whole life. Do I undervalue logic when I say it is inferior to intuition? Intuition at a white heat teaches a man in a single moment more than logic ever teaches him. Logic constructs the walls of thought, throws up ramparts, and lays out highways; but it never discovers. The discovering power is intuition. There are certain times when parts of the mind lift themselves up with a kind of celestial preparation, and we see and think and feel more in a single hour than ordinarily in a year. However useful and needful reasoning may be as compared with these sudden insights, it is scarcely to be mentioned with respect.

Ordinarily we are under the influence of things which are seen, and of the senses; but now and then, we know not how, we rise into an atmosphere in which Spirit-life, God, Christ, the ransomed throng in heaven, virtue, truth, faith and love, become more significant to us, and seem to rest down upon us with more force than the very things which our physcal senses