AUBIN.

Feelings and motives in hearts of flesh you know the working of, various as it may be; so now you are ready for the knowledge of souls in some other than this fleshly estate. In the hum of the town that is near us, a youth hears what inspirits him; but you do not, for you have heard it so long. And your heart, as it gets purer, craves a holiness that is not of this world; and so the city of God is the easier for you to see with your eyes of faith; and the less you are of this world, the more plainly are the voices to be heard which call to you from above to go up thither.

MARHAM.

And up there, O that I may go! For thither they have ascended whose lives were parts of my life, and in whose deaths I died myself, died deaths that have had no resurrections yet; but they will have; for every affection of mine will live again, or rather will be joy again in the sight of dear, recovered friends. But in this meanwhile I do not see them; and others are being taken after them.

AUBIN.

Yes, one by one →→→→

MARHAM.

And faster and faster

AUBIN.

There are being assembled in the other world

all your kindred, both after the flesh and after the spirit; and with their going hence, this world is to you less and less like an abiding-place.

MARHAM.

As you know, Oliver, my friends have died fast lately.

AUBIN.

And become spirits, and friends of yours gone into bliss. And with every longing after them, you grow more akin to heaven. And so, out of the very decay of this life, there grows in you the spirit of another life.

MARHAM.

Once I saw a large tree so hollow as to be little better than a case of bark; still it was living. But inside the tree, and overtopping it, grew a sapling so strong and green. And the hull of the old tree was a fence round the young one; though, indeed, they were both one tree, for they had the same root, and it was only the stem renewing itself. A very curious and pretty sight it And it pleased me, as being a happy emblem of myself. And I said, "My life is rooted in God fast and everlasting, and though outwardly I may perish, there is within me a life to be renewed to all eternity."

was.

AUBIN.

Such a tree I myself saw near Dieventer in Holland, with an old man and a little child near

it. A very old man he was. He must be dead before this, and his grandchild be growing up into his place in the world. Dead is a word that must be used; so that I wish all wrong meaning could be kept out of it. For there is a sense in which that old man is not dead, and never will be, though departed he is, no doubt. Through one minute's look at him, he lives on in my memory; and does not he, then, surely live on in the universe that produced and supported him? O, surely, surely! Since I saw what I have been speaking of, I have never once recollected it till this minute, and it is as though I saw it now. Even without my knowledge, that scene has lived on in me six years. Now my soul is like a thought in God; so I will never fear dying out of the Divine mind. Last night it occurred to me that to be remembered of God is to live in him. And so it is, I have no doubt, though to-day I do not understand how. For there are some truths which at one time are quite plain, though at another they seem obscure. This is according to what mood we are in. Just as the stars shine more or less brightly with the state of the atmosphere.

MARHAM.

There cannot be any forgetfulness in God, and all things live in him according to their nature, the robin for its two or three years, the lark for its seven or eight, and the raven for its century.

AUBIN.

In God the fountains rise, and the rivers run, and the oceans ebb and flow; and shall not my spirit continue to be a spirit in him? But in death there is the loss of the body; and in health, is not there a losing of the body and a regaining of other flesh every minute? And then, has a river the same water running in it any two hours together? A fountain is a fountain, in God, for a hundred, a thousand, and many thousand years; so I will not fear but my soul will be a soul in him for ages of ages, as the Greek has it, or, in our English phrase, for ever.

As I got up from my bedside prayer this morning, I said, "I am; and because I am what

I am, I am immortal." Do you not feel the force of this? Nor do I now, though I did this morning, but perhaps with my heart more than my head, and that, perhaps, was more sensitive just after prayer than it is now.

MARHAM.

I am well persuaded that after earnest prayer the mind is clearest, and the will is freest, and the judgment is wisest, and that then thoughts come to us most nearly like Divine messages. And after kneeling to God, our first few steps are almost certainly in the way of eternal life. It is after having drawn nigh to God, that our feelings are most nearly like Divine guidance. So that the thought you had this morning may be quite true, though you may not be able to tell how it is.