souls will have in them the full meaning of the world. And then, die when we may, in foggy November, or in January and the middle of winter, there will be spring within our souls; feelings of hope, caught from budding trees, and from the smell of the first violet, and the opening of the first rose, and from the March song of the lark, and the April return of the swallow from beyond the sea. And this hopefulness of nature we cannot give into too believingly. And in all things that we hope humbly, we shall be more than justified by that "great hope which maketh not ashamed."

CHAPTER IV.

There is no danger to a man that knows
What Life and Death is; there 's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.

He goes before them, and commands them all,

That to himself is a law rational. - GEORGE CHAPMAN.

MARHAM.

SOMETIMES I shrink from expecting death; but for long I do not. But, Oliver, as I grow older, I am afraid I may get to dread death.

AUBIN.

- Uncle, you must not be afraid at all; neither of death, nor of the fear of death. For if you are afraid of fearing death, you will fear it.

MARHAM.

And after all, perhaps, death was not meant to be altogether pleasant to us.

AUBIN.

No; a skeleton is a skeleton. And a death's head is a death's head, ugly in itself, and without eyes; but then through the eye-sockets there shines the light of God; and that light the children of God know, and it gladdens them.

MARHAM.

You mean, that, the more godlike we become,

the more godlike death will feel; and that is true. But, Oliver, one day I am quite resigned to death, and perhaps the next day I am not so submissive. This ought not to be.

AUBIN..

And why not? Is there any thing toward which you always feel the same? Do pictures always please you the same? Does not music please you less some days than others? There was an acquaintance whom you would have been very glad to have seen yesterday, but not to-day. Are there any of your friends who are always the same to you? Then why do you think death ought to be? Man is a creature of many moods, and the thought of death does not, and cannot, agree with them all alike.

MARHAM.

Well, I hope my last day will not happen to be one of my fearful ones.

AUBIN.

Uncle, it will not. In a Jewish house, at a marriage feast, wedding garments were given the guests at the beginning. And when the Spirit and the Bride say, "Come," death brings us mortals a garment of willingness to put on. For I have known several good men who were afraid of being afraid at the last; but none of them were. Of the fear of death we must not make a trouble, nor must we try to reason ourselves out of it; for it

will grow stronger so. There is no arguing with the fear of death; for it is a ghost in a dark room, and vanishes only with a candle.

MARHAM.

In the eighteenth Psalm, David speaks of his having been compassed about by the sorrows of death and the grave. And then he blesses God for deliverance, and says, "Thou wilt light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness." In our fears we must pray, and so bring the light and the power of God over our souls.

Yes, uncle.

AUBIN.

MARHAM.

Prayer in the darkness of the night is the light of the heart. This was said by one whose meaning ought to be surpassed in experience by the weakest of us Christians.

AUBIN.

It is a beautiful saying. Who said it? Some Jew?

A Mahometan.

of Mahomet's.

MARHAM.

And I think he was a friend

AUBIN.

And a man that did not fear death, then ; though hardly a man, to be franticly persuaded, with Mahomet, that paradise is under the shadow

of swords.
to have; and fears of it have their use.

For an awe of death we were meant

Down the valley of the shadow of death do dreadful mists arise; then let the thought of God shine out from my soul, and it will glorify the mists, and make them golden with the light of heaven.

MARHAM.

Most of the reasons that frighten men at death ought to make them afraid to live. And besides, really, life is only a lengthened dying.

AUBIN.

Yes, our life is a dying daily, as Paul says; and at the longest, it is not such a very long death. For a man may be ever so young and strong, yet it is likely the wood is growing in which he will be coffined; and there is a divine dial-plate, on which the hour of his death is pointed to; and what is to be his grave will be his grave; and his body is waited for.

MARHAM.

Yes, we were as much born to die as to live. And if life is worth living, we ought to think that death is worth dying. But then we were not born sinners; but sinners we shall die. Yes, but there is Christ Jesus; and if we are in him, there is no condemnation for us. Martin Luther says, the fear of death is merely death itself, and that whoever utterly abolishes death out of the heart neither tastes nor feels any death.