him will not let itself be thought of so. A heart has only to be noble, and of itself it will fill with faith. No martyr ever went the way of duty and felt the shadow of death upon it. The shadow of death is darkest in the valley, which men walk in easily, and is never felt at all on a steep place, like Calvary. Truth is everlasting, and so is every lover of it; and so he feels himself almost always. "To die is nothing to being false. I feel death like nothing at all; and so it is nothing in itself most likely." In battle, let it be for his country that a man stands up; and his brave, noble soul makes him feel that there is in him a life, that is no more to be touched by cannon-balls than God is, or than the kingdom of heaven is. MARHAM. Let us love God, and then of our being to live on in him we shall not doubt. It is our love of God that is the soul, the strength, of our faith in an hereafter. There are so many things that would seem against us and not for us, only that we love God! So very many painful things! AUBIN. Darkness is of use as well as daylight; and so are the doubts that cloud our minds as well as the certainties that light them up. So many thousand things about us are painful to look at and know But what sadness they cause in us is good of! for us, and is a feeling which it is wholesome for us to walk about in for a while. MARHAM. I think, Oliver, that the more one feels what this world is precisely, the surer one is of its being to be explained in a way not known of yet, a way that will justify want and agony even to goodness itself. And thus so many objects about us, that are sad to look at now, will turn in the future to recollections wonderful, and perhaps blessed, as you said this afternoon. Yes, Oliver, to the eyes of faith how all things change, and sad things look solemn, and dark things look brightening, and bright things look brighter! And then, too, there are times, not those of our most virtuous moods certainly, when our best thoughts feel empty, and when events move us only to despair. AUBIN. Just as a house is a home only to what domestic feeling is in a man, so very largely this world is God's world only to what godly feelings are in us. And it is only to my Christian feeling that the world feels MARHAM. What inspires you with courage, and hope, and trust? AUBIN. Yes, uncle. There have been times when to me nature has been meaningless; and there have been men to whom it has been disheartening. And well I remember the time at which nature began in my eyes to grow good with the goodness of God. It was like as when a white cloud grows golden with the rising sun. And now to my trustful, Christian heart, nature is so that whatever is in harmony with it I can be well contented to become, even though it might possibly prove to be nothing. In many a beautiful scene, on a summer's day, it is as though it were said to me, "Feel now how blessed are the Divine hands, into which it will be thine sometime to commend thy spirit." And now, to-night, is not it as though God had darkened the world for me to feel him the better in it? And what are those stars but the thousand eyes of God's love watching me? And the soft west wind, is it not what my soul might well go forth upon calmly and hopefully? MARHAM. The life of all things else is our life. may AUBIN. And what the sun rises in and sets in, our souls well be trusted to last on in. The morrow of the world is a purpose in the mind of God, and so is the great to-morrow of my soul. And I can be well contented to have my life subside on the bosom of him in whom the day died away this evening so beautifully, and in whom it will begin again in the morning so grandly. MARHAM. Almost all things encourage the faith of a thoughtful and believing mind. It is easy to believe that the souls of the righteous will shine on through death, since they have, for the life of their lives, that God in whom sun and moon and stars last on through change, and eclipse, and ages. AUBIN. My soul will live on in God, through death, like a thought that lasts on in the mind through sleep, and forgetfulness, and threescore years and ten perhaps. MARHAM. Yes, I live in God, and shall eternally. It is his hand upholds me now; and death will be but an uplifting of me into his bosom. CHAPTER XXXIX. And may it not be hoped, that, placed by age We are not so removed for utter loss, But for some favor, suited to our need? What more than that the severing should confer WORDSWORTH. MARHAM. VERY much I like it. But I am another man than I was when I was there thirty years ago. And the people there are almost all other than I used to know. The land slopes as it used to do, upwards to the brow of a hill, and down towards a brook. The brook runs on, stony at the bottom in one place, and gravelly in another; and the grass alongside it is long and green, and with flowers in it. glove and the water-lily. Prettily grow the fox- the daisies are looking up at the sun, the brook flows on, and here and there it gurgles; and so it does in the dark, all the night through, and while |