soul: "Thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Eat, drink, and be merry." But on the walls of his banqueting chamber an armless hand draws blazing characters, that pale his cheek and make his knees smite together in terror. He toils for heirs-he knows not who. He may enjoy the pleasures of sin, but they last only "for a season." Nor can he keep from his soul that searching question: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" He repeats in the solitude of his chamber: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. I brought nothing into this world, it is certain that I can carry nothing out." Beyond this life he has no inheritance and no hope.

Not one good thing on earth that a worldly man can enjoy is denied to a Christian. His Father made them all. He is an heir with God and a joint heir with Christ. He can woo, win, and enjoy this life; besides, he is heir to a glorious inheritance in heaven, where moth doth not destroy, rust doth not corrode, and time's tooth not gnaw. Death is his servant, to hand him across the narrow stream that divides the heavenly land from ours. And in that fair world into which Death introduces him, the Christian will have immortal bloom, eternal vigor, and endless youth.

Who then would live alway? Who, when the Master pleases, would not welcome death? Would the children of a king live always in exile, while the palace gates stand wide open, and a robe, a ring, and a sumptuous table await the comer? Shall the son always tread the dusty way, or halt at noon at the

well-curb for rest? Shall the wayworn pilgrim always tread the perilous road-roads full of pitfalls, where lions prowl, and men more savage seek their prey? Beyond the rolling river is the mansion of God. Into it sin, pain, hate can not come. "There is rest for you," O Christian! there is rest for you..

"Over the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who've crossed to the other side;
The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide.
We saw not the angels who met them there,
The gates of the city we could not see-
Over the river, over the river,

My friends beloved stand waiting for me.

"Over the river, the boatman pale,

Carrying another, the household pet;
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale-
Darling blossom! I see her yet.

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;

We felt it glide from its silvery sands,

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark.
We know she is safe on the other side,
Where all the ransomed and angels be—
Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

"For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;
We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail;

And lo! they have passed from our yearning hearts,
They cross the stream and are gone for aye-

We may not sunder the veil apart,

That hides from our vision the gates of day.

We only know that their barks no more
May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea;
Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,
I shall one day stand by the water cold,

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar;
I shall watch for the gleam of the flapping sail,
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand,
I shall pass from sight, with the boatman pale,
To the better shore of the spirit land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,

And joyfully sweet shall the meeting be, When over the river, tle peaceful river, The Angel of Death shall carry me."

XXVII.-FIVE SMOOTH STONES FROM THE BROOK; OR, FUTURE LIFE AND RETRIBUTION CERTAIN.

"Friend after friend departs:

Who has not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end.
Were this frail world our only rest,
Living or dying, none were blest."

GOD chose "David, his servant, and took him from the sheepfold, to feed Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. So he fed them, according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands." It was no caprice, or the movements of mere human affection, that led Jesse, in that hour of national peril, to call the ruddy lad from the care of the sheep to run to the camp and look how his brethren fared, carry them a present, and take their pledge. God was in all that arrangement. Goliath had defied the God of Israel as well as his armies; and God purposed to overthrow this impious and uncircumcised boaster, and to do so by such humble weapons as to prove that the victory belonged to God. He chose a shepherd lad-sent him to the fight in the rude garb of his callingguided him to the brook from which he took the five smooth stones-aimed the blow-and gave the stripling strength to sling. David met the giant in the

name of the Lord of hosts, whom the man of war had defied.

The armed giant of unbelief, in complete panoply, arrays himself against the great central truths of the word of God, which affirm a future life. and a future retribution. If there be no future life, Christ lived and died in vain, men are yet in their sins, and preachers are false witnesses before God. If there be no future retribution, and death puts a full and final period to all woe and all punishment, then, indeed, did the Lord die in vain. He died to save man from the penalty of the law and the curse of transgression. Not here, for his children. not only are not free from pain and woe and death, which is the common inheritance of the race, but often a full cup of bitterness is wrung out to them because they are disciples. Apostles and martyrs, who suffered and died for Jesus's sake, that they might obtain a better resurrection, were not only, as Paul says, "of all men most miserable," if in this life only they had hope, but of all men the most foolish. They met the bitter conflicts of life to win a crown, and that crown was certain without the conflict. The champions of error, from the preaching of John the Baptist till now, have in some form forged their weapons against the certainty of a future life and the certainty of a future punishment. These truths have felled the Goliath of error to the earth, and removed his head with his own sword. We will put them in this form:-1. Future life is reasonable. 2. Future life is certain. 3. Future retribution is reasonable. 4. Future retribution is certain. 5. The peculiar features of the final trial.

4