the patriarch's hand is extended, and the dove flutters feebly in! Thou art that dove, if thou art away from Jesus. Oh, who does not say to-day, "Take my poor fluttering soul to rest, And lodge it safely in Thy breast?" Do you see that pining captive yonder, disconsolate, weeping his tears into the mirror of the river there, in which are reflected the shadow of the terraces and towers of Babylon? that poor harp, unstrung and mute, hanging upon the willows? His heart is sad because his soul is so feeble and sore broken that it cannot sing the Lord's song in a strange land. Thou art that Israelite, if thou art away from Christ. Oh, let the captive exile hasten to be loosed to-night, and come back to his inheritance and to his home. "Return unto thy rest"—this is God's invitation to the Israelite, God's invitation to those who have partially forsaken Him. "Return unto thy rest,"-let each one of you say it to yourselves, let each one of you put it in practice, and by the grace of God may each one of you realise to-night the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of peace! Immortality. There is nothing now anywhere upon which the eye can gaze, or upon which the mind can dwell, that does not remind us of death. Everywhere there are the tokens and memorials of death. The snow upon the head of age, the brightness of the eye of infancy, the tints which light up with such rare and radiant beauty the cheek of youth, all tell us of death. The mountains, the valleys, the streams, the singing-birds, everything in nature tells us of death. I who speak to you am a living memorial of death. You who hear me are living memorials of death. The burden of nature's groaning seems to be one unvarying dirge, telling us that all flesh is as grass, and that the goodliness thereof is as a flower of the field. Oh, then, it is difficult to get away from the grasp of these ideas, surrounded as we are by the atmosphere of death. Dying creatures ourselves, we can hardly imagine that time and death will be no more; but it shall come. Immortality! How few of us can spell the word in all its deep significance! Immortality! Once get within those golden streets, and you have looked your last on age, and weariness, and change, and lassitude, and pain, and death. Once get within those golden streets, and every eye will flash and sparkle with the new vigour of immortal youth; and it is whispered upon every breath, and it is chanted in every song, and it is heard in every aspiration of the imperishably redeemed, "For ever, for ever, for ever with the Lord!" "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Excelsior! There is hope for the future. The world is moving on. The great and common mind of Humanity has caught the charm of hallowed Labour. Worthy and toil-worn labourers fall ever and anon in the march, and their fellows weep their loss, and then, dashing away the tears which had blinded them, they struggle and labour on. There has been an upward spirit evoked which men will not willingly let die. Young in its love of the beautiful, young in its quenchless thirst after the true, we see that buoyant pre sence "In hand it bears, 'mid snow and ice, The one note of high music struck from the great harp of the world's heart-strings is graven on that banner. The student breathes it at his midnight lamp—the poet groans it forth in those spasms of his soul, when he cannot fling his heart's beauty upon language. Fair fingers have wrought in secret at that banner. Many a child of poverty has felt its motto in his soul, like the last vestige of lingering Divinity. The Christian longs for it when his faith, piercing the invisible, "desires a better country, that is an heavenly." Excelsior! Excelsior! Brothers, let us speed onward the youth who holds that banner. Up, up, brave spirit !— "Climb the steep and starry road To the Infinite's abode." Up, up, brave spirit! Spite of alpine steep and frowning brow-roaring blast and crashing flood-up! Science has many a glowing secret to reveal to thee-faith has many a Tabor-pleasure to inspire. Ha! does the cloud stop thy progress? Pierce through it to the sacred morning. Fear not to approach the Divinity-it is His own longing which impels thee. Thou art speeding to thy coronation, brave spirit! Up, up, brave spirit! till, as thou pantest on the crest of thy loftiest achievement, God's glory shall burst upon thy face, and God's voice, blessing thee from His throne in tones of approval and of welcome, shall deliver thy guerdon,—" I have made thee a little lower than the angels, and crowned thee with glory and honour!" The Search for Happiness. God is love, and love is happiness. The Creator, Himself serenely and eternally happy, has intended all His creatures to be happy too. He stamped that intention on the very face of nature. The smile of the dancing sunbeam, the bashful beauty of the flower, all speak of happiness. Every breeze that fans our shore, and every wave that kisses it, are full of a speaking joy, and nothing but God is found in the original arrangements of the universe. It is nothing but sin, nothing but sin, that has brought |