EARTH TO BE HEAVEN

Such a world, with such a story, to be surrendered to annihilation! I cannot believe it. God has never said so. He has promised that it "shall be given to the saints." It will doubtless pass through a baptism of fire. It has already been the scene of huge conflagrations, fitting it up for human occupancy; and the pen of inspiration informs us how yet another fiery ordeal awaits it. But, just as the old world emerged from the flood purified, so shall this one merge from the flames-renewed, reparadised, and fitted up for the habitation of righteousness some say for a new order of beings, and others for the final residence of the saints. But whatever its future destination, this is certain, that it shall be delivered from the dominion of evil, that a new genesis shall overtake it, and that it shall again be welcomed into the brotherhood of worlds with a shout louder and sweeter than that which saluted its first advent in the skies.

-T. McRae.

OUR THOUGHTS UPDRAWN

The heavens being thus to all nations, in all ages, the emblem of harmony and beauty, of peace and quietness, of vastness and infinity, and being, from their very nature, likely to continue the proper contrast of the disorder and jarring confusion of the earth, it hath pleased the Lord, in his revelation, to accommodate himself to this condition of human thought, and represent himself as having his throne and proper dwelling-place in the heavens, thereby encouraging men to follow after those ideas which are higher and nobler than the earth, and constituting himself patron of every high and saintly desire of the soul. I dwell, saith he, in that place with which all your better thoughts are associated; and you dwell nearer to my presence according as you surpass the earth, and have your hopes and desires upon the things above. You cannot come near me by being earthly; but by being heavenly in your thoughts you can come near to mine abode; whence, if you have lived in earthliness, you shall after death, be dcbarred, and thrust down to the lower parts of the earth; but if you have loved the higher aspirations, and sought the holier occupations of the soul, you shall be disrobed from earthly vestments and translated from earthly habitations to my own spiritual and blessed habitations.-Edward Irving.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet Summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap forlorn.

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from Heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free;

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!-O. W. Holmes.

THE PERFECT CITY

It is the everlasting seat of consummate holiness or virtue, where that Divine principle shines without alloy, flourishes in immortal youth, and reigns and triumphs with eternal glory. It is the place in which are seen all the finishings of Divine workmanship, and in which the beauty and greatness of the Infinite Mind, and the endless diversities of omniscient skill appear in all their most exquisite forms, and in the last degrees of refinement and perfection. It is the centre of all Divine communications-the city in which all the paths of Providence terminate-the ocean from which all the streams of infinite wisdom and goodness proceed, and into which they return, to flow again and forever.-President Dwight.

Passed she out from an earthly home.
Into the home of God.

Never the rays of moon or sun

Fell on her face that day,
And only a heavenly artist's hand

Could have left such light on clay.

We know that angel hands had wrought,
Each day at the soul within,

With loving touches of prayer and thought
Hiding each trace of sin;

Sweeping the heavy shade of pain

Over the smile on her face;

And leaving the gleam of a Father's love,
And the light of the cross in its place.
And so it was-their sweet work done,
When the Master bade them cease,

There was left for our eyes to gaze upon,

This beautiful picture of peace.—Mary Lowe Dickinson.

AS THE ANGELS ARE

Good is what connects all the angels in the heavens together in society. Yet it is not the angels who thus connect themselves together in society, but the Lord, from whom all good proceeds. All the angels, who are grounded in similar good, also know each other, though they never met before, as well as men in the world know their kindred, relations, and friends: the reason of which is because in the other life there are no other relationships, affinities, and friendships than such as are spiritual, thus such as are the result of love and faith. It is from this cause that an angel who excels in wisdom can immediately see what is the quality of another by his face; for no one there can disguise his interiors by his countenance.

An angel is a heaven in miniature; because heaven is not without an angel, but within him. How much are they mistaken who imagine that heaven will be shut when full; whereas the contrary is the truth, namely, that it will never be shut, and that the greater its fullness the greater its perfection. There is nothing, therefore, which the angels more earnestly desire than to receive additional angels, as new guests, among them.— Swedenborg.

Heaven will be inherited by every man who has Heaven in his soul. kingdom of God is within you."-Beecher.

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