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heaven, the bit of the city on the other side the bridge. As Philippi
was to Rome, so is earth to heaven, the colony on the outskirts of the
empire, ringed round by barbarians, and separated by sounding seas, but
keeping open its communications, and one in citizenship.

Be it our care, then, to keep the sense of that city beyond the
river vivid and constant. Amid the shows and shams of earth look
ever onward to the realities 'the things which _are_,' while all
else only seems to be. The things which are seen are but smoke
wreaths, floating for a moment across space, and melting into
nothingness while we look. We do not belong to them or to the
order of things to which they belong. There is no kindred between
us and them. Our true relationships are elsewhere. In this present
visible world all other creatures find their sufficient and homelike
abode. 'Foxes have holes, and birds their roosting-places'; but man
alone has not where to lay his head, nor can he find in all the width
of the created universe a place in which and with which he can be
satisfied. Our true _habitat_ is elsewhere. So let us set our thoughts
and affections on things above. The descendants of the original settlers
in our colonies talk still of coming to England as going 'home,' though
they were born in Australia, and have lived there all their lives. In
like manner we Christian people should keep vigorous in our minds the
thought that our true home is there where we have never been, and that
here we are foreigners and wanderers.

Nor need that feeling of detachment from the present sadden our spirits,
or weaken our interest in the things around us. To recognise our
separation from the order of things in which we 'move,' because we
belong to that majestic unseen order in which we really 'have our
being,' makes life great and not small. It clothes the present with
dignity beyond what is possible to it if it be not looked at in the
light of its connection with 'the regions beyond.' From that connection
life derives all its meaning. Surely nothing can be conceived more
unmeaning, more wearisome in its monotony, more tragic in its joy, more
purposeless in its efforts, than man's life, if the life of sense and
time be all. Truly it is 'like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing.' 'The white radiance of eternity,'
streaming through it from above, gives all its beauty to the 'dome of
many-coloured glass' which men call life.