m the vague hints and Oriental
imagery of the Scriptures, are sadly inadequate to our human wants and
hopes? How gladly would we forego the golden streets and gates of
pearl, the thrones, temples, and harps, for the sunset lights of our
native valleys; the woodpaths, whose moss carpets are woven with violets
and wild flowers; the songs of birds, the low of cattle, the hum of bees
in the apple-blossom,--the sweet, familiar voices of human life and
nature! In the place of strange splendors and unknown music, should we
not welcome rather whatever reminded us of the common sights and sounds
of our old home?"

"You touch a sad chord, Doctor," said I. "Would that we could feel
assured of the eternity of all we love!"

"And have I not an assurance of it at this very moment?" returned the
Doctor. "My outward ear fails me; yet I seem to hear as formerly the
sound of the wind in the pines. I close my eyes; and the picture of my
home is still before me. I see the green hill slope and meadows; the
white shaft of the village steeple springing up from the midst of maples
and elms; the river all afire with sunshine; the broad, dark belt of
woodland; and, away beyond, all the blue level of the ocean. And now,
by a single effort of will, I can call before me a winter picture of the
same scene. It is morning as now; but how different! All night has the
white meteor fallen, in broad flake or minutest crystal, the sport and
plaything of winds that have wrought it into a thousand shapes of wild
beauty. Hill and valley, tree and fence, woodshed and well-sweep, barn
and pigsty, fishing-smacks frozen tip at the wharf, ribbed monsters of
dismantled hulks scattered along the river-side,--all lie transfigured
in the white glory and sunshine. The eye, wherever it turns, aches with
the cold brilliance, unrelieved save where. The blue smoke of morning
fires curls lazily up from the Parian roofs, or where the main channel
of the river, as yet unfrozen, shows its long winding line of dark water
glistening like a snake in the sun. Thus you perceive that the spirit
sees and hears without the aid of bodily organs; and why may it not be
so hereafter? Grant but memory to us, and we can lose nothing by death.
The scenes now passing before us will live in eternal reproduction,
created anew at will. We assuredly shall not love heaven the less that
it is separated by no impassable gulf from this fair and goodly earth,
and that the pleasant pic