r, and the pulses of our generous nature beat in
harmony with the living, loving, all-pervading Spirit of the universe.

And while it brightens the present, it gilds the future. It makes a
blessed immortality a natural certainty. If God our Father lives, then
we His children shall live also. Death is abolished. Day dawns at last
on the night of the grave. Earth is our birth-place and our nursery;
death is the gate-way to infinity, and there is our glorious and eternal
home. Our work for ever is the joyous work of doing good. Our future
life is an eternal unfolding, and a delightful exercise, of our highest
powers. The mysteries of universal nature open to our view, and in the
confluence of the delights of knowledge and the transports of
benevolence, our joy is full; our bliss complete.

This doctrine, in the form in which Jesus presents it, has hold of the
hearts of nearly the whole population of Christendom. It has the
strongest hold on the best. Even those who doubt it, doubt it with a
sigh; and those who give it up, surrender it with regret. And as they
make the sacrifice the earth grows dark. And life grows sad. And nature
wears the air of desolation. The music of the woods becomes less sweet.
The beauty of the flowers becomes less charming. There creeps a dreary
silence over land and sea. Existence loses more than half its charms.
The light of life burns dim. The past, the present, and the future all
are cheerless. The world is one vast orphan-house. Mankind are
fatherless. Our dearest ones are desolate. And language has no word to
comfort them. The lover sighs. The husband and the father weeps. The
bravest stand aghast. The charm of life, the unmixed bliss of being, is
no more.

But the question of questions is, Is the doctrine true? The _heart_ says
it is, and even the intellect acknowledges that there are ten thousand
appearances in nature which cannot be accounted for on any other
principle. We cannot at present dwell on the subject; but the doctrine
of Jesus with regard to God and immortality is the grandest and most
consoling, and is the most adapted to strengthen the soul to duty, and
to cheer and support it under suffering, that the mind of man can
conceive.

And then as to Jesus Himself, the love and the reverence with which He
is honored by so large a portion of the foremost nations of the earth,
are no mistake,--no accident. They are the natural result of His worth
and excellency. They are the natura