the Spirit of God. "Let me die," said the poor lad; "I do not like to stay in this dark place; I will go where there is light. I know the words are true, that God sent his Son to die for the world." Hereupon he began to repeat some verses which he had learned. One especially pleased him above all others, for it seemed to suit his blind state. It was, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the latter day upon the earth; and in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another." In his last moments, catching glimpses of what was before him, he exclaimed, "I see! Now I have light! I see Him in his beauty! Tell the missionary that the blind sees! I glory in Christ! I glory!" As he said this, he slept in Jesus, and angels bore his happy spirit to that place where he beholds what no eye here hath seen, no ear heard. He entered into

"That happy, happy country! where

There entereth not a sin,

And death, who keeps its portals fair,
May never once come in."

Yes, thanks be to God, I too "know that my Redeemer liveth. In my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eye shall behold, and not another."

Then I think again there is no fatigue in heaven. "There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God." To their activity there is indeed no cessation. "They are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple." But there is no exhaustion, no languor attending that service. They never grow listless. Theirs is the bliss of ceaseless activity, of unabating vigour. It is well that on earth the wicked find so many interruptions to wickedness. It is well that so much time must be spent by them in sleep, and by most of them in procuring a subsistence. If they had uninterrupted leisure to obey depraved impulses, what thousand-fold more horrid crimes would be every day committed! But God's people would gladly even now labour without cessation for his glory. With what satisfaction, then, can I and all the blood-bought sons of God think of a world where there is no night-no loss of time in sleepno lassitude-no enfeebled powers-no tottering steps-where the years never come in which we have no pleasure-where there will not be one interruption to our holy employments-where the quiet of repose and the pleasure of activity will co-exist blissfully and for

ever!

"There shall the followers of the Lamb
Join in immortal songs;

And endless honours to his name
Employ their tuneful tongues."

Then again, I reflect, there is no sickness in heaven, nor pain, or death. "The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick." In the salutations of that world, inquiries after one another's health find no place. From age to age, not one will speak of being indisposed; but in the glow of immortal youth, every one of the thousands of glorified ones will say he is well.

Terrible, alas! is the derangement sin has made in our physical constitution. It has fitted every nerve to be an instrument of anguish.

Not a point of contact do we present to outward objects but may be the inlet of more agony than tongue can tell; and all is the work of sin. The array of diseases to which we are subject is truly appalling, and of every one of them sin is primarily the cause. But all remains of sin, original or actual, believers leave behind them, and hence, too, all sickness and pain. The healing art is a terrestrial profession. Even the "balm in Gilead, and the Physician there" perform all their work on this side the grave. Some scars, perhaps, but no wounds, go to heaven. There are no funerals there-no shroudsno coffins-no hearses-no cemeteries. In that vast congregation there are no habiliments of mourning. There is nothing sable in Paradise. No! spotless white is the court dress of heaven. The recollection of suffering will there cease to be painful. Martyrs there will speak of fagots and the rack, and others listen, without shuddering.

"Oh! what are all my sufferings here,

If, Lord, thou count me meet
With that enraptured host to appear,
And worship at thy feet?

"Give joy or grief, give ease or pain,
Take life or friends away,

I come to find them all again
In that eternal day."

99

Outward annoyances will cease when we get to heaven. There "the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore." It was only while the earth remaineth that God said, "Cold and heat shall not cease.' God has spoken of no summer or winter in heaven. That world, if it move at all, moves not in such an ecliptic as ours. There are no tropics, no polar regions there. Pitfalls cannot be found there, neither do thorns grow in that blessed land. It was the ground of this world, not of heaven, that was cursed.

There is in the heavenly Canaan complete exemption from every evil growing out of our present social relations. Manifold as those relations are, rich as is the harvest of enjoyment which they might afford if sin had not deranged them, so manifold and so bitter are the fruits of their perversion. The amount of domestic unhappiness, for instance, is beyond all estimate. Abused friendship is an ample source of disquiet. Alas! many a one besides Cæsar has exclaimed, "Thou, too, Brutus!" Between rulers and the ruled there is not a little of jarring. International interests are perpetually in conflict. Many a soul sighs, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest." Well, such wings are presently furnished, and the saint flies away, and is at rest. He alights where there is no "battle of the warrior, with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood;" "but there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby."

Friendships do not cool in heaven. If misunderstandings were possible, none are too proud to make explanations. There is no

parting there. The redeemed forget how to sigh; and (happy thought!) never are they annoyed by the tongue of the slanderer. "Woe is me!' has sighed the Psalmist and many another; "woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! What shall be given unto thee, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?" From its actual occupation, one would think that the tongue was given us merely for the purposes of evil speaking and idle talking. Oh, how much, very much, precious time runs thus to waste! How many daggers are thus plunged deep! How do blood and tears flow apace! Thank God, however, no tongues are charged with venom in the country we are hastening towards! Centuries will sweep past, but we shall never meet with one whose eyes are red with weeping. The spiritual eye does not secrete tears. It is on earth only that we can weep with them that weep; there we can only rejoice with them that rejoice. In its common acceptation, there is no sympathy in heaven, because there is no occasion for it. Take heart, then, ye servants of God; ye who are maligned, persecuted, or unrighteously dealt with, for God shall soon wipe away all tears from your eyes; "and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away."

Mental disorders, too, and perturbations will there be at an end. No new fallacies will possess the mind; all the faculties will come into far more efficient and harmonious action than ever they were before. The imagination will be in due subjection; the judgment will be wisely regulated; the memory greatly quickened; and the association of ideas determined by principles of the highest, holiest philosophy. The emotional faculties of the soul will also come under the sway of a sanctified logic. To those who are here liable to be carried away by surges of mere emotion, it must seem a high happiness to have their feelings all sweetly controlled by a will that is calm, firm, and intuitively wise. The soul will not then, as now, suffer from excess of feeling, or a stupefying reaction. All tears of joy, no less than of sorrow, will be wiped away. Oh, how great will be our exultation, when we find ourselves in no farther danger of feeling too much, as well as too little; when we find a perfect balance introduced among the powers and affections of our souls, all of them working harmoniously and vigorously, former jarrings and obliquities completely at an end. Oh, what bliss, to have all the unholy passions-pride, envy, anger-those vultures of the mind, for ever banished from our breasts!

But most of all, there will be no sin in heaven. Without holiness heaven would not be heaven. Sin is the evil of evils. To be freed from its power is the Christian's strongest wish. It is to the spirits of just men made perfect that departed saints are come; to the spirits of just men made perfect, even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. They are washed, made pure and perfect. They have on the spotless wedding garment. Allurements to sin there are none. No one there prays, "Lead us not into temptation;" safely do they follow the Lamb whithersoever he leadeth them, and it is never into temptation. Into that Paradise the serpent cannot intrude. In the river of life there are no swellings, as of Jordan, at which the roaring lion cometh up. Satan's fiery darts cannot surmount the

walls of the New Jerusalem. The decalogue is not needed there. The groves and high places of that fair country are never put to idolatrous purposes. There is no Canaanite in the land. In that abode there are no lusts, no relics of sin, no ebullitions of temper or the passions; hence, no upbraidings of conscience, no confessions to be made. Paul now never exclaims, "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

"No hidden grief,

No wild and cheerless vision of despair,
No vain petition for a sweet relief,

No tearful eyes, no broken hearts, are there.

"The storm's black wing

Is never spread athwart celestial skies;

Its wailings blend not with the voice of spring,
As some too tender flow'ret fades and dies.

"Let us depart,

If home like this await the weary soul.

Look up, thou stricken one! Thy wounded heart
Shall bleed no more at sorrow's stern control.”

R. C. BROWNE.

THE PRESENT MISSION OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. INSTITUTIONS exist solely for the good of mankind. The highest Authority declared respecting the greatest institution: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." If the Sabbath, which was given by God to man when he first gave him being-which therefore was given to man as man, of which the giving and observance were most solemnly confirmed by the fourth of those Ten Commandments which are binding upon all-which was supported and sanctioned by Him who abolished the canonical services of the Mosaic Law;-if this so Divine an institution is for man, then are all others most certainly. From the declaration of the Lord of the Sabbath, and from the occasion of the declaration, we undoubtedly learn that so completely was the Sabbath made for man, that if its law, its observance, was opposed to man's happiness, that law would be set aside. Thus acting, God would be governed by the same benevolence which led him to give the Sabbath. Nay, the day on which the Sabbath is observed has been changed, in order that the Sabbath may commemorate the consummation of a greater work than that of creation, and thus perpetually advise man of his salvation. Sabbath be altogether for man, then are all other institutions. From this lawgivers legislate, and parents govern their households. The good of the governed is the aim of both, and to promote it they unhesitatingly make new laws and modify old ones. Extremes are to be avoided. A love of novelty which leads to unadvised changes, and a love of the old which leads us to preserve the old when there is every reason for a change, are equally evils. We should not touch that which by long and signal success has proved its efficiency and sufficiency, and which cannot be improved: nor should we perpetuate in its present form that which needs improvement.

If the

Since Sunday-schools came into existence there have been varied

and vast changes in society. Its present state differs materially from its state eighty years ago. And to-day the nation is discussing social subjects and political measures which will exert a boundless influence on the condition and character of the coming generation. During the present century education has made great progress. It may not have succeeded to the extent its sanguine supporters and, indeed, all true lovers of mankind have desired; still, it has gone forth "conquering, and to conquer." There may yet be a deplorable amount of ignorance cursing our land, but it is not so dark and dense as it was when Sunday-schools were founded. "The schoolmaster has been abroad." As the pleasing result, Englishmen are better educated than they were. And, what is equally important, the people of this nation, as a whole, will soon be much more thoroughly taught the "three R's." "Our future masters are certain to be taught their letters." All the signs of the times declare that measures ensuring the education of our countrymen—at least in the elementary branches of learning will be passed. Not the least and feeblest indication of the certain, because compulsory spread of education, is the recent meeting of the Nonconformist Congress upon the subject. Evidence crowds upon us that speedy means will be adopted for teaching and training the children that are, the men that will be. Facts should ever be considered. The noble band of Sabbath-school teachers should prayerfully ponder over the altered, and altering state of society, to ascertain whether they can more fully adapt their tuition to the changing condition of their scholars. Should not their labours change as those whom they train change? Is their method of in

structing so perfect, that like the religion they teach, to alter it is to mar it? There was a time, when one of the ends of Sabbath-school tuition was to teach the neglected how to read. The end was great and good. The want of ability to read is one of the fearful punishments of early waywardness and idleness. He who teaches a boy how to read does a Christ-like work, for he gives him the power of obtaining some light in the darkness of the darkest night, and some relief in life's saddest hour, the power of mitigating all his miseries and of heightening all his joys. But the Sabbath-school teacher is not called so imperatively to this work now as he was twenty years ago, for now facilities for learning to read abound, which did not exist then. Probably every child will soon be provided with, and be compelled to use, such aids as will certainly give him the power to read. In some Sunday-schools, especially of our own community, children were taught to write. Proper and praiseworthy though this may have been, there is not now the need of teaching the art of writing there was a short time ago. Excepting in a very few places, there is no necessity whatever for Sabbath-school teachers assuming this task. Indeed, if at this present time they have not a higher work than that of teaching children to read and write, their work may soon be dispensed with. For it may safely be asserted, without any reflection on loving labourers, that those whom the Government sends forth, and will send forth, to teach these arts, will be much better qualified for the work.

To give a religious education is the mission of the Sabbath-school teacher. While another teacher imparts secular instruction, it is his