AUBIN.

Beauty in nature, and as felt by a Christian spirit, this is what I think is a manifestation of God. Uncle, look at the garden; see the flowers, and the apple-trees, and the lilacs in blossom. And in the field beyond how white the hawthorn is! And then there are the poplars, so leafy and straight, and as though standing against the sky behind. Now does not the sight of a scene like this make in the mind the peace of God? And this peaceful feeling must be God's meaning, and not mere chance in us.

MARHAM.

But may it not be mere contentment of the soul, and not what is any way a promise of an hereafter?

AUBIN.

No, uncle; I think not. And that is nearly all I can answer you. O, yes, there is something that occurs to me! If in our souls there were no feeling of infinity, mountains would not be sublime to us; they would only be craggy steeps, and no more to us than to the goat and the chamois.

MARHAM.

And that something of the infinite which there is in the soul betokens a higher relationship than what the grave can close on.

AUBIN.

The mountains make in us a feeling sublimer than of what they are themselves. But they are what they are to us, because there is that in our nature through which height beyond height might rise before us in the universe, and so our souls grow grander and more solemn ; but only to feel more grandly and more solemnly at further higher sights, for ever.

MARHAM.

What there is of infinity in our souls does lay hold of the gates of heaven for us.

AUBIN.

While we have been in valleys, and on moun tains, and the banks of rivers, what feelings have grown in us in this England of ours will be the beginnings of our delight in the fields of heaven. Sometimes, at the sight of a sublime scene, or a beautiful landscape, or a glorious sunset, first my feeling is delight, next it is worship, and then it is a presentiment of heaven; for I think to myself that this earth, at its loveliest, is hardly even the forecourt of the temple. And certainly, than this it is no nigher to himself that God has admitted us earthly worshippers. But though not called so, death is that Beautiful gate through which we shall pass on into the temple, and towards the Holy of holies, where the pure in heart are blest with the sight of God.

CHAPTER XX.

A Healer, a Redeemer came,

A Son of Man, with love and power;
And an all-animated flame

He kindled in our inmost soul.

Then first we saw the heavens unfold;
They seemed an ancient father-land:

And now we could believe and hope,

And feel we were akin to God. - NOVALIS.

MARHAM.

You have been looking at your watch these five minutes. What do you see, Oliver ?

AUBIN.

More than I can speak of; and I hear more than I can tell of well. Tick, tick, tick! Gone, gone, gone! As fast as this watch goes, men

Oliver, it is a thing to think of. And the more one thinks, the faster time seems to go; and faster and faster it seems as though men were dying. As one listens, it is as though the watch were

saying all manner of warnings,

now then, now

then!thy turn, thy turn!-'t will be, 't will And so it will be; and God knows how

be!

soon.

AUBIN.

And only he knows the witness this watch might witness about me, for I have forgotten myself; or rather, my brain has, for my spirit has not, because it will be all surviving in me hereafter. Round the face of this watch, every minute-mark has been the date of some impulse I have felt and followed, right or wrong, and that I shall remember hereafter, and, as I trust, when I am in glory; and every such recollection will make me feel myself then, more and more devoutly, a miracle of grace. And that will soon be, perhaps. On, on, on ! says the watch; on, on, on! And on it goes, and on time goes, and on the world goes. Tick, tick, tick! And only with this, Venus is a hundred miles farther away; and it is another part of the sun that shines on Mercury; and girdled about with rings, and circled about with moons, Saturn is not where he was; and perhaps out of a million

stars, there is And all with

not one but has changed its place. less noise than the going of this watch, and with less effort, perhaps; and, indeed, certainly; for with Almightiness there cannot be any effort at all. I do not discern it, for I am in the flesh; but on

the face of my watch, here, among these twelve, one will be the hour of my death, and there is a minute here that will be my last breath. This finger moves on slowly and surely, and over the whole face it will turn, and many a time, perhaps; but for all that, like a finger along the lines of a death-warrant, it is moving on to point the time of my departure hence. And the next minute afterwards some one will take up this very watch, perhaps, and remark to himself the hour and the minute of my death. But the very moment that I breathe out my last breath, somebody I will draw his last. And before it will be well known that I am dead, quite a company of spirits will have come forth with me out of this earthly life. And then where shall we find ourselves, ay, where? Day and night, summer and winter, life and death, these our planetary changes will be over. But if we shall have done with this earth, shall we have done with our planetary system ? But why not? for shall we not have already learned the great starry lesson? and are there not some human minds in which the material system exists almost as clearly as it does in the eye of God, both the stars in their movements, and the earth in what it is? Such knowledge has God allowed us, and it is very wonderful.

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