portionately upraised above, the old associations; art divinely elevated, science splendidly expanding; bygone loves and sympathies explaining and obtaining their purpose; activities set free for vaster cosmic service; abandoned hopes and efforts realized in rich harvests at last; despaired-of joys come magically within ready reach; regrets and repentances softened by wider knowledge, by surer foresight, and by the discovery that, although in this universe nothing can be "forgiven," everything may be repaid and repaired. In such a stage, though little removed relatively from this, the widening of faith, delight, and love (and therefore of virtue which depends on these) would be very large. Everywhere would be discerned the fact, if not the full mystery, of continuity, of evolution, and of the never-ending progress in all that lives towards beauty, happiness, and use without limit. To call such a life "Heaven" or the "Hereafter" is a temporary concession to

the illusions of speech and thought, for these words imply locality and time, which are but provisional conceptions. It would rather be a state, a plane of faculties, to expand again into other and higher states and planes; the slowest and lowest in the race of life coming in last, but each-everywhere—finally attaining. After all, as Shakespeare so merrily hints, "That that is, is!" and when we look into the blue of the sky we actually see visible Infinity. When we regard the stars of midnight we veritably perceive the mansions of Nature, countless and illimitable; so that even our narrow senses reprove our timid minds. If such shadows of an Immeasurable and Inexhaustible Future of peace, happiness, beauty, and knowledge be but ever so faintly cast from what are real existences, fear and care might, at one word, pass from the minds of men, as evil dreams depart from little children waking to their mother's kiss; and all might feel how

subtly wise he was who wrote of that first mysterious night on earth, which showed the unsuspected stars; when

came,

"Hesperus, with the host of heaven,

And lo! Creation widened on man's view! Who could have thought such marvels lay concealed

Behind thy beams, O Sun? or who could findWhilst flower and leaf and insect stood re

vealed

That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife?

If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?"

WHILE the above was in course of re-publication, it was sent to two very distinguished men of science, with a request for their opinion upon the reasonableness, or lack of reason, in its pages. One of them, renowned for his chemical investigations, returned it with ex

pressions of pleasure and of general agreement which have greatly encouraged this reprint. The other, whose name is famous wherever Science is followed, and whose researches in Natural Philosophy confer imperishable lustre on the Victorian era, has honored the author with a letter, profoundly interesting and suggestive, but which, from its nature and frank confidences, he is not at liberty to quote. It was accompanied, however, by a few memoranda upon the article, written by a highly gifted friend of that illustrious correspondent; and these it is permitted to append. The writer says:

"That which has been born' must 'die.' The two are one: birth and death one event which 'happens' to a being, but which is cleft in twain by a little fissure we call life.

"Why is life a problem at all? Why is there no categorical explanation (of our consciousness of larger life) necessarily accepted by every sound mind or sane intelligence? Is it not be

cause a scientifically exhaustive answer cannot be given in the terms of time and space as we now realize them? When instead of masters they become servants, when instead of blank prison walls they become open doors and pathways, shall we not enter a new mental world, though one firmly linked in continuity with the present?

"We need to translate the facts of physical nature into those of moral, mental, and spiritual nature. We need to repudiate with abhorrence the whole machinery of magic and sorcery and unnatural prodigy which we have confounded with that which is most natural, most healthy or holy-most sound and whole; that which is to our mind and conscience what the brain is to our physical structure-its director and its interpreter.

"Most truly Mr. Arnold says that the highest must belong to the lowest in an unbroken chain. And we are often rebuked by finding the highest type of beauty and fitness in the most despised or 'lowest' of microscopic organisms or even particles. On the other hand,