THE VALUE OF BIOGRAPHY.

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afflictions and their comforts are for our consolation. "And whether we be afflicted," says the Apostle,* "it is for your consolation and salvation; or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation, . . . that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." Such men leave "footprints on the sands of time," by which forlorn and shipwrecked brothers may take courage. How often has the weight of depression been lightened, or the heart been deeply touched, or some high resolve kindled, or hope and consolation been imparted, by the experiences of men tried as we are tried, by the evidence of the great cloud of witnesses !† They teach us how all our temptations are but the temptations common to man; how God delivers us in all troubles, and His care lasts while life lasts; how peace and safety attend the path He has marked out for His pilgrims, and unhappiness and confusion on aberrations from that path. The power of our faith is not left to us simply as a matter of faith. The like things are accomplished in us as in our brethren in the world; or, as the old Greek historian tells us in an oft-repeated passage, events the same, or similar, constantly repeat themselves. How unwavering is the testimony of all honest men, that this life

* 2 Cor. i. 6 and 4.

+ Dr. Arnold's high appreciation of such books will be remembered.

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GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS OF LIFE.

is indeed but a pilgrimage; and how unvarying their experience of the things that belong to the pathway of heaven!

It is only in an allusive and incidental way that we dwell on these lines of thought and association. The main purport of these remarks is to bring out the reality of the pathway, and of the pilgrim estate of those who tread it. And, indeed, it is surpassingly difficult rightly to lay this truth to heart-both the greatness and the littleness, the worth and the worthlessness, of human life. All the imagery of transitoriness and fragility is applied to this human life. Our days pass by as a span, as the grass, as the flower of the field, as a tale that is told, as the swift ship. And yet we are slow-increasingly slow--to learn this, or to advance beyond the region of phrases into the heart of the matter. There is sometimes a divine despair about the very young, and they seem reckless of the world and life. But as a rule, the older we grow, the deeper we plant our roots in the earth, and the more widely do we extend our tendrils, and cling to the human interests that surround and interlace us

on every side. And so God seeks to bring home this truth to our heart; if need be, by trial, by bereavement, by disappointment, by the sickness of our frames, by the sickness of hope deferred, by all the complex machinery through which He reaches to the life of our being. This world, indeed, is the ap

THE REALITY OF THE BOURNE.

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pointed theatre for the work of men's energies,—a work that is, perhaps, a prelude to higher work hereafter. But it is His will that we should sit lightly to it, should use without abusing it, should remember that it is not our final home. He has placed this pathway before us as the only avenue to the celestial city; and we are but uncertain and sinful men, fainting through the greatness of the way, but guided onwards by Him, and supported by the ministrations which he gives of His providence and grace.

Yes, let nothing cheat us of our hope! The reach of desert seems interminable; but the pilgrim knows that he is on the track which all pilgrims traverse, and which must inevitably lead to the city and the shrine. On the ocean the horizon is changeless, and there seems naught but weary miles of barren foam, but it is a matter of certitude that we are moving to fair lands beyond. Let our thoughts lead us like the van of the Ten Thousand, who won the high mountain-ranges, and saw afar the outspread levels of the sea, which meant for them that home which was their only or their best conception of heaven. We must endure as seeing Him who is invisible. Yea, we are enabled to discern the Invisible. Sight can hardly supply a stronger evidence than the intimations that are vouchsafed to faith. The pilgrim sees that which others cannot see. He hears a whispering to his spirit which others cannot hear. There will be the scoffing jeer that this is but

20

BEYOND THE RIVER.

the idle sound of the evening breeze, and that his celestial city, unframed by human hands, is like a fabled El Dorado, the painted castles of the evening sky. But how often does it happen that, past the dim perplexities of the way, and the frequent stumbles and falls, and the slow and weary path, does the pilgrim gain the Beulah land, where the sun shines night and day, and the songs of the birds are heard without ceasing. Even the hard and worldly are constrained to acknowledge that the substantial realities of earth are dissolving into shadows, and the so-called shadows are increasingly growing into palpable realities. Already his feet are on the everlasting hills, and around him are the everlasting arms. The surges of the ocean stream that compasses all humanity are hushed into a golden ripple; and we almost discern him advancing beyond the other shore, up the ascent, bathed in light, to the portals of the city of the walls of diamond and the gates of pearl. "What awaited him there it is not given me to tell; but from the blessed sounds which fell upon my ear as the gates rolled back, I may not doubt that he was entirely happy, for it was as if the sound of a sea of heavenly voices suddenly swept by me."

THAT LIFE IS AN EDUCATION.

To the Christian, life is not an end, but a means to an end. We are all familiar with the distinction between ends and means. Generally, happiness is the end-whatever the particular idea of happiness may happen to be-and what conduces to it the means. A man seeks wealth, or eminence, or knowledge, to which he attaches the idea of happiness; and for this he does, and necessarily must do, much that is repugnant and painful to his disposition in the way of self-denial, sacrifice, labour. The man of the world looks upon the laborious part of his life as a necessary preparation for its happy part. The Christian extends the series of events indefinitely, and looks upon all life as a preparation, necessary and laborious, for a happiness beyond life and after life. One ancient philosopher tells us a very striking story of another.* A Greek sage, when he was dying, found fault with the course of Nature, in that she had given beasts and birds so long a life, which was of no use to them, and had given so short a space to man, to whom length of days would have been of the greatest use. Had the

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