All within is dark as night:
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.

Close the door, the shutters close,

Or through the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy

Of the dark, deserted house.

Come away: no more of mirth

Is here, or merry-making sound : The house was builded of the earth, And shall fall again to ground.

:

Come away for life and thought
Here no longer dwell;

But in a city glorious—

A great and distant city-have bought
A mansion incorruptible!

Would they could have stayed with us!

THE DEAD.

"She is not dead, but sleepeth,”-
Why in your hearts this strife?
He who hath kept, still keepeth
The never-dying life.

And though that form must moulder
And mix again with earth—
In faith ye may behold her
In glory going forth.

For what to us seems dying

Is but a second birth

A spirit upward flying

From the broken shell of earth.

We are the dead, the buried:
We who do yet survive,
In sin and sense interred-

The dead! They are alive!

Freed from this earthly prison,
They seek another sphere :

They are not dead, but risen!
And God is with them there.

Fold her, oh Father, in thine arms,

And let her henceforth be

A messenger of love between

Our human hearts and Thee.

Whittier.

LESSON VI.

SEEING HIM WHO IS INVISIBLE.

"DEAR mother!" exclaimed Walter one evening, after he had been standing for a minute or two with his eyes fixed on the fire,-" dear, dear mother! how I should like to see God! Do you think I ever shall, mother?"

Mother: My child, we cannot see Him here-not while our souls are joined with these bodies: you cannot see my spirit, you know-only what it makes my body do; and God is all spirit—spirit without body. He is the Great Spirit-the Father of our spirits we cannot see Him, but we can see what He does.

Walter: But, mother, how can you know about Him, if you cannot see Him?.

Mother: Listen to me, my child, and I will try to explain it to you. You remember one day last autumn, when we were out walking; when we came to the toll-bar, we found the large oak-tree torn up by the roots, and lying half across the road?

Walter: Yes, mother; it had broken the palings in falling, I remember.

Mother: We had passed through the gate the evening before, and then it was standing, and its roots were firm in the ground: What had thrown it down?

you

Walter: It was blown down, mother; don't remember what a great wind there was? and how the leaves went flying and whirling along the road? and then, when we got home, we found that some of the slates were blown off our own roof?

Mother: And what a fine sound the wind made in the trees, Walter-it seemed to say, "I am strong! I am strong!"

Walter: Yes, mother; and if we had seen the great tree falling, and heard the crash of the branches as they came down upon the road, I think it would have sounded as if the wind had said, "I am very strong!"

Mother: It was very strong. Now, Walter, we cannot see the wind, and yet we know something about it from the things that it does. Can you partly understand now how we can know something about God, even though we cannot see Him?

Walter: Yes, mother; I think I can, a little.

:

Mother In the same way, you cannot see your own soul, and yet you know something about it; do you not?

Walter: Oh yes, mother; I know that it loves you, and longs to be good and wise; and-oh! mother, I think I know more about my own soul than I

do about the wind; even though I can neither see it nor feel it, as I do the wind when it blows upon my

face.

Mother: Yes, my child! and watching and learning more about our own souls, will teach us, more than anything else can, about God, the Soul of souls. But we will also try to learn about Him from the things that He has made, and from what we see that He does shall not we?

Walter: Yes, mother, do let us-I do so want to know more about Him.

Mother: My child, I am glad to hear you say so. You cannot think how sweet-how very sweet it will be as you grow older, to learn more and more about Him, and to feel that you are knowing Him better and better. But we can never know all, Walter; "such knowledge is too wonderful for us; it is high; we cannot attain unto it." You asked me, my boy, if you should ever see God? and I told you we cannot see Him while our souls are joined with these bodies; but surely He who made these wonderful bodies for our souls to use and to dwell in here, can, whenever He chooses, make those souls able to see more; and I often think of what we may see and know when the time comes for them to leave these bodies. I hardly ever think of that little boy I told you about the other day, without remembering a verse from the Bible, which his mother repeated more than once that evening, while I was sitting beside his dead body.