salem of St. John in its mere external aspect? Childish must we be indeed if we have not got beyond these symbols, if we do not know that man is in his essence a spiritual being, and that for a spiritual being there can be no felicity save in spiritual conditions-in communion with God, in serenity of mind, in purity of heart. We, according to the promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Shall we ever enjoy that heaven hereafter? Yea, if we truly seek it now! But "are your minds set upon righteousness, O ye congregation and do ye judge the thing that is right, O ye sons of men? ii. It is not possible for me here, at this time, to show more fully how, if righteousness be the one characteristic of the new heavens and the new earth, it is possible for us, in this new year, to further the reign of righteousness, and so to foretaste the heaven which is so near us all, if we would but enter it. But it is perhaps possible for me, in closing, to give one illustration, to show to how large an extent the happiness of heaven is in our own power even upon a sad and guilty earth, because that earth has been redeemed by Christ. Let this my one illustration of the truth be taken from the one fairest and sweetest sphere of all life-our homes. even in our most cherished homes there must be a flaw in the jewel of any earthly happiness. Even in Paradise there was the snake. Do what we will we cannot shut out care, or sorrow, or misfortune, or even calamity. Even in an English home there may be a prodigal; a warped slip of wilderness even among the trees of God. And care may enter, and bitter poverty. Nor from any home, as this dark shadow shows, can we keep out the step of death. The dart of the last enemy can pierce even through the holy atmosphere of love, and sooner or later in the desolate house, which was once so happy, must flow the tears of the widow and the fatherless. For every one of us, too, is waiting that shadow with the keys. We all, in turn, must face our forlorn hours of bereavement. For us, too, sooner or later, our house must be left unto us desolate. How, then, in such a world as this, can we do otherwise than yearn for that new heaven and new earth, where God shall wipe all tears from off all faces, and whence sorrow and sighing shall flee away? But mark, my friends, the lesson. These natural sorrows are, and are meant to be, full of blessedness; the light of God shining upon them transmutes them into heavenly gold. The wounds which God makes, God heals. The fire which kindles the grains of frankincense upon His altar, at the same time brings out their fragrancy. All that He sends, if borne submissively, becomes rich in mercy. Upon the troubled soul which seeks Him His consolations increase with the gentleness of a sea which caresses the shore it covers. Even in the hour when we have committed our If there can be any place upon earth supremely blessed it is, it ought to be, an English home. If there be one field of asphodel on this side of the grave, if there be any place over which God's angels of peace may rest for a moment on their messages of mercy and wave their purple wings, it must surely be in Christian homes, in homes around which cluster the sweet memo-beloved to the dustries of childhood, trained in love and duty; where youth shines like a star; where there may always be an ark of refuge and a haven of rest amid the storm of troubles and injustice; where so many voices speak to the ear in music; "Where passing years their gentlest influence shed, And age steals softly on each honoured head." Now here is the point which I want to illustrate; our homes exactly resemble our lives in this, that they are indeed liable to troubles and calamities which are wholly beyond our power, and yet that if righteousness dwell therein, if they be enriched with the beauty of holiness, if Christ be there a never-exiled guest, they will, in their measure, partake, here and now, of the blessedness of the new heaven and the new earth. Alas! we admit that, as in the world, so "Through thick pangs, high agonies, Faith unto life breaks, and death dies." A brittle thing is our earthly happinessbrittle as some thin vase of Venetian glass; and yet neither anxiety nor sorrow, nor the dart of death, which is mightier than the oakcleaving thunderbolt, can shatter a thing even so brittle as the earthly happiness of our poor little homes, if we place it under the care of God. And yet though neither anguish nor death can break it with all their violence, sin can break it at a touch; and selfishness can shatter it, just as there are acids which will shiver the Venetian glass. Sin and selfishness-God's balm does not heal the ravages which they cause. Drink, unbridled passions, absorbing egotism, headstrong indifference, these are fatal to the happiness of any home. But these can be avoided. The misery which these induce is a self-chosen misery. Where these are, there indeed "Frights, changes, horrors Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and wedded calm of homes Quite from their fixture." is in our power, therefore the blessedness which is deeper and more enduring than happiness is within our own reach. And so it is with the world. If we make of this world, so far as we are concerned, a world wherein dwelleth righteousness, so far do we anticipate the fruition of the new world, the Self-assertion, self-will, selfishness, the inabi-new Jerusalem. Let us aim at this tranquil, lity to bear and forbear, the refusal to bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ, the absence of healing, holy, selfabnegating tenderness-these are indeed "The little rift within the lute Which slowly widening makes the music mute." Too many know it by bitter experience. They see the fires of hell mix with their hearth, and coldness succeed to love, and cruelty to coldness; and if drink comes in, as it often does in such cases, brutalism succeeds to cruelty. But even short of these immeasurable evils 6 Alas! how light a cause may move Like ships that have gone down at sea "Better," says Solomon, "is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." What then, in brief, is the one best, surest secret of a happy home? It is that it should be a home wherein dwelleth righteousness, wherein dwelleth the fear of God, wherein dwelleth love. And since this this sober happiness of quietness and confidence and peace in God. This is no chimæra. The possibility of winning this is no illusion. In our patience let us possess, let us acquire our souls. The world will still be the world. There will still be the pestilence which walketh in darkness and the arrow that flieth in the noon-day. The animalism of brutal passions will still crowd our streets with the infamy of its victims and the wretchedness which dogs their heels. There will still be envy and hatred and malice, and lies, and sickness, and poverty, and death; but the world in which our inmost souls shall live and move and have their being will ever in this life be an anticipated fruition of the new heaven and the new earth. The outer world may still continue for many a long year, it may be for many a long century, to grope in Egyptian darkness, in darkness which may be felt; but our souls, like the children of Israel in Goshen, may have light in their dwellings. For God is light, and he who dwelleth in God dwelleth in light; and where God's light is there is wisdom and safety, and a peace which the world does not even attempt to give; and which, happily, neither its malice, nor its wickedness, nor its misfortunes can ever take away. A VOLCANO-BURIED CITY. IT T was from Castellamare, a busy little town at the head of the Bay of Naples, that we paid our first visit to Pompeii. We had driven there from Sorrento on the previous day—a drive which, by reason of its beauty and diversity: the wide views it commands of the bay and its coasts and islands; the broad avenues of ilex and acacia; the ravines crossed by bridges that seem to be hanging in mid-air; the white villas and clustering villages; the gardens, and orangegroves and vineyards, is a thing to be re membered with delight. To-day, however, our business is with Pompeii. I remember that I awoke early on the morning of our proposed excursion, aroused by the clashing of church-bells from the little town below us. My first thought was Pompeii, and looking out from the terrace that faced our windows, I saw the traitorous mountain that had wrought the age-long woe, looming large against the horizon, the waters at its foot bathed in a soft yellow light, and the sun, which had not long risen, floating red as blood above the distant hills. We left our hotel in a little carriage at about half-past nine, and rattled through the town, which at this hour is full of business. Our road struck inland-Pompeii is now some distance from the sea-a long level road dazzlingly white, ankle-deep in dust, and bordered by market-gardens, where in the rich lava-soil Indian corn, the familiar potato, and vegetables of many less familiar kinds are being cultivated. It was pleasant to watch the men and women at work, weeding, hoeing, digging, staking, raising pails of water from the reservoirs where it is stored, and pouring it into the troughs that run round the fields. They work thus from early dawn, rest in the middle of the day, and work again in the evening. They looked very diligent, and not at all miserable. The whole of the low-lying plain between Vesuvius and the sea seems to be cultivated in this way. Canals and small streams run along the roads, and here and there are low huts built of thatch and wattles, where, we supposed, some of the cultivators live. The long-buried city, now so strangely brought to light, runs along the centre of a low green hill, which was before us as we drove. I gazed at it with a feeling of excitement which it would be impossible to put into words. In a few minutes we were at the gates. Several unauthorised persons who were lounging about, on the look out for travellers, offered themselves as guides; but having been forewarned, we declined their services. Through a small restaurant and a curiosity store full of photographs, pictures, and casts of statuary, we went, paid at the door of entrance two francs each for our tickets, and were put under the guidance of a small, fair, intelligent-looking man in military uniform, who undertook to show us everything. He took us through the museum first. There are all sorts of curious things herebreads, fruits, scraps of clothes, pottery more than eighteen centuries old, these trivial relics of every-day life. Stranger still, -almost ghastly-awing us so that we lowered our voice and spoke in whispers, were the relics of humanity, the petrified skeletons of men and women laid out under glass cases exactly as they were found. The moulds are perfect. We could trace the features, even the expression, of each face. One, that of a man, is beautiful and calm; another is contracted with mortal agony; another, a woman, looks as if she had just fallen asleep. It seemed almost irreverent to gaze at them; and I turned away with a curious contraction at my heart. It was a relief to leave the dead people and to go out into the dead town. Under an archway we went, and found ourselves in a stone-paved road, uneven to the tread and bordered on either side with unroofed houses. The sun was nearly at its full height now, and the glare was excessive; fortunately, however, a cool breeze was coming in from the sea, so we did not feel so much oppressed as we should otherwise have done. We went slowly, and our guide did not hurry us. He showed us the different objects of interest. Here is a principal street along which chariots were driven; the marks of wheels can be seen in the lava floor. There are shops along its course-bakeries, restaurants, wine-shops. Those stone tanks at the sides of the streets are the reservoirs and fountains where the people drank. The hollows worn by their hands as they stooped to drink can still be the low-lying fields outside spread out as in a map. It was impossible to see everything, and when we had reached the theatre, we had been walking and gazing for some time, and were beginning to feel tired. Our guide, a most intelligent person, who takes a sort of paternal interest in the dead city, traced out a little route for us. He wished us to see what was most important, and to leave the rest for a possible future visit. In pursuance of his scheme we went to the public baths; one was for the poor and several were for the rich; the latter opening out of a richly-decorated hall, some of whose frescoes are still marvellously fresh and bright. And, next, we visited some of the most famous of the private houses, and here would willingly have lingered, for they seemed to make us realise more vividly than anything else the inner life of the city. Most of them are built on the same plan. There is the little entrance-hall; the atrium (outer court), with the tiny sleeping-rooms for the men on either side, and another larger court, or garden, decorated with pillars and statuary within, having, in its centre, a basin for fish, and surrounded with the women's sleeping-rooms, and the apartments for eating and reception, the latter often finely decorated with frescoes. We were struck with the small size of these apartments, even in the largest houses. No doubt the greater part of the lives of the |