be expressed I know not whether in the spontaneous exercise of individual souls, "singing as they shine" with hymned voice, and fashioned instrument of golden harp or angelic trump; or only by the rapt gaze of a spirit absorbed in "still communion ;"-and whether in heaven as on earth there may be great days of the Lord on which the sons of God, gathered from afar, will come specially before the exalted Redeemer, when their joy, uttered by outbursts of harmony, shall wake the amphitheatre of the skies with impassioned hallelujahs, who can as yet tell! But it must be that each soul in heaven being for ever full of love, will for ever be full of praise. Every new sight of grandeur or of beauty, and every new contrivance of the Creator's wisdom or power, will but prompt the beholder to praise the wondrous Creator. Every intellectual height reached in the infinite progress of the soul, onward and upward, must awe it into a profounder sense of the glory of the great Intelligence. Every active pursuit will swell the tide of gratitude and praise to Him the ceaseless worker, in whom all persons and things "live, move, and have their being ;"-while the loving and holy soul, ever consciously dwelling in Him who is everywhere present, must derive from increasing knowledge of, and communion with the infinite and glorious One, a source of exulting, endless praise-praise which will be intensified by the sympathy and song of the great minds and great hearts of the "innumerable company of angels," and of "just men made perfect!" But if in that voiceful temple any one song of praise will, more

than any other, issue from a deeper love, or express a deeper joy, that must be the song of the redeemed! For that is a (( new song" never heard before by the angels in the amplitudes of creation, and which the strange race of mankind alone can sing; for there are peculiar notes of joy in that song which they alone can utter; and in their memories alone can echo old notes of sadness that have died away in the far distance. And what shall be their feelings, what their song, as they gaze backwards on the horrible kingdom of darkness, from whose chains and dungeons they have been delivered; and trace all the mysterious steps by which their merciful and wise Saviour led them safely through danger, temptation, and trial, and through the valley of death, until He bid them welcome with exceeding joy! What their feelings, what their song, as they look around and contemplate the new scene and the exalted society into which He has brought them, and meet the responsive gaze of radiant saints and of old familiar friends! What their feelings, and what their song, as they gaze forward, and with "far-stretching views into eternity" see no limit to their "fulness of joy ;" knowing that nothing can lessen it, but that everything must increase it through eternal ages;-that the body can never more suffer pain, or be weakened by decay;-that the intellect. can never more be dimmed by age, nor marred by ignorance ;—that the spirit can never more be darkened by even a passing shadow from the body of sin ;— that the will can never for a moment be mastered, nor even biased by temptation;-that the heart can never

be chilled by unreturned kindness;-that the blessed society can never be diminished by death, nor divided in spirit, but that, along with saints and angels, all God's works shall be seen, all His ways known, all His plans and purposes fulfilled, all His commands perfectly obeyed, and Himself perfectly enjoyed for ever and ever! And then, at what might seem to be the very climax of their joy, to behold Jesus! And, seeing Him, to remember the lowly home in Bethlehem ; the once humble artisan of Nazareth; and the sufferer, "who was despised and rejected of men," "the man of sorrows, who was acquainted with grief;" and the tempted one, who for forty days was with the devil in the wilderness;-seeing Him, to remember Gethsemane with its trembling hand and cup of agony; the judgment-hall and Calvary with their horrors of blood, of blasphemy, and mystery of woe;seeing Him, to see all this history of immeasurable love not only recorded in the glory of every saint above, but embodied in the very person of that Saviour, and in that human form which was "wounded and bruised for our iniquities," and in that human soul that was sorrowful unto death, in order that He might be able to pour into the hearts of lost and ruined men all the fulness of His own blessedness and joy! What shall be the feelings, what the song of the redeemed, as all this bursts on their enraptured gaze! Oh, blind discoursers are we of such ineffable glory! Children-dreamers are we about this as yet unrevealed vision! What are all our thoughts but "fallings from us, vanishings" from "creatures walking among worlds

not realised!" But let us pray more and more that the "God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of our understanding being enlightened; that we may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints;" for though eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him," yet" God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit !”

FUTURE PUNISHMENT.

THE

"HE subject of future punishment is one the consideration of which gives mental pain. We naturally shrink from it, would prefer to leave it alone, and to think, as we say, of something else.

But the question won't leave us alone, and we must think about it. It forces itself on our notice, and that, too, in our most thoughtful and sober moments. We cannot read the Scriptures without the dark vision passing before our eyes with more or less gloom. Conscience whispers to us about it. It recurs to our thoughts amidst the penitential confessions and earnest prayers of public worship. The theme is constantly discussed in works and periodicals widely read, and not even professedly theological.

There are few, we presume, who will assert that every man, whatever his character may be when he leaves the world, shall after death immediately pass. into glory, and be received into fellowship with God and His saints. With such a belief earnestly entertained, suicide would cease to be an evidence of insanity, and murder would become philanthropy.

Most men are prepared rather to believe, apart altogether from any Scripture statements on this