ge of death, would make so
marvellous a difference in all his relations on earth, in all his
conceptions of achievement, and would, as Sir Edwin Arnold says, "turn
nine-tenths of the sorrows of earth into glorious joys and abolish quite
as large a proportion of the faults and vices of mankind."

The Past is heavy with misconceptions of the simple truths of life and
immortality as Jesus taught them. The Present seeks to throw off these
"cumbrous shells." Death is the liberator, the divinely appointed means
for ushering man into the more real, the more significant life, whose
_degree_ of reality and significance depends wholly on ourselves; which
is simply the achievement--better or poorer--which man creates now and
here, in the same manner in which the quality of manhood and womanhood
depends wholly on the degree of achievement in childhood and youth. We
do not "find," but instead, create our lives. As we are perpetually
creating, we are perpetually making them anew. If we must, this year,
live out the errors that we made last year, there is an encouragement
rather than a penalty in the fact, as this truth argues that if we now
enter on a loftier plane and realize in outward life a nobler
experience, we shall, next year, or in some future time, find ourselves
entirely free from the weight of the errors we have abandoned, the
mistakes we have learned not to make, and the entanglements that our
"negligences and ignorances" created. If we have caused our own sorrow,
we can cause our own joy. For the Golden Age lies onward.

DISCERNING THE FUTURE.

_As the sun,
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow._

* * * * *

_There exist moments in the life of man
When he is nearer the great Soul of the world
Than is man's custom, and possesses freely
The power of questioning his destiny._

--COLERIDGE.

* * * * *

Think of the power of anticipation everywhere! Think of the
difference it would make to us if events rose above the horizon of
our lives with no twilight that announced their coming. God has
given man the powers which compel him to anticipate the future _for
something_.

--PHILLIPS BROOKS.

The