ife for--his food
and clothes and lodging; dies unregretted, and is soon forgotten. Honor
brings not content, and does but increase the thirst it seeks to
assuage. The poor and the unknown are generally happier than the wealthy
and famous. 'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity and
vexation of spirit;' and what was true of human nature when 'the
preacher' wrote, is true to-day. Admit that life is but a succession of
pleasures that can never pall, and the world one vast Elysian field, and
that the care of the soul requires the abnegation of every delight, and
spreads a gloomy pall over all the brightness of earth; yet even in that
case, a life wholly devoted to spiritual interests were but a weary,
temporary pilgrimage, which we should gladly endure for a season, in the
hope of the golden crown and never-ending bliss in the world beyond,
could we but look upon the future life in the light of _reality_. Ah!
there is the difficulty, for we are 'of the earth earthy,' and, although
we may fervently _believe_, cannot comprehend, cannot _realize_
eternity. To too many Christians of the present day eternity, heaven,
God, are not a tangible reality, but rather a poetic dream, floating in
the atmosphere of faith, but which their minds cannot grasp. Hence they
worship an idea rather than a reality.

The noblest pleasures of life, in fact the only real, permanent,
exalting, and, I might add, _developing_ pleasures, are divided into two
classes, those of the heart, and those of the intellect. Yet both,
though different in their action, spring from the same central truth.

The happiest man is he whose life is spent in doing good, seeking no
other reward than the gratification of beholding the true happiness of
his fellow beings. His pleasures are of the heart, and he only is the
true Christian of our day and generation. For he who so ardently loves
his fellow men cannot but love his God.

The pleasures of the intellect can never pall, but do constantly
increase and brighten, because in them the soul enters its native
province and acts in that sphere which is its own for all eternity. Yet
how do they all lead the mind up to its great Creator! Not a single
discovery in science, not an investigation of the simplest law of
nature, not an examination of the most insignificant bud or flower or
leaf; and, above and beyond all, not an inquiry in the great truths of
morals, of ethics, of religion, or of the very constitution