to him, except as he reveals it to us; and therefore it is that in times like these, the individual becomes of importance, and we are willing to listen to all, because we cannot know of a surety whether they may not see points hidden from our eyes.-We know how badly we ourselves decide, we know our own weakness, but we know only the apparent strength of another.

A truth to take hold of men, must have an affinity to their mode of thought,-to their bias of feeling,-otherwise it is not a truth to them; it is nothing. When a fact, however true, has ceased to be in sympathy with those who bear it, it dies out of their heart, unless it be connected with them by the links of their desires or their interests. They cease to believe it; their heart is hardened against it, and it cannot influence them; it must appear to them in a new shape. THEN, if one will arise and utter the thought of his own heart, it is like a new revelation, and it works like leaven in the whole mass.

The innate, indestructible reverence we have for our brethren at the bottom of our souls, makes us believe our own thoughts more readily, if uttered by another, than when presented in our own mind: we may think by the mere force of our own intellect, but we only truly believe when we find another in the same mind as ourselves.

Men are ever yearning after repose and unity of belief; they cannot bear to be out of sympathy with their fellows; they would constrain all to swim in their own element; hence, they who are in advance of their age, who are the first to feel the insufficiency of the existing order of things, excite anger, uneasinessscem despisers of that which is good." They are railed against ; put down as far as may be with a strong arm. They are thrown down to make a bridge and a high-way for those who come after to pass over. They are the martyrs who needs must perish, "Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth;"

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but the word they have spoken has struck an answering chord in the hearts of a few; the spectacle of seeing men so fully persuaded of the reality of that which is invisible, has a metaphysical influence, which no truth, however logically detached from the great rock of that which is unknown, can ever have without this quickening impulse, this sympathetic faith.

They who can so far believe the thing they profess, who have faith enough in it to "endure as seeing that which is invisible," may lay hold of this assurance, that in proportion as that is a

truth which has led them, that has its root in the everlasting life of man, and does not deal with fleeting appearance, but goes down deep into the real wants and aspirations which lie dormant in men's hearts, awakening them, and giving them utterance, their words will go forth to the whole earth; there will be neither speech nor language where their words will not find an echo. It is a mission, for which it is a privilege to be allowed to suffer, that of rousing men to "press onwards towards the mark of their high calling, to forget those things which are behind, and to reach forward to those which are before."

But in no one form or mode of belief can truth be long imprisoned; no scheme nor theory for human guidance can last for ever. They who have been the first in the career of progress, become in time the last,—are over-passed by their followers; the peculiar form in which they shaped their doctrines,-the burning words by which once

"The world was wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not,"

will in time become cold and obsolete, the meaning will fade out of them. Then is their mission ended; well and bravely have they done; "they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

Men are always frightened and displeased at being turned out of the spell which has given shape to their life, and in the defence of which they would have " dared to die." They endeavour to linger in it long after it has become too strait for them, endeavouring to compress the life within them rather than go forth with their souls naked and unfenced into he "wilderness where no man dwelleth." They require one to arise able to be their leader and guide,-to say, "Arise, let us depart hence."

In times of need, such a leader has always been sent the "transparent prison of the Past" enlarges not its bonds with the growth and progress of men; they require one to set them free from it. There is an indestructible veracity in human nature, which prevents its continuing long in a system of belief which has fallen into a ruin of words which convey no meaning. A state of general disbelief and deadness to the vital significance of professed principle cannot continue long; for this is not the world of the dead, but of the living.

Why should we of the present day fancy that there is no spiritual future for us? Why suppose that we alone of all ages from the beginning of time are to be stereotyped into the form to receive NN 2

the impress of that which is past? The men of to-day are as truly living souls as the men who existed two thousand years ago; and have as much need to be guided, that which they have does not guide them. When men become able to use their private judgment about their religion and the belief by which they ought to live, it has ceased to be a religion; it has lost its hold, its grasp on the hearts and minds of men ;-the need of a dominant power is making itself felt. That which ought to be a grand unity is breaking up into fragments, and every man has to build himself his own shelter from the ruins as he can; but, because we are deprived of the beautiful temple in which our fathers worshipped, are we to dwell amid the wrecks for ever? But certain periods, ever since the beginning of things, times not unlike those in which we now live, have occurred,-when nations have been sitting amid the ruins of their gods in desolate expectation of that which shall be,-and in the time of deepest need a messenger, a teacher, has always arisen amongst them. Teachers of the highest nature have been of very rare advent in the cycle of eternity, who have had a grasp strong and firm on humanity,— their own nature deep and wide enough to comprehend and articulate the world-wide wants and aspirations of all men, to whom the people have willingly submitted themselves. Leaders and teachers, so far exalted in their nature above their fellows as to seem like gods on earth, have not often appeared; nevertheless, when the world required a mighty impulse to carry it forward, they have appeared, and gone before, making a path towards the future, into the Unknown, in which the ages that followed have walked. It is written, "The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light, and to them that sat in the valley of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." And why should not that light shine into our hearts also? Why should wE, of all the ages which have preceded us, expect to be left desolate? Why are we to be condemned to juggle with our own souls, striving to persuade ourselves that we believe-what we do not? Instead of trembling and crouching to the PAST, let us have faith in the Future; for it is to the FUTURE that our faces are set. FORWARDS mankind must of necessity go, so long as the generations of men continue on the earth. There is no return possible into the Past. The Arabs have a proverb which signifies that the most distant event in futurity lies nearer to us than the transaction that happened an hour ago. It is in the Future we must hope-the Past is barred against us.

A STAR IN THE DARK.

"There is a future to all who have the virtue to repent, and the energy to atone."-BULWER LYTTON.

"You may call it foolish and romantic, if you like, but I repeat, that I could more easily forgive one great fault, committed under strong temptation, and foreign to the natural disposition, than a series of petty meannesses springing from and belonging to the character."

Thus spoke Helen Travers to her sister, Mrs. Cunningham, and the thread of their discourse is taken up where first it was overheard. It was a strange spot for anything like a "confidential" or "sentimental" conversation to have taken place; but every one must have observed, that subjects of interest often arise in the most unexpected manner. The two ladies had mistaken the hour at which a morning concert was to commence, had arrived somewhat too early, and had consequently taken their seats before any others were occupied. Perhaps, warming with the subject under discussion, they had not observed the few stragglers who from time to time dropped in, and certainly had not heard the footfall of a gentleman who entered, and seated himself immediately behind them, just at the moment when some of the attendants were making a prodigious din in their re-arrangement of the benches near the orchestra.

“I could not have married a man in whom I did not take pride," replied Mrs. Cunningham; "I am very sorry for people who have ever been led away to do anything wrong, but they must take the consequences of their own conduct; certainly anything like disgrace, or the world's censure, falling upon my husband would crush me to the earth."

"Not if his fault were the one fault of a life," resumed Helen ; "not if you loved him very dearly. Nay, I think his very suffering would draw you more together. I have a theory, that the very happy do not love half so deeply as those who have known

sorrow.

"I call such ideas perfect nonsense."

“I know you do," replied her sister with a faint smile, and playing as she spoke with the fringe of her shawl.

Any one would think, to hear you talk, that you had fallen in love with some scapegrace or another, and were seeking to excuse your folly."

"Susan! you know there is nothing of the kind. You know I have never felt anything more lasting than a passing fancy, which one shakes off, just as waking breaks up a dream.' "How should I know?"

"Then believe,-I would not deceive you. Though three-andtwenty, indeed I dread old-maidism far less than an ill-assorted union."

Helen Travers turned her head as she spoke, and though she did not perceive the stranger, he caught the profile of her animated countenance. But the audience were by this time arriving, and the sisters drew nearer together to make room for new comers. There was an end to their conversation of course.

Notwithstanding a certain family likeness, a look that was caught now and then, the sisters were very different. The elder, Mrs. Cunningham, was far the more beautiful, if exquisitely chiselled features and a brilliant complexion could make her so. But though quick and clever, even witty and accomplished, she was deficient in sentiment and the powers of imagination; was a lover of detail; and therefore despised, because it was to her incomprehensible, the higher and generalising mind. A thoroughly worldly education had completed her character, and rendered her a cold-hearted, selfish woman of the world; without enough of heart to feel the necessity of affection, and yet possessing an insatiable vanity that fed on universal admiration! Her sister formed a perfect contrast. With features less regular, her countenance was as changeful as the sea; for it mirrored every thought and feeling, as they welled up from her woman's heart. Early removed from the influence of worldly-minded parents, she had been reared by a widowed aunt, a high-minded being, who had sought and found the sweetest solace for her own early bereavement, in the artless nature of her young relative. Although by no means a stranger to the Metropolis, or to society, the country had been Helen's home. Her young heart had expanded beneath the influences of nature; her taste had been refined, her fancy quickened by it; and though she had read much, she had had time and leisure to think more.