LIFE A PILGRIMAGE.

WHEN Pharaoh inquired of the patriarch Jacob the number of his years, he received the emphatic answer, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years." Others like him, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has said, "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth." We all are. The journey is a rapid one, if performed in the longest time which man has here allowed him. Soon this time is past, and we are gone — our journey is ended.

As strangers and pilgrims, then, what manner of persons ought we to be, that our characters be rightly sustained? Let us answer.

In the first place, we should seek to render the pilgrimage a safe one. We speak thus in due respect to that power of moral choice and action for evil or for good which seems to be so clearly recognized in the Scriptures. In providing for any earthly journey, the matter of safety is usually a very considerable item to be taken into the account. Is the conveyance a desirable or safe one? Is the way beset with difficulty or danger? These are usually important inquiries with travellers. They would have their passage agreeable; so would we have ours through this world. You find nobody utterly indifferent to this. The foolishness of men has sometimes said, that if we are sure of reaching heaven hereafter, it makes no difference how we live here! So, if we are quite sure of getting at last to a journey's end, it matters not how many evils we are subjected to all along the way,-how many overturns, or bruising falls, or losses from thieves and highwaymen! It makes all the difference. We desire a pleasant pilgrimage. Then

We are to see

we must take the means to insure it. to our inward and outward securities, - to watch the sins that most easily beset us, to keep ourselves pure. Then will our way be to us safe and prosper

ous.

We should endeavor, also, to make our pilgrimage as full of profit and enjoyment as possible. We understand something of that difference in information which different travellers would obtain, in passing over the same ground, and beholding the same scenes. He is the most fortunate and praiseworthy traveller who sees most, and elicits most practical knowledge from what he does see on the way. He is the best pilgrim and traveller through life, who seizes on all its opportunities to store his mind with useful fact, practical truth, for his instruction, aid, comfort and peace. Too great a number by far of indifferent, dull, blundering and profitless travellers are there on this great life-course. We need not be of that company; we shall not, if we are wise.

Then, we may calculate, as we ought, on the inconveniences to be met with on the way. With all our precautions, this life-course will not be one of perfect smoothness. We shall have disappointment, vexation, adversity, affliction. These constitute a part of the pilgrimage. We must meet them, deal with them, profit by them. Christ did; he who was made perfect through suffering," and hath left us an example that we should follow his steps. In the proper view, the unavoidable ills of life are sources of spiritual income to the Christian. "Tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed."

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And, once more; our speech and action should betoken our destination. There is a pride of country

with most intelligent travellers. He who would honor his country abroad, will honor himself, in his own habits and demeanor, that he may give the best representation in himself of his nation. Truly will this apply to those who profess their faith in the glorious life to come which Christ declares. If that resurrection state is ours, if to that we are hastening, let the question of the apostle be self-applied, "What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" We who believe in the amplest and most glorious final home of which the spirit of mortals can conceive, what should be the indications, in our character, that our belief is with the heart unto righteousness? "Our conversation," (citizenship,) saith the apostle, "is in heaven." Let us ponder that saying.

The pilgrimage of life! What a brief mystery, and into what depths of contemplation does it invite us! He who set the stars in their courses and holds the innumerable systems of creative wonder and glory everywhere around us as in the hollow of his hand, set us on this journey of life. It is ours to improve the journey; and let us so improve it, that its ways shall be pleasantness, and all its paths peace'

THE BURIAL WITH MUSIC.

THERE is an elevating influence imparted to the susceptible soul, when, at the passing forth of the funeral train for the "narrow house," the strains of music are struck from the dirge-band, not to the ear of the dead, but to the hearts of the living. The

dead-march to me has not that awful, appalling sound which some have heard in it. It has a sweeter, richer tone. I love it, because it speaks not so much of the ghastliness of physical decay and death, as of the renewal of life in its harmony with the imperishable and divine. That which is temporal speaks not, but that which is spiritual. Music is spiritual. It is an angelic voice, and discourses of heaven. And when I hear it, on its approach to the tomb, I give thanks for its inspiration. It helps me to think as I should think, not of darkness, corruption, and disconsolate grief, but of light, of joy, of immortality. It becomes a transport of glorious truth in me.

I have just returned from the grave of the young and aspiring, of one who has been early cut down by the common destroyer. He loved music when he lived, and his companions bore him away amid its melting and subduing sounds. It was good to be there! Death did not seem gloomy. Ideas of the beautiful, the exquisite, the fadeless and extatic, were enkindled within me.

What is music to us? A development, through material organs, of more of heaven than we can grasp. What is the human soul, but the same? And when that soul ceases its action through the "fearfully and wonderfully" constructed instrument of its earthly being, it is well to honor its departure with that inexplicable voice from the skies, sweet music. For has not this been the imaginary or real attendant of many a departing mortal, as the objects of mortal sense were receding from the vision? Have not then the indescribable strains of heaven-born harmony floated on the ear of the dying listener like echoes of anthems from the immortal sphere? How many have breathed their last in the midst of holy Christian

song! There is now before me the account of a dying saint, whose last words were, Hark! Don't you hear that entrancing music? I have heard it all this time, and I don't get tired of hearing it. Come, let us go home. what do we wait for?-let us go.

Let strains of sweet music, then, go up from the quiet resting-place of the earth's dead. Let its inspiration dwell there to cheer hearts of sorrow with bright visions of heaven, to soothe bereaved friendship and love with holy thoughts of God, and blissful revelations of eternity.

MYSTERIES OF HEAVEN.

"Darkly we move- we press upon the brink
Haply of viewless worlds, and know it not;
Yes! it may be, that nearer than we think
Are those whom death has parted from our lot!
Fearfully, wondrously, our souls are made—
Let us walk humbly on, but undismayed!"
MRS. HEMANS.

WHERE is Heaven? Has it locality? Is it, as we have heard, a place where outward glories, beauties and splendors are seen or is it only inward and spiritual?

That there is indeed a place,—that there are many places or "mansions" in the great universe of the Eternal, where wonders, glories and enjoyments unseen, unfelt by mortals, are realized, we hesitate not to believe. Reason and revelation distinctly intimate, if they do not specially describe, them. We often seek them. Our own souls wing their way