[Dear as Canada was to our authoress, dearer still to her heart was
the true Father-Land, "the heavenly country" for which the children of
faith in the olden time looked. Being born again she bore such a
relationship to the world to come that we may say of her, as she does
of "the bride of Christ": "The Cross was infinitely dearer to her than
ten thousand worlds. It was twined around her heart with ties that
nothing could ever loose. She wept, but they were mingled tears of joy
and sorrow: sorrow, for she mourned that her sins had cost the life of
the Son of God; joy, for she knew that that sacrifice had made a
perfect atonement for her. She knew that the Father had forgiven her
iniquities, and that he would no longer remember her sins. As she
clung to the Cross, a bright beam of glory shone around her; she
raised her tearful eyes, and a crown of everlasting beauty met her
admiring gaze: she knew that crown was reserved for her, and that on
her bridal day her Lord would place it on her own brow." With such an
experience and such a hope, we are not surprised that she should thus
discourse:]

The earth renewed presents a glorious scene:
Mountains and valleys of perpetual green;
Delicious plains, and odoriferous bowers,
Unfading forests, never-dying flowers;
Fruits that on fragrant trees immortal grow,
Rivers that murmur sweetly as they flow,
And gardens decked with everlasting spring,
And shining warblers on the tireless wing.
No howling tempest breaks the sweet repose,
No piercing thorn surrounds the blushing rose,
No sultry heat parches those blooming plains,