become the same to them,--the night menaced with robbers, the day with
the mob. If return to their home was forbidden, where in the wide
world a shelter for the would-be world-improver? Yet they despaired
not, their hearts failed them not. The majestic splendour of the
night, as it deepened in its solemn calm; as the shadows of the
windless trees fell larger and sharper upon the silvery earth; as the
skies grew mellower and more luminous in the strengthening starlight,
inspired them with the serenity of faith,--for night, to the earnest
soul, opens the Bible of the universe, and on the leaves of Heaven is
written, "God is everywhere."

Their hands were clasped each in each, their pale faces were upturned;
they spoke not, neither were they conscious that they prayed, but
their silence was thought, and the thought was worship.

Amidst the grief and solitude of the pure, there comes, at times, a
strange and rapt serenity,--a sleep-awake,--over which the instinct of
life beyond the grave glides like a noiseless dream; and ever that
heaven that the soul yearns for is coloured by the fancies of the fond
human heart, each fashioning the above from the desires unsatisfied
below.

"There," thought the musing maiden, "cruelty and strife shall cease;
there, vanish the harsh differences of life; there, those whom we have
loved and lost are found, and through the Son, who tasted of mortal
sorrow, we are raised to the home of the Eternal Father!"

"And there," thought the aspiring sage, "the mind, dungeoned and
chained below, rushes free into the realms of space; there, from every
mystery falls the veil; there, the Omniscient smiles on those who,