of a future life, and the fearfully important relation in which the
present stands to it. The actual nature and conditions of that life He
has hidden from us,--no chart of the ocean of eternity is given us,--no
celestial guidebook or geography defines, localizes, and prepares us for
the wonders of the spiritual world. Hence imagination has a wide field
for its speculations, which, so long as they do not positively contradict
the revelation of the Scriptures, cannot be disproved.

We naturally enough transfer to our idea of heaven whatever we love and
reverence on earth. Thither the Catholic carries in his fancy the
imposing rites and time-honored solemnities of his worship. There the
Methodist sees his love-feasts and camp-meetings in the groves and by the
still waters and green pastures of the blessed abodes. The Quaker, in
the stillness of his self-communing, remembers that there was "silence in
heaven."

The Churchman, listening to the solemn chant of weal music or the deep
tones of the organ, thinks of the song of the elders and the golden harps
of the New Jerusalem.

The heaven of the northern nations of Europe was a gross and sensual
reflection of the earthly life of a barbarous and brutal people.

The Indians of North America had a vague notion of a sunset land, a
beautiful paradise far in the west, mountains and forests filled with
deer and buffalo, lakes and streams swarming with fishes,--the happy
hunting-ground of souls. In a late letter from a devoted missionary
among the Western Indians (Paul Blohm, a converted Jew) we have noticed a
beautiful illustration of this belief. Near the Omaha mission-house, on
a high luff, was a solitary Indian grave. "One evening,"