an everlasting scene! If a mother has seen her children successively emigrate to Australia-that land of enterprise in the present day—she will soon gather up her last treasures in her present abode, and sail to find her roof tree and her fireside in the far distant land that once was the stranger land, but is made now, by those who have preoccupied it, the home where her heart is. If it be so in these things, should it not, may it not be yet more so in better and brighter things? Our home is beyond the stars; the holy and dear group that constitutes its charm and its attraction is constantly accumulating there. Set your affection, then, upon things that are above, and not upon the stranger, the growingly stranger-things that are scattered at your feet below. Our property, too, is in heaven. If property is left us on earth, we go to the place where it is, and take possession of it. We are the heirs of God, and the joint-heirs of Christ: our possession, our property, are all amid the things that are above.

Seeking things above casts an ennobling influence upon him that seeks them. We can almost know the man whose heart is in the world, by his downward look; and we can equally know, by his bright eye and upward look, the saint whose heart is in heaven. We can thus know almost by his appearance the man who sets his affections upon things that are above, as distinguished from the man who sets his affections on things that are below. The ardent and absorbing pursuit of money makes a man's face repulsive, as it hardens his heart, and degrades and degenerates his nature. The lofty aspiration towards that which is beyond the world, and in the presence of God, casts an ennobling aspect on the countenance that thus looks sunward, and raises that man from herding with the beasts that perish, to walk as a son of God, and sojourn with the heirs and children of the Most High.

Setting your affections on things above is the surest way to find successfully the things that are below. If we set out to mind our own things first, we shall probably miss our own and God's too; but if we set out to find God's things first, we shall gain His, and certainly our own too. He that seeks first the wisdom of Christ will not occupy the lowest place in the wisdom of Solomon; he who seeks first the riches of glory, obedience to Christ, sympathy with all that is holy, will not least efficiently discharge the dignities, the duties, and the responsibilities of this world. To steer our life without any reference to things above is to steer the vessel by a sort of dead-reckoning. When a sailor does this, he calculates the distance he has run, and guesses the spot he occupies upon the sea; but he who steers his vessel by a proper reckoning, looks at the heavenly bodies, and calculates his exact place, and pursues his course direct as an arrow to its mark. By pursuing our course by the things that are below, we take a sort of dead-reckoning, we calculate where we are by the distance we have run; but to pursue our course by looking at things above is to take a nobler reckoning, and seek direction by the loadstars of the sky, not by the guesses and calculations of the earth. As sure as we direct our earthly course by heavenly lights, so sure we shall reach that heavenly haven which is perfect rest, and reap, at the same time, the highest possible amount of human happiness in our course through the world to immortality and to glory. "Seek ye," then, "first the kingdom of God, and all other things shall be added unto you." Set your affections upon things above, and things below will fall into their proper place. The present will be bright in proportion as you bring the future into it; your happiness now will be rich in proportion as you draw on the happiness that is to come; things below will be enjoyed in the ratio in which you set your affections upon things that are above.

They only are admitted to the things that are above, in whose hearts things above are admitted now. It is not true that we have only to cast ourselves upon the floods, and we shall be drifted to heaven; only by steering directly and designedly to heaven shall we be sure of successfully reaching it. Has heaven entered into our hearts? unless it has, there is no present probability that we shall enter into heaven. The heart must rise with Christ, if we hope that that heart shall reign with Christ. Our career begins in grace, and it culminates in glory. Where, then, is our treasure? What is it that we chiefly live for? There is no doubt that every man lives in the future. Not one of us is convinced that we have reached that which will make us happy. Our life is in the future. But what future? Is it the future of this world which is filled with things below, or is it the future of yon world which is filled and radiant with things that are above? All earthly things are fast breaking up: the knell of doom is heard in the palace of the prince, the cathedral of the bishop, the chapel of the priest. All things now are being shaken, in order to make way, I believe, for things that cannot be shaken. If we belong only to this world in our affections, where our only freehold is the tomb, our progress in it is only a dead march, and the pulses of our hearts are but as the beating of muffled drums as we approach to the grave; and the spirit that shall separate from the body that is consigned to that tomb has no bright prospects or sure pledges of things that are above. If, my reader, you have sought things that are below, and sought them sinfully, you must suffer things that are below, and deeper still-"the worm that never dies, and the fire that is not quenched." Study, then, things that are above: seek to know them, to weigh them, to measure them, to taste them now; and you will long for that blessed day when you shall be admitted to them.

Seek things above in the Bible: it is the mirror of them, it is the chart of them, it is the map that portrays them. Seek them in the preaching of the gospel. Wait upon the preaching of the gospel. No man who honestly and teachably does so will come away disappointed. Seek those things that are above upon the Sabbath day: it is the day for gathering manna, when heaven is opened. Do not desecrate it to crime; do not degrade it to amusement; consecrate it in your hearts, as God has consecrated it in His Word, to holy, sublime, and lofty purposes. Seek these things, above all, in and through Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life; in whom all the promises are yea, for whose sake God has promised, and in whose name He will assuredly perform; and then, when the things that are below have all been consumed by the last flame, and things that are above have been revealed by its light in their imperishable grandeur, you will bless the day when you turned your backs upon the one, and set your faces to the

other.

CHAPTER X.

THE WORLD-COPY.

"He walked by faith and not by sight,
By love and not by law;

The presence of the wrong or right
He rather felt than saw."

"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."-ROM. xii. 2.

THIS is a singularly difficult prescription of St. Paul, liable, as experience shows, to all degrees and shades of interpretation, and originating or made to originate all sorts of opinions, and perhaps, owing rather to the prepossessions of the reader than the obscurity of the words. Generally speaking, almost every man professing the gospel has his own standard of conformity to the world, which modifies his interpretation of the duty here enjoined, and so far renders his view different from his neighbor's. Some think the advice of St. Paul relates to the vices and the crimes of the world, and to these only: others to the dress and equipage of the world, and that it is therefore a duty to assume a permanent plainness, such as the Society of Friends adopts. Some think it refers to any intercourse with the world at all; and therefore, that entering a convent is the only way of obeying the injunction: others think the words describe a certain fixed territory, to overstep which is to enter the realms and jurisdiction of the world, as if the separation of the Church from the world