March 8

That, and the Child's unheeded dream, Is all the light of all their day.

IT is well that we should sometimes think of the forms of thought under which the idea of immortality is most naturally presented to us. . . . First of all, there is the thought of rest and freedom from pain; they have gone home, as the common saying is, and the cares of this world touch them no more. Secondly, we may imagine them as they were at their best and brightest, humbly fulfilling their daily round of duties—selfless, childlike, unaffected by the world; when the eye was single and the whole body seemed to be full of light; when the mind was clear and saw into the purposes of God. Thirdly, we may think of them as possessed by a great love of God and man, working out His will at a further stage in the heavenly pilgrimage. And yet we acknowledge that these are the things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, and therefore it hath not entered into the heart of man in any sensible manner to conceive them. Fourthly, there may have been some moments in our own lives when we have risen above ourselves, or been conscious of our truer selves, in which the will of God has superseded our wills, and we have entered into communion with Him, and been partakers for a brief season of the Divine truth and love, in which, like Christ, we have been inspired to utter the prayer, "I in them, and thou in me, that we may be all made perfect in one." These precious moments, if we have ever known them, are the nearest approach which we can make to the idea of immortality.

BENJAMIN JOWETT

MYSTIC MOMENTS

Whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell.