The City of Delight.

Music by the late JOHN WALTER B. GARRETT.

summer flam-ing, There re- lax their bluster - ing;

Introduction.

S an heir, pressing earnestly onward to take possession of his newly-acquired demesne in a far-off country, not only frequently consults his chart in order to ascertain the safer and more expeditious way thither, but also assiduously seeks to inform himself concerning the estate itself, of its situation, its advantages, its comforts, and its beauties;—so, a religious inquiry into the momentous future whither we are all journeyers, is the most rational of all pursuits, and always beneficial; for, the more the mind is abstracted from earthly, and fixed on divine things, the better will it be fitted for entering upon the Inheritance of the Saints in Light.

God is a God of Beauty, of Grandeur, and of Order. The loveliness of this world, blemished as it is by sin, fully evidences that; and no student of Scripture is there who can fail to perceive that the allusions to beauty throughout it are innumerable. We are too much disposed, in this state of trial, to view Heaven in it saspect of negative happiness-as a place of exemption from pain, from death, from curse, from sorrow. Nor at this, indeed, can we much wonder. A person in abject misery takes little pleasure in the fairest flowers or gems; doubtless Lazarus, could he but anoint his sores, and satisfy the cravings of hunger, busied himself not at all in