entering the kingdom of light, though it lies all about him, pouring its warm influence upon him, and bathing the world with grandeur and beauty.

Jesus, then, in declaring the solemn and irrevocable conditions of our entrance into the kingdom of Heaven, stated no single and arbitrary fact, but a universal law, confirmed by our experience of the manner in which we gain all our knowledge.

Man can only receive what his open, living faculties fit him to receive, what his developed powers can bring him into free and open relation with. This, and only this. Thus we see that there is a fixed law, rooted in human nature and human life, that we must be born into every kingdom of Truth, whether of matter, of mind, or of heaven, or we cannot enter into it. Do you ask now how this birth from above can be accomplished by us? How can those sweet and awful senses within us be opened, through which as through a channel the finite human bosom is brought into perfect accord and oneness with the infinite Divine Love, making even our despised bodies the adequate and ample temple of God, and gathering up with every throb of our natural lives the infinite forces of Deity, as wheat is gathered up in a sheaf?

Jesus answers this question in words so clear and so concise that all men can treasure them up and walk by them forever. (( Except a man be born from above, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,"-thus he states the law. "If thou wouldst enter into eternal life, keep the commandments," thus he points out the way. "All of the commandments are included in this, Thou shalt love the Lord with thy whole heart and thy neighbor as thyself," thus he shows us what is meant by the commandments. He covers the whole infinite sphere of religion, of Heaven, and of God by the one word, Love.

The law of Love is the sure entrance and the only entrance into eternal life. If we with hearty consent and

co-operation strive to keep this law supremely, in least and in greatest things, if, undeterred by frequent, nay, incessant defeats, we still struggle on, rising, like David, with new energy after every fall, and clinging closer to the Lord's outstretched arm,— we shall find Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, and the kingdom of God, becoming more and more blessedly and thrillingly real to our consciousness. Little by little our selfish aims and ends will be rooted up and cast out, and we will find the work of the higher birth — the work of the soul's regeneration-going gradually on to its blessed completeness.

Day by day, while walking and working on the earth, and fulfilling every duty of the natural life with a more finished faithfulness and a fuller fidelity, we shall feel that we are living in two worlds, mingling with men, and communing with Heaven. And when God's band of angels shall close round us, and at the touch of death the frail walls of matter that now shut us in shall fall away, our eyes shall open and our feet shall stand amid the unveiled and lustrous and unimaginable glories of the kingdom of God!

O my brother and my sister, perplexed about many things, the slaves of selfish habits, drawn hither and thither at the will of hurtful and worldly lusts, gazing at Religion afar off, as at some mysterious and unapproachable thing, look up! There is yet hope for you and for me. Look up to that most Blessed Life written all over with Heaven's great Law of Love; who left his shining home above, and clothed his radiant head with weeds of misery, and drained man's brimming cup of shame, and gathered in his arms the harlot and the outcast, and warmed on his own heart the sobbing and prostrate souls of the lost. Look to Him and strive to keep his Law. Though innumerable times we fail, and our feet stumble and fall in the deeply worn paths of selfish habit, let us but strive the more. Though seventy and seven times in a single day we falter and fail, let us

strive on, let us die striving. Then shall we find that that same Jesus will leave those of his flock whom he hath safely gathered home, and will go through the dark night seeking us, even us, the most erring and the most unworthy of all God's children; and when he has found us, he will carry us in his arms, and "there shall be one fold and one shepherd."

THE BABES IN THE WOOD.†

PART II.

"But if the children chanced to die

Ere they to age did come,

Their uncle should possess their wealthe,

For so the wille did run."

Old Ballad.

E. M. W.

THE UNCLE (in the Portrait Gallery).
ALWAYS thou wert my foe, most envied one!
And yet unknowingly! For woman's heart
Not gentler is, nor purer, than was thine!

But thou art gone,
and now, why may not I
Be lord of this fair castle and domain?

A fragile boy of scarce three summers' age-
What more? an infant girl-doth stand between
Me and my pride's ambition! A light touch
May scatter, or a breeze of heaven blight

The tender lily-buds, and

didst thou hear

Unspoken words, mute picture? Ah, thou canst

Not search the deep and secret labyrinths

* Those of our readers who may be desirous of seeing the main idea of this article presented with great clearness, beauty, and power are referred to a published sermon on Regeneration, by Rev. Chauncey Giles of Cincinnati.

The reader will please refer to the February number (1859) of the Magazine, for the first part of this beautiful little drama. We suppose a Third Part is

yet to come. EDS.

Of this dark, tortured heart! E'en in thy life
Thou wast unconscious of the fire that burned
In smothered flames, hidden from human sight
Down deep in this despairing breast, a slow,
Consuming anguish, which, in thy calm soul,
Thou couldst not feel nor comprehend! I did
But fancy that thine eye had read my heart's
Most secret thought! Thou too, thou too art gone,
Pure, lovely Edith! and my vow to thee
Shall be fulfilled! Thou art an angel now,
And I will guard thy tender lily-buds
From blighting, for thy sake!

Not here, but she will wait for thee to come

To her in Heaven.

EDGAR.

Bertha, when shall we go?

Is Heaven where our Nelly lives, — in yon

-

Dark forest, where sweet posies grow, covered
With fallen leaves, - so she must look to find

Them, as they peep from out their hiding-place?
Then shall we go, dear Bertha, very soon?

BERTHA.

Ah, no! my child! It is too far to find

It now,

but, by and by, you both shall go,

And be with her you love, forevermore!

[BERTHA leads him away.

THE UNCLE appears on the terrace.

Why haunt me thus, tormenting thoughts? Awake,
Asleep, ye come! forever with me! Hence!
Begone! ye temptings of the Evil One!

Cursed through all my life, most deeply curst

I've been, and, Edith, if my vow to thee

Be broke, I shall be doubly cursed! - Hence !

Evening.

(BERTHA watches the sleeping babes).

BERTHA.

Ah, sad, sad fate, to lose thee, dearest one!
Methinks I weep fountains of tears, that thou
Art gone! Cease, selfish heart, thus to repine!
Thou art far happier now, than dwelling here,
In this dark, gloomy castle, desolate.
How sweetly now they sleep, fair orphan babes!
And is their mother's dream to be fulfilled?

I cannot hope so! Will they pine away
From sorrow that she comes not? Edgar mourns,
And is almost heart-broken! Ah! he sighs

So deeply now! The little Jane forgets

How
many days are gone since her last kiss,
And thinks she 'll wake to see her in the morn.
Sleep, little slumberers! Her unseen watch
An angel mother keeps around you! Sleep!

"Reconcile the events of things unto both beings, that is, of this world and the next; so will there not seem so many riddles in Providence, nor various inequalities in the dispensation of things below. If thou dost not anoint thy face, yet put not on sackcloth at the felicities of others."