endure for ever, ay, for ever. Ages on ages will roll away, without diminishing, but rather with continual additions to, his joys. The more hundreds and thousands of years he lives, the more and more happy will he become; for ever approaching nearer and nearer towards the Divine joy of Him who is the very "Prince of Peace;" and only not reaching it, because the finite can never attain the infinite. But his soul is ever full, and his capacity for happiness for ever enlarging:—what can he desire more? He has accomplished the true object of his being: he is an angel of heaven.
Is it not then worth while to acknowledge the God who made us? Is not religion a simple and a reasonable thing? Is not the religious man the only truly wise man? "Religion," says Robert Hall, "is the final centre of repose; the goal to which all things tend; apart from which, man is a shadow, his very existence a riddle, and the stupendous scenes of nature which surround him, as unmeaning as the leaves which the Sybil scattered in the wind."—"Religion," said the great Daniel Webster, "is a necessary and indispensable element in any great human character. There is no living without it. Religion is the tie that connects man with his Maker, and holds him to His throne. If that tie be sundered,—all broken he floats away, a worthless atom in the universe—its proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death."
