its very nature must soon pass away. Every person of much reflection or self-intuition, knows that
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
The soul very soon stamps its own complexion on a man's entire surroundings. The outer soon acquires the color and the key of our inner world; becomes beautiful and harmonious if there be beauty and harmony within, but ugly and discordant if deformity and discord are in the soul. As one of our own poets sings:
"It is the soul's prerogative, its fate
To shape the outward to its own estate;
If right itself, then all around is well;
If wrong, it makes of all without a hell."
No. It is in vain that men seek, with any hope of finding, true happiness from without—from any new political, social, economic or industrial arrangements. We do not mean to say that some external arrangements may not be more useful than others in promoting internal and spiritual culture. But real happiness can never come from without, but only from within—from a regenerate and well-ordered state of the soul, yea, from the Lord's own presence therein. It is the normal result of obedience to the laws of our spiritual life. Let these laws be faithfully obeyed, and the soul is thereby opened to an influx of the Divine life, and the man is happy under almost any circumstances. But let them be violated, and no amount of purple and fine linen and sumptuous fare can ward off the evil consequences of such violation. The truly good man, however bereft of
